Sailing as a Living?

Right now I am facing the end of an rather unsuccessful job, an unlucky shift to work nearer home, which came to blows and an agreed contract of just four months. Jobs are thin on the ground where we live and I am done with weekend commuting home for now. What about sailing as a living??

An interesting perspective on this is the Clipper Race. Relative to the Whitbread and British Steel Challenge, it was seen as the Champagne Charlie event, with a relatively easy route and short legs, with some boats changing a good proportion of crew on each port of call. However now it has been flung into the limelight being probably the most challenging round the world race, if you take relative experience of the crew and the newer, faster boats into account in respect of the route versus the other circumnavigations. The Volvo has become very pussified by the Marketeers, but a good thing is that is driving the profile of sailing amongst the aspiring asian countries and waving the flag in the Key UK and Scandinavian sponsor straights.

So you are a participant on the Clipper Race, not paid crew, and you have climbed a mountain in raising money to get yourself blown round the world in the course of 9 months or so. At the end you have a once in a life time experience but what have you for your CV and do you choose to go into sailing as a profession?

Here I come back to lill' old me and my take on it all: In the late nineties I was  17 stone - but that was a pretty  lean muscle machine, and given the right chemistry on a boat, a really excellent amateur crew in keel and sports boats. I sailed dinghies on the side and was on a good learning curve.

I started racing more off-shore and out of the Solent with people who actually ran their own businesses primarily to pay for sailing! Several compatriots from my home clubs, like Emma Richards, took up with pro sailing while I started to get recognised by the industry "hacks" on the dock at Hamble, at trade shows or at Heathrow terminal 1. There were the guys and gals who sail amateur on the gray area, and as industry pros when the cat' rules for events and classes allow. Employees of  North Sails, Selden, X Yachts... The closest I got was when I had been for an interview with Remploy to start selling their brands including lifejackets, but it was based at Atherton and I saw that it may not be my cup of tea going back to shoe leather from marketing comms strategy.

So in other words I was creeping into the industry almost unwillingly and the next step would have been a shore job probably in trade-sales,  and then either getting some qualifications in sailing and navigation ( DoT level) or sailing more seriously and eeking my way into getting paid.

Why did I not go further with this route then? Do I regret that?

Well I had then at that time good career prospects in marketing- the Internet bubble was on the up and I had IT skills too, placing me in good stand as a project manager for web solutions. Most of all I was also keen to move back to Scotchlandshire to further indulge my passion for the Scottish mountains as well as sailing in the beautiful west coast from Rhu, 'Kip and Oban on various boats.

However more fundamentally than jobs and other hobbies, sailing for me has always been a welcomed escape from job and the stresses there in. I think that making a career out of it would kill the heart of it for me at least. It is the hobby I love when the silver diamonds dance and dilly on the water.....

Despite the contrasts between an admittedly mediocre career in marketing and the joys of racing, I still think that I would have made the cherished into the mundane and I have seen this with other sailors who have worked in the industry.

Regrets ...on the other hand ???... Well yes I do regret it a bit even if I knew that it could become a very gypsy lifestyle, big strong guys with a brain were not two a penny on the solent willing to work for peanuts or on shore to get into the proffession.

I worked in marketing with many folk who really burn for their jobs in that career  that I often felt like an outsider and my commitment was often questioned . I expected pretty much a well paid 9 to 5, and being able to rest on my academic laurels of masters in marketing, but that was not the case. I had to compete against my own coworkers and do lots of unpaid overtime to keep my head above water !

So being in the sailing industry as something I love and burn for,could have had the upside of this:;  into a given career in sales and marketing in the sailing industry, or I may have ended up doing something else like purchasing or planning or whatever.

However another negative aspect in working on the shore side, is that even with qualifications you are competing against professional and semi pro sailors who can swan in over your head. You may well get layed off so that a glamour puss can get a plumb shore job and this happens.

Choosing to focus on sailing as a job alone is risky: On the other end of the career into your forties as crew or delivery helm,  you can be left as a beach bum- unreliable income, a life away from loved ones, lower earning potential and living in coastal towns with sky high property prices relative to the meagre income you may earn.

Sailing and the industry around it is a bit like my own previous career of marketing, there are plenty of enthusiasts who LIVE and BREATH the life and therefore are open to exploitation by company owners. These types can easily out compete folk like me who see a job "on shore" as 9 to 5 with time for a life. I was pretty aware of this, and I later saw three compatriots ending up with very modest incomes and losing interest for the sport as their own growing families took over their focus.

Back to the Clipper race, which I would have to recommend as a challenge to anyone: What you gain from the race is much more than a half page on your CV: sailing is all about two things - solving problems and working as a team. You are stuck in a boat and you have to detune your ego a bit and get on with everyone, while also being harsh in telling people when they are doing things wrong or not pulling their weight. Also you then must solve problems in a team environment, take calculated risks (even as an individual Mat D'leau) and cooperate on fixing things or following other peoples decisions about all from course, to sail changes to scrub down. It is really handling adversity with a cool face, hand in hand with those around you that works.

Reflecting on what would have been, I really cannot see myself coming off a TP-52 in the Med' somewhere, weary and wind-sun-salt-burnt and taking three or four flights to get home with a pay-packet which is not stellar for living near or on the Solent and maybe no wife and kids at all at age 45 due to the nomadic lifestyle.

So sod it, no regrets from me really: it may have been fun for a few years to emmerse myself in the Solent Scene but I had the time of my life back in Scotchlandshire and a new life with family bang on schedule for my age.


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Appendix

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I must say that I have been consistently much better as a sailor than in my working life in general: The very pressure to cooperate and detune egos on board is unfortunately not evident in most of my career, and I often don't win enough respect and confidence around me due to my risk taking, initiative seizing nature. In some jobs I am too big for my boots, in others I drown in pressure.

On boats I pick my choice of who to sail with very carefully. I nearly always choose developer boats, alhtough I have been on the wrong end of that too, and nearly always make a big contribution to improved results and overall morale. At work I would like to do the same, but the boss mentality is different, especially here where I live now. There is a culture for under communication,   and cautiousness - allowing mistakes to be made before management guidelines are communicated. I find this very frustrating, and it is also reflected in the boats here. " ice in the stomach" they call all this here. Sitting on the fence is what I call it. There is a little calm softly-softly catch a monkey way of progressing and getting recognised for results here which I am honestly struggling to learn.