Sailor Beware

The idea of getting a boat and sailing the world is a common one ...

One Man's Dream Boat Is Another's Dangerous Wreck

... especially amongst those approaching retirement, or dreaming of winning a lottery fortune.

However history is also littered with evidence that many would be round the world sailors would actually barely be able to get out of port, let alone navigate the seven seas. Take for example, Italian 'sailor' Mr Mauro Morandi, who thirty years ago set out to sail from Italy to Polynesia .... he missed, and hit the island of Budelli just off the Sardinia coast. 

However undaunted by this epic failure of navigation, he decided that as it was uninhabited he would stay there. Sadly, the local authorities have finally brought his lifestyle to an end, and plan to evict him from his shack and upgrade it to an environmental observatory ... he vows to fight it .... lets hope he hires a professional. 

Of course Britain with its long maritime tradition has also produced a few sailors whose abilities have been questioned by others. For example we have had not one but two sailors who have been nicknamed 'Captain Calamity' in the national press. One Glenn Crawley, was nicknamed 'Captain Calamity' after repeatedly getting himself into problems at sea. The middle aged man would often refuse to ask for assistance from a lifeboat crew whenever he flipped his catamarans. 

When he flipped his boat for the fifteenth time off the coast of Cornwall he once again refused to ask for assistance, but eventually the lifeboat was called out, at a cost to the Royal National Lifeboat Institution of £2,500 per call out by the charity. It is believed he has run up costs of almost £40,000 to the RNLI after his repeated flip overs of his 16ft catamaran while he pursued his hobby.

He began sailing in 2003 and was forced to dial 999 three times that year alone. In 2007 he was rescued four times in four hours after he flipped his boat, and three years later he wrecked his old boat – aptly called ‘Mischief’ while trying to ride Cornwall’s giant Cribbar wave (an occasional wave up to 30ft high off the Cornish coast).  

But perhaps the more famous (or is that infamous?), of the Captain Calamity's is Stuart "Captain Calamity" Hill, an English pensioner who earned his nickname with a series of disasters. Even his preparations were dangerous to his health, when he suffered an allergic reaction to resin he was using to treat the hull of his boat. But undeterred he proceeded and in 2001, aged 58, he left Suffolk England on a sailing trip attempting to single-handedly circumnavigate Britain. 

During his trip Mr Hill caused five lifeboat launches, and two rescue helicopter call-outs during the failed attempt in a "15-foot (4.6 m) dinghy" named 'Maximum Exposure'. The vessel was described as nothing more than a "converted rowing boat" and "likened to a glorified sailboard" with a sail "canibalized" from a windsurfing board, which many observers considered to be under-equipped and unfit for such a journey. His sailing sailing days brought to an end, with an estimated cost to the rescue services range of between £10,000 to £80,000, but he dismissed this stating that aid "If there's a service for those in peril on the sea, surely it should be used – I only really cost them the diesel."

He moved to the Shetland Isles, where he involved himself in local politics, but in September 2008 he had to be rescued again from the seas off Shetland, after he launched a plywood boat, described as "ramshackle" and a "floating wardrobe", and apparently without any radio or life jacket, and in very poor weather conditions. The boat was "swamped by a heavy sea." before he was rescued ... again.  

Finally, the US has its own 'Captain Calamity' in the forms of captain Steve Shapiro and his crew mate Bob Weise, who while both aged 71 decided to set sail from Scandinavia in a 40ft yacht named Nora with the aim of cruising across the Atlantic to their native US. So far so good. However very quickly it went very wrong as the duo tried to navigate down to the west coast to England. They were initially rescued by both the Norwegian and Danish services, once when Nora's propeller shaft was damaged, and a second time when the battery failed.

Crewman Bob Weise and 'Captain Calamity' Steve Shapiro

But with the same confidence that seems inhabit all of these untrained mariners, they continued on, only to be rescued twice in Scotland, after running aground and having further propeller problems. On they continued until they ran aground in Northern Ireland and managed that feat again in the Republic of Ireland, both occasions leading to further rescues.  Somehow they managed to get to the Cornish coast (how this was considered a route to the USA is beyond me!!), where two more rescues had to be made following a mechanical problem, and then when one of the men got into difficulty rowing to the yacht.

USS Nora Abandoned ....

The ninth and final rescue call out, came when the boat tipped over near Hayle Harbour, in Cornwall, causing a fire on board .... at this point, these two nautical novices abandoned their Atlantic mission. Mr Weise, a former army helicopter pilot gave up first, and though Captain Shapiro, a screenwriter from California, never publicly gave up his dream, the boat remained moored in Hayle Harbour and was later sold to new owners through Wooden Ships, an international yacht brokers based in Dartmouth,

Veteran sailor Sir Robin Knox-Johnson described the pair as “a catastrophe waiting to happen” but he could have been talking about any of these nautical nincompoops. So while I still dream of sailing the oceans .... I leave it as just a daydream, where many others should do as well.