Home are the Guestling round-the-world sailors

“When you race round Rye Bay, you’ve no sooner got your spinnaker up than it has to come down again,” said John, explaining how the two of them would fly spinnaker crossing the Atlantic and on downwind runs in foreign seas. “It was good practice for sailing round the world.”

Neither of them had sailed before they moved to Guestling, 30 years ago. John, originally from Norfolk, worked on setting up the atomic reactor at Dungeness. Inga was the head teacher of Lydd Primary school when she discovered she had a potentially fatal type of cancer; a melanoma.

“It was a wake-up call” she said. “Our two sons were grown up and had done really well for themselves. I thought, I need to do so with my life before its too late.”

Having cut their teeth on racing around Rye Harbour, Brighton and the Solent and sailed numerous times across the World’s most congested and hazardous waterway – the English Channel – they felt they were ready for a challenge.

They bought a Rival 41, a good blue water boat, initially planning to sail to the Mediterranean, possibly even the Caribbean. With the help of friends from Rye Harbour Sailing Club, Inga collected the boat from Turkey and bought it back to Rye. “What today is a fishing warehouse, at Rock Channel, was back in 1993, a marine workshop, and we kept the boat there all winter, getting her ready for extended cruising.”

But it was being handed a leaflet at the Southampton Boat Show that led to their epic journey round the world.

A Trade Wind Rally around the world was being planned in connection with the RAF Yacht Club. Support staff would travel ahead and prepare for the arrival of the boats, and also organise preparatory seminars for two years leading up to the departure date. Inga took a leaflet. “I hung onto it until I thought John was in a good mood” she said.

The challenges of sailing around the world are gruelling: crossing vast tracts of ocean without another living soul in sight; facing the possibilities of fatal accidents; pirates; being sunk by whales; being literally thousands of miles from friends and family - serious impediments to the most adventurous. Of those that buy a boat and commit, only five per cent actually get to sail around the world.

“Friends from the Rye Harbour Sailing Club joined us for different legs of the journey” Inga explained. “Ideally, we liked to have one or two with us on ocean passages, as you always need to have one person on watch.” John Dawkins from Brookland, and Malcolm Bishop a Woodchurch farmer, crossed the Atlantic with the Chapmans on the first leg of what Inga describes as “a party around the world” but a party that encompassed the extremes.

They visited places and experienced things most of us will only dream about. The glitzy moments included partying in Malaysia with the jet set on the mega yacht ‘Cinderella’ and having a wealthy hotelier host a special party for them in the Gulf of Aquaba. “He had flown with the RAF during the Second World War, and when he heard about the RAF led rally decided to create a wonderland for us.”

After a spectacular party, the host had created a simulated Arab market, just for the rally sailors, where they browsed the stalls for breakfast, music and entertainment. “And this was on my 53rd birthday” Inga said.

By contrast they experienced surreal and heart wrenching moments; what John calls “the nitty gritty of the world”.

They were there when Somali refugees in Yemen were being bribed to go home after the war. “We met an orphaned 15 year old girl, and I thought, she’s going back – to what?” Inga reflected. In war-torn Sudan, Inga went ashore with Liz Steele of Folkestone and Jill Henshaw from Tenterden. “We landed on a beach and there was nothing but sand dunes. Then out of nowhere came this man on a camel who spoke English! He asked if we wanted to ride on camels. ur crew went riding off into the desert. “I found myself alone with a Sudanese man with children and no communication. So I sang a song to the children. He pulled out a scimitar from his belt and acted a dramatic poem, and we walked. I put out my hands to the children and the man began to mime about a baby.” They walked towards a village and it turned out the villagers thought Inga was a doctor. Tragedy had hit this war ravaged community, one child was badly burned and the baby was dying. “They were living in frames with blankets thrown over – not even tents”.

From the boat, Inga gathered spare medicines and creams to help soothe eye and skin disorders that could do ‘no harm’ if not administered according to the instructions, and gave them to the community. “Parents couldn’t send their children to school, because they couldn’t provide food for the lunch boxes. There was real true poverty. They were such nice people, this was just what the dice had thrown them” she said, reflecting on the unique opportunities she and John have been privileged to experience.

