Geoff Holt will be setting out in May to achieve his 'Personal Everest' of becoming the first quadriplegic sailor to sail solo around the coast of Great Britain.
His voyage, in a specially adapted Challenger trimaran called Freethinker, aims to raise awareness and funds for RYA Sailability, a national charity that helps provide opportunities for disabled people to go sailing.
The Princess Royal, patron of RYA Sailability, will officially launch Geoff's Personal Everest Challenge on Wednesday March 21st at Surrey Docks Watersports Centre, and Geoff and his Challenger trimaran will be at the Dinghy Sailing Show at Alexandra Palace, London, on March 3rd and 4th.
Geoff, 40, from Hampshire, grew up on the River Hamble, and sailed from an early age. He left school at 15 to join a charter yacht in the Mediterranean. Over the next three years, he sailed in excess of 27,000 miles, including three trans-Atlantic crossings and several solo voyages.
By the age of 18 he had become one of the youngest charter skippers in the Caribbean. Then his career was cut short in 1984 when he broke his neck in a swimming accident on Tortola, British Virgin Islands, which left him paralysed from the chest down and confined to a wheelchair.
Within a few years, Geoff became involved with disabled sailing and in 1995 he became the inaugural chairman of RYA Sailability, a role he held for six years. He continued as a Trustee for a total of ten years. In that time, RYA Sailability raised in excess of £2 million and established over 200 clubs and groups which currently give sailing opportunities to more than 16,000 disabled people each year.
Geoff has been the UK's delegate on the International Disabled Sailing Committee, the disabled sailing representative on the RYA Council, chairman of the RYA's Paralympic steering committee and is founder and chairman of the Disabled Classes Association which represents all competitive disabled sailors in the UK.
On the water, Geoff's successes include winning the 1993 UK Open Challenger Championship, and representing Great Britain in Australia and America, taking the bronze medal, in his Hobie Cat.
In 1992, he became the first disabled sailor to sail single-handed around the Isle of Wight. The 70-mile trip took just under 14 hours and raised £10,000 for Sailability.
Geoff repeated the feat in 1997 shaving more than six hours off his time. His unbeaten record stands at 7 hours, 55 minutes. He said that after the Isle of Wight he looked for a new challenge, and sailing round Britain seemed the obvious target. The expedition is expected to take around 50 days, covering some 1,600 miles.
For his Personal Everest voyage, Geoff has been appointed a Raymarine Ambassador, after choosing to equip his craft with the company's autopilot and navigational equipment to help him achieve his goal.
The 15 foot Challenger is fitted with Raymarine's ST4000 tiller pilot, which will provide vital help during the proposed eight-hour day sails. He will also have on board an ST40 compass and depth instrument, and an RC435 chartplotter and GPS.
With such a small boat, being sailed by a person paralysed from the neck down, with little movement in his fingers or arms, Geoff's support and safety crew will play a vital role. The team has bought a Pacific 22 RIB, an ex-MoD 22 ft workhorse designed to be dropped fully laden off a destroyer without suffering any damage. The RIB is equipped by Raymarine with VHF radios, foghorn and loudhailer, radar, instrument and navigational displays, plus for the safety of the three-person crew on board, the LifