Small Boat, Big Ocean

LEFT MENTALLY AND PHYSICALLY SCARRED BUT WITH UNFINISHED BUSINESS, A YOUNG MAX CAMPBELL RETURNS TO HIS 22FT WOODEN SLOOP TO BRING HER BACK ACROSS THE ATLANTIC SINGLE-HANDED

- Max Campbell

There has not been a time when I felt more alive. Two weeks out of Cape Verde – and single-handed at the age of 21 – I was closing the gap between myself and the Caribbean. Flying Cloud made the experience special. My 22ft wooden sloop wasn’t ideal for the job, yet perfect for my tiny budget and minimal needs. I had somehow made it happen on a shoestring with mismatched sails and spars. My wind vane was homemade – whipped together in a couple of days in a Portuguese boatyard. It was a prolonged, exhilarating ride. A kind of euphoric high that gave me a sense of indestructibility.

An exploding bottle of methylated spirits had almost ended it all. All it took was a squeaky pop to turn my dreamlike adventure into a nightmare. A nightmare, more horrific and torturous than I could have ever imagined. I struggled through the last 200 miles of the passage, completing it narrowly by the skin of my teeth. After five days of angst in a West Indian hospital, I realized that the epic trip had come to an unexpected end.

The fire had left me scarred and frightened. For a whole year, I hid in Falmouth, Cornwall, from both sunshine and adventure – the two things that had defined the previous chapter of my life. Meanwhile, in Grenada, Flying Cloud swung around lazily at anchor, curtained by a long spit of mangroves, which curled into itself like the crooked finger of a witch.

In March, I saw her again. The batteries had run flat and she needed a pump every couple of weeks to keep her afloat. The engine was seized, and fine, brown silt had accumulated in the bilges. The wretched paraffin stove that almost cost me my life lay gathering dust in the smoke-stained galley. Lucid memories of fire and flesh clouded my mind as I tore the evil thing from its mounts, making sure it would never find its way onto another boat.