Hugh Redman, who owns one of Rye’s prettiest yachts ‘Helena Anne’ advised them on what fishing gear to have onboard, so they were rarely without fresh Mahi Mahi or tuna. Hugh joined Inga and John to sail from Antigua to the Cook Islands travelling home via New Zealand and Canada.

A few years later, Hugh was again with them when they battled some of their worst weather conditions ever onboard the “Calidris Alba”. They left the Canary Islands, on January 6th. heading back across the Atlantic, bound for America and a new grandchild. But the trade winds got stronger and stronger. “At 3.a.m. one morning, it was blowing about 50 knots and the waves were building. We had to get the sails off. It was blowing so hard it took 20 minutes to get the main down” John remembered. “It was so, so black and the storm raged. We were doing about 5 knots under bare poles.” Afterwards they learned a fishing fleet had sunk and back in port, laden containers had blown off the harbour into the water. “Twelve hours later it had calmed right down and we were flying spinnaker.”

Off Panama, in the San Blas islands, they came across the first truly indigenous peoples, virtually untouched by the modern world. “The Kuna Indians came alongside in dugout canoes, selling their embroideries” Inga recalled. In contrast, going ashore in Colon, Panama, muggings and violence prevailed but in Panama City, the British Ambassador hosted a cocktail party for them which was very smart and sophisticated.

Of all the places in the world, Inga’s favourite is the Tuomotu Islands in the Pacific. “In this part of French Polynesia there are hundreds of tiny coral atolls, some with an airstrip, some without. We visited the ones without, which often had as few as 150 inhabitants, and when we were there, they hadn’t seen a yacht for seven months.” Each would have a different denomination church, but all lived on fresh fish and coconuts (used in every possible way). On leaving, Inga was given a black pearl from one of their many new found friends.

Inga attributes her enthusiasm to explore the world by boat to her Shetland Island heritage. “My ancestors fished the North Atlantic in open boats and went whaling in the Southern Ocean. When I was six, a cousin brought me a whale’s tooth from South Georgia.” Travel is in the blood she said. And on their travels, it was Inga who would shun the tourist route and would organize for locals to take them to see the wonders of the world. “Sometimes I worried if my wife would ever come back” says John after telling how, in the middle of the night, they had driven off with a strange Arab and breakfasted in an Egyptian truckers’ cafe before heading to the Valley of the Kings.

Similarly, in the Galapagos Islands, the rally got to experience the wildlife without other tourists spoiling their privacy. “Going ashore at one beach, we couldn’t land because there were too many sea lions on the beach” remembered Inga. Strict rules said visitors could only explore the islands on a local tourist boat. So Inga found her own, a dilapidated local boat, they nicknamed the ‘African Queen’. Setting off at 3.a.m. the small group got to see the wildlife, and was leaving before the official tourist cruise ship arrived. And so it was they saw Petra in Jordan and all the other wonders of the world.

The heritage of the Great British Empire was bought home to them in Sri Lanka. When the Rally yachts arrived, they went ashore to find bureaucracy at its best. Laid out on a wide sand beach, under an awning, were 12 desks and 36 immaculately dressed customs officials, ready to click, check and stamp their papers! Their most gruelling time was encountering thunder storms and squalls going up the South China Sea. “We were doing 3 hours on 3 hours off watches for ten days, and rarely had three hours off as we had to constantly reef or take sails down.” Approaching pirate territory, they sailed in company with other yachts and never risked being caught out alone, and going ashore they were always very careful to respect local culture. John explained how when shopping at the market, to avoid offending any vendor, they spread their shopping list between as many of the stalls as possible.

After the rally, John and Inga continued sailing. Grandchildren came and they would spend much of their time sailing in the USA. Having been away 16 years, they realized it was time to come home, but not to settle down. “We want to explore Europe and Ireland”, John, now 70, said talking from their home in Guestling, with its superb view across the valley to the sea. In February they left their boat and went to explore South Georgia, the Falklands and Antarctica on an expedition ship and now are thinking about their own cruise to explore the Baltic, “but not before the Olympics!” said John “Perhaps next year.”

Their amazing achievements were celebrated recently at the Rye Harbour Sailing Club, when they were awarded The Jack Doust Memorial Cruising Trophy for outstanding sailing achievement.