MARK RITCHIE

In February 2007, Pelagic Australis, with Mark Ritchie on board, found shelter in the lee of the Woollaston Islands as another Force 10 gale flung itself around Cape Horn. Three weeks later, Pelagic was back in the same spot with another gale having chased the boat back across the Drake Passage. In the intervening days, Pelagic and her crew had enjoyed a superb cruise down the Antarctic Peninsula as far as 66.33 degrees South. Mark has kindly agreed to come and give an illustrated talk to the Club  about the voyage.

Mark's sailing life began when he taught himself to sail a Vaurien dinghy on the Lake of Geneva, which, he reports, is bloody cold even in summer. This led to a spell, before children, uncompetitively racing GP14s on reservoirs in the Midlands. But, as the waistline expanded, larger boats beckoned, and since the early 90s he has cruised and raced in a variety of boats, participating in cross-channel races and two Fastnets. Chartering and cruising has been mainly confined to the Channel Islands, Brittany, Mediterranean, Caribbean and Canaries. His current folly is to dream about studying the ecology and culture of (politically stable) countries that border the Caribbean Sea from the command of a Swan 60!