{"id":3715,"date":"2026-06-21T16:48:12","date_gmt":"2026-06-21T16:48:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/racecoast.net\/omstest\/?p=3715"},"modified":"2026-06-21T17:12:19","modified_gmt":"2026-06-21T17:12:19","slug":"i-have-arrived","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/racecoast.net\/omstest\/i-have-arrived\/","title":{"rendered":"I have arrived!"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
Going ashore (finally). Credit: Seamus Breen on the pilot boat<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re not stopping in Bermuda? Or the Azores?\u201d<\/p>\n

It was something people had trouble processing \u2013 to sail directly from Sint Maarten in the Caribbean, directly to Ireland.<\/p>\n

“But that\u2019s, what? Four thousand miles?”<\/p>\n

\u201cAbout 3,500, actually. It\u2019s what I do. I sail long voyages and write about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s true. There are three \u201cVoyage\u201d books. The fourth \u2013 Torquay to Grenada, is finished, and I planned to get the final edit done at the same time as writing the fifth (Sint Maarten to Ireland).<\/p>\n

All I had to do was sail the 3,500 miles (3,603 as it turned out, in 39 \u00bc days) and sit down with the laptop every few hours and write about the minutiae of daily life on a small boat in the middle of a big ocean \u2013 the weather, the meals, the hunt for the last packet of pistachios, why I hadn\u2019t brought enough sultanas, books, Netflix downloads expiring. Should I waste Starlink Data updating Spotify so I could learn Tequila on the clarinet\u2026 and the dreams, of course \u2026what happened to the dreams?<\/p>\n

It was all going rather well as Samsara<\/em> skipped north with the trade wind on the beam, the sun shining, the spray flying \u2013 and stuff happening. The induction hob went on the blink. I can get 2,000 words out of the induction hob going on the blink \u2013 can I bear six weeks of cold food? No coffee; no redbush tea! How much fuel did I have for the little alcohol stove? I\u2019d never used it at sea. Would it spill burning alcohol and burn down the boat?<\/p>\n

Make that 3,000 words \u2013 and another 3,000 sailing back to St Martin (the French side) to buy another hob \u2026 but then fixing the broken connector halfway\u2026<\/p>\n

And this was just as well because, when I embarked on this life, I was only mildly concerned about how I was going to pay for it. I am a great believer in Mr Micawber\u2019s philosophy: \u201cSomething will turn up\u201d.<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t always like this \u2013 anyone who has read Old Man Sailing<\/em> or, more particularly, my autobiography Faster, Louder, Riskier, Sexier<\/em> will know the story.<\/p>\n

And sure enough, something did turn up \u2013 the first book was a success \u201cA word-of-mouth bestseller\u201d, said Yachting Monthly<\/em>.<\/p>\n

But, like all bestsellers, sales dwindled over the years \u2013 how many people go into Waterstones today, looking for The DaVinci Code?<\/p>\n

The answer, of course, was to write more books. Look at my old classmate Peter James \u2013 he\u2019s written more than 50 (and sold 24million).<\/p>\n

My output so far totals nine. I\u2019m only just getting started, but the Horse Latitudes helped.<\/p>\n

Every sailor knows about the Horse Latitudes. Every sailor since Columbus. This meteorological phenomenon sits between the Trade Winds and the Westerlies: \u00a0\u201can area of light and variable winds\u201d. No problem for a boat like Samsara<\/em> with her big, light headsail, the Super Zero, and her Hydrovane self-steering, which copes with light weather much better than the old Aries. We might only make 20 miles some days, but we do make progress.<\/p>\n

Until we didn\u2019t. On May 18, we came to a complete standstill. The sails hung like washing in a utility room. The wind charger didn\u2019t stir. The only thing that moved was the ocean swell \u2013 and every jar and bottle in the galley (in a concert of chinking and clinking as the boat rolled and rolled again as if this might go on forever.)<\/p>\n

Of course, I knew it wouldn\u2019t. I have Starlink. I have the Windy App. I knew the wind would return in the early hours. Meanwhile, I could amuse myself with my phone. I recorded a \u201cWelcome to the Horse Latitudes\u201d video. How did they get their name? (Ships short of water would throw the horses over the side. Not very nice.) I uploaded it to Instagram. I could spare that much data. It was only a minute and nine seconds.<\/p>\n

They were one minute and nine seconds that changed my life.<\/p>\n

It was only an hour or two later that Instagram sent me a notification: 50 people had \u201cliked\u201d my video. That was odd. I\u2019d never had one of those before. The children once told me I had 11,000 followers. I had never worked out where they came from. Next thing you know, I had 20,000 likes\u2026 then 50,000\u2026<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s just \u201clikes\u201d. Would you believe these little videos have received 3.9million vierws?<\/p>\n

