In 2015, the Joint Services Adventure Sail Training Center (JSASTC),organised the “Exercise Transglobe”. This exercise is one with tremendous military tradition, which happens every five years. A group of UK forces personnel take part on legs of a trans-global trip on the two 72ft yachts. I was lucky enough to be selected to sail on the second leg, from Lanzarote in the Canary Islands to Rio de Janeiro in Brazil. Sailing across Atlantic is a privilege.
The trip started with us all meeting on a bleak day in Gosport. After the meeting & greeting, death by PowerPoint and a safety brief that sounded like we were going on our last ever voyage, we finally got our heads down for an hours sleep before catching a coach to Heathrow.
Siting in the harbour, in the Lanzarote summer heat, were two beautiful challenger 72ft yachts in wait for us. After settling in, we started preparing the boat. We purchased mountains of provisions for the trip, sailed for hours around the Lanzarote coastline, familiarizing ourselves with the yacht, fixing bits and bobs and learning how not to end up at the bottom of the ocean.
According to our skipper, the trip would take us down past Cape Verde to Salvador and finally to Rio. This would not turn out to be the final route however.
After a cracking last few days at Lanzarote, we were all set to tick off “the journey across the line” (across the equator) from our bucket list. We set off with good spirits, dolphins and flying fish at our bow, as we sailed off into the deep and landless horizon. With a crew of 15 we had one skipper, a first mate, a second mate and three watches. The first few days we got used to the rotations of being “on-watch”, “off-watch” and “mother-watch”. Each watch had a leader and three crewmen. Two watches and a skipper/mate would be on watch (on deck) for four hours each, then rotate, when the other watch would take over, whilst the mother-watch (the third watch not on deck) would cook and clean and maintain the boat.
At night the sea around our boat would light up with flashes of iridescent green and turquoise light, as the algae was excited by us cutting through the waves. When the moon was not out, we saw the colours of the stars and even some shooting stars. Away from civilization and cities, the moon seemed so bright that night was like day.
During the day it would be hot and sunny. It only rained when we got caught in the beginnings of a tropical storm which later turned out to be the edges of Hurricane Fred.
After roughly 20 days of not seeing land, we landed early on the archipelago Fernando De Narronha for a few hours. We were able to use the time on shore to go scuba diving and relax on the beaches. We also met Paul and Rachel Chandler, the couple who were caught by Somali pirates in 2009, listening to their stories, but had to bid them farewell as we needed to head off for mainland Brazil.
As we approached the Brazilian coast disaster struck. Our propeller got caught in a crab basket and we had to divert past Salvador, our intended next stop, to find a dock big enough for out boat. The propeller was repaired and we were able to spend a night on the island of Ilha Grande - it was like paradise. The next day we sailed on to Rio.
In total we spent 35 days on the good ship Adverture, 24 days at sea and sailed 3740 nm. This experience is truly a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to develop qualities already established in officer training and see the world. I feel that everyone on the boat has profited immeasurably - as we were tested in ways we never thought were possible.
I am extremely grateful to the Ulysses trust for the support that allowed me to be part of this adventure.
