With very little money, no boatbuilding skills and no experience of the sea, Roy Starkey built Sea Loone, a thirty-three foot sloop, and sailed away. At the age of twenty-five he had become disillusioned by the politics of university research and so he decided to leave and do his own thing.
The boat and crew were soon tested on the ocean, first losing the mast over the side and then sailing into one of the worst gales ever – the 1979 ‘Fastnet Gale’ – which claimed eighteen lives on the 306 yachts participating in that year’s biannual ‘Fastnet Race’.
Over the next nearly forty years Sea Loone sailed throughout the tropics finally completing three very convoluted circumnavigations of the world.
Born in Liverpool in 1945, Roy Starkey grew up fascinated with the natural world. As a schoolboy he joined the local botanical society and made a number of trips to isolated bird observatories around the British coast. Having experienced hardships, tragedies and many happy adventures since sailing away, Roy at last decided to put pen to paper and record his remarkable story.
The boat and crew were soon tested on the ocean, first losing the mast over the side and then sailing into one of the worst gales ever – the 1979 ‘Fastnet Gale’ – which claimed eighteen lives on the 306 yachts participating in that year’s biannual ‘Fastnet Race’.
Over the next nearly forty years Sea Loone sailed throughout the tropics finally completing three very convoluted circumnavigations of the world.
Born in Liverpool in 1945, Roy Starkey grew up fascinated with the natural world. As a schoolboy he joined the local botanical society and made a number of trips to isolated bird observatories around the British coast. Having experienced hardships, tragedies and many happy adventures since sailing away, Roy at last decided to put pen to paper and record his remarkable story.