Today, as I write this in Power\u2019s Bar in Ireland\u2019s Dunmore East, it appears that 93,200 people have taken the trouble to \u201cfollow\u201d me \u2013 and another 19,376 on Facebook. The YouTube score is 5,660\u2026 Then there\u2019s TikTok \u2013 a mere 2,089 (but I\u2019ve only just learned about TikTok).<\/p>\n

And just as I am adding up the figures (120,325), I discover what this means: Every day, I get about a hundred messages and comments from all these people (all over the world) who feel they know me. They write as if we\u2019re in the middle of a conversation (which I suppose we are): \u201cI\u2019ll stand you a pint.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy aren\u2019t you wearing a harness?\u201d,<\/p>\n

\u201cPut a slug of rum in that tea!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy aren\u2019t you wearing a harness?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you need a lift\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy aren\u2019t you wearing a harness?\u201d<\/p>\n

Somebody wrote that they were coming specially to meet me.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not used to this. Oh, there might be a reader who sees the \u201coldmansailing.com\u201d on the sailcover and comes alongside in their dinghy when they\u2019re on their way ashore. One even brought a book to be signed!<\/p>\n

But this latest attention is completely outside my experience \u2013 and, frankly, it spooked me. For 36 hours, I stayed cooped up at anchor (the weather helped). Besides, I still hadn\u2019t finished The Voyage #5. I was three days behind. When I reached the end, I found I had only 32,629 words. I need 100,000, so I can chuck out the boring bits. This one\u2019s never going to see the light of day.<\/p>\n

But then, does it need to? Already, book sales on Amazon have more than doubled \u2013 if this goes on, every month is going to be like Christmas. My daughter, Lottie, WhatsApped from Australia: When am I going to start selling \u201cMerch\u201d on the blog?<\/p>\n

Quick, log onto UpWork and get a guy in Pakistan to design an \u201coldmansailing\u201d hat. Then \u00a0I have to learn how \u201cdropshipping\u201d works.<\/p>\n

I can become an Amazon Associate. Does that mean I make another 4% from dropshipping my own books?<\/p>\n

Apparently, I am a \u201cmid-level influencer\u201d. But, because the videos are less than two minutes long, the \u201cretention rate\u201d is close to 100%. The algorithm loves this. The videos pop up in feeds from The Philippines to Paraguay.<\/p>\n

Then an email from the USA: A developer has a contract to pre-load his \u201cSliides\u201d app onto every android device sold in The States. He needs to add \u201ccontent\u201d to demonstrate it. Can he add mine?<\/p>\n

At 45-50million new Android devices a year? Sure, why not?<\/p>\n

I\u2019m living in a bubble, rolling through 50\u00b0 every two seconds. I must go ashore.<\/p>\n

What happens?<\/p>\n

The pilot boat goes past. A crewman comes out and takes a picture of me in the dinghy \u2013 posts it: \u201cHe\u2019s arrived.\u201d<\/p>\n

I go for breakfast in the Bay Caf\u00e9: Gary and Aileesh are in the ice cream shop next door. They have a Rival in New Ross boatyard. They buy me a coffee. A man called Eddy comes by – in full cycling gear: \u201cI\u2019ve been following you.\u201d Gary and Aileesh take my washing to the laundry. Later, I discovered they paid for it, too.<\/p>\n

I still have to get up the river tomorrow. It\u2019s 18 miles, the current runs at 2 \u00bd kts, and still don\u2019t know if I can count on the engine. But Steve sends a message: \u201cI\u2019ll be going back to New Ross on Sunday (bright yellow Van de Stadt 30). Happy to ride shotgun.<\/p>\n

An old friend tells me I\u2019m famous.<\/p>\n

I might not be used to it. But I think I can live with it.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Motoring up the river with no wind and a dodgy engine – you don’t want it to stop suddenly when you have neighbours like this. Thanks to Steve and Jason for “riding shotgun”.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  \u201cYou\u2019re not stopping in Bermuda? Or the Azores?\u201d It was something people had trouble processing \u2013 to sail directly from Sint Maarten in the Caribbean, directly to Ireland. “But that\u2019s, what? Four thousand miles?” \u201cAbout 3,500, actually. It\u2019s what I do. I sail long voyages and write about it.\u201d It\u2019s true. There are three … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3715","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-singlehanded"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/racecoast.net\/omstest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3715","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/racecoast.net\/omstest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/racecoast.net\/omstest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racecoast.net\/omstest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racecoast.net\/omstest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3715"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/racecoast.net\/omstest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3715\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3722,"href":"https:\/\/racecoast.net\/omstest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3715\/revisions\/3722"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/racecoast.net\/omstest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3715"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racecoast.net\/omstest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3715"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racecoast.net\/omstest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3715"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}