by Paul Gelder
Editor of Yachting Monthly, 2002–2012
This book should probably carry a government health warning. It could change your life. For many people, sailing beyond the horizon is the ultimate adventure, whether alone, or with a partner or crew. The inspiration to cast off comes in many forms. For some it might be a book, like this one, or a hero they have met, or some more intangible, divine intervention. Intrepid solo sailor Mike Richey once said it was ‘the splendid company at either end of a solitary voyage’ that gave him part of the reason. The ocean in between gave him ‘a kind of harmony with the universe’.
Les Powles’ Eureka moment happened as he walked along a yacht club’s pontoon. He realised a sailing boat symbolised escape: freedom from mortgage, the bank manager and a career, plus a means to transport himself and a set of golf clubs around the globe.
He spent £7,000 and two years building a bullet-proof 34ft yacht named Solitaire, after the card game. But the cards were stacked against Les from the start. After logging just eight hours’ sailing time, only two of them solo, he impetuously – some might say recklessly – set off across the Atlantic in 1975, bound for the Caribbean.
He described how he sailed to the wrong hemisphere in his first published article, ‘Barbados or bust’, which appeared in Yachting Monthly magazine. The sub-title was ‘Les Powles has trouble at the 19th hole’. His landfall turned out to be in Brazil, some 1,000 miles south of Barbados! The magazine’s editor, Des Sleightholme, was careful to add a footnote: ‘A highly amusing account that could have been far from funny. Mr Powles was lucky to get through with his life and his boat and learned from his experience. We would not condone anyone attempting anything similar to this voyage.’
Never underestimate British pluck and the spirit of adventure. We breed intrepid lone voyagers – from Francis Chichester and Robin Knox-Johnston to Chay Blyth, Mike Golding, Ellen MacArthur and Dee Caffari. A psychologist has profiled this unique band of brothers and sisters as ‘impulsive, certainly eccentric, though not entirely barking mad’. Though it’s surely no coincidence that the title of one best-selling sailing book is A Voyage for Madmen.
After surviving his first circumnavigation (1975–8), Les set off two years later on a second (this time non-stop) and returned in 1981 to be awarded the Yachtsman of the Year accolade by the Yachting Journalists’ Association. He joked: ‘Like the chap released from a mental home, I now had a certificate to say I was not completely bonkers!’
In June 1988, aged 67, he set off on his third solo circumnavigation, returning eight years later in July 1996, to be awarded the Ocean Cruising Club’s Award of Merit. By now dubbed ‘the Ancient Mariner’, this third epic voyage was, as usual, packed with incident. He was knocked unconscious, ran out of food and lost 5st, having rationed himself to a quarter of a tin of corned beef and two teaspoonfuls of rice a day. He was given up for dead before he eventually sailed into Lymington, four months overdue, to a media frenzy. Newspaper headlines proclaimed ‘Alive! (thanks to a teacup in a storm)’ and ‘Reports of my death are greatly exaggerated’. The Daily Mail reporter said: ‘He is so thin you could play a sea shanty on his ribs.’ As weather-beaten as his 34ft sloop, Les, 70, finally declared: ‘I’m not going round the world again. Three times is enough. You start to get giddy.’
It was fear, as well as a crazy kind of courage, that inspired Les to sail around the globe three times. He had no desire to be one of ‘tomorrow’s people’ – whom he characterised as ‘We’re off tomorrow... when we’ve bought a new mainsail. We’re off tomorrow... when we’ve painted the topsides. We’re off tomorrow... when we’ve bought a bigger boat.’
He foresaw the final excuse: ‘We’re off in a hearse.’
Now aged 86, Les still lives on his boat, in Lymington Yacht Haven, on the Solent, where he has a free berth for life. He has recently been seen re-painting the decks of Solitaire. He still calls himself an ‘amateur sailor’ and he still has that knowing twinkle in his eye. Above all else, he still remains an inspiration.