Julian Megson Ocean Ventures

Recently I got a call at work from my wife, Fiona. She had just taken another call saying that Steve White was sailing his Open 60 Race Yacht “Toe In The Water” that same night to France, to have some work done to the boat and that he had invited me to sail with him.

Steve lives a good 6 hours from me so If I was going I needed to go now. My boss at work was brilliant and allowed me to take the rest of the week off immediately. So I quickly dashed home to pick up my things and before I knew it I was on my way to the south coast.

I arrived at Steve’s house after a long drive through some nasty weather. I was really tired and beginning to wonder if I was going to be able to stay awake for much longer. A short time later we were at the marina but with over 40 knots of wind it was going to be very difficult to leave the pontoon without damaging the boat. So we waited until morning before attempting to leave. I must admit I was glad about that decision because I was so tired from the long drive that there was a good chance of me sleeping through the entire sail across the channel and missing everything.

Early the next morning however, we were under way. Once we left the shelter the land the wind picked up to force 8 and it stayed like that for the 120 miles across the Channel. Now I’ve been privileged enough to have sailed with Steve on board ‘Toe In The Water’ before and that was impressive. But in gale force winds this Open 60 really does comes into her own. I have to say that I wouldn’t have missed this experience for the world. It was just like you see in video footage from the Vendee Globe with the rough seas, spray cascading over the decks and whizzing along at over 20 knots. I realise that Steve has seen much worse conditions than this – or “better” conditions depending on how you view things – and I’m sure he doesn’t give them a second thought, but this was proper exciting stuff for me. The waves were about the biggest I have seen but I was amazed how ‘Toe In The Water’ seemed to iron out the bumps. OK, it might have been a different story had we been sailing into the wind, but the whole experience was brilliant. After a short time I was wishing for even bigger waves but it was all over too quickly as we arrived in France later that afternoon.

The next day however, there was still plenty to do. I spent the second day helping Steve to prepare ‘Toe In The Water’ so she could be lifted out of the water. I actually quite enjoyed this, it was a really good way to get to know the boat. As Steve’s Open 60 was to remain in the boatyard for a while we packed up and took the overnight ferry back to the UK. After a short stop at Steve and Kim’s for bite to eat and some very welcome sandwiches for the drive home (thanks Kim!), I was on my way home after an excellent couple of days.

To get the latest news on Steve White you can visit his website at whiteoceanracing.com

PS: My camera got a real drenching and broke, hence the flaky photos from my camera phone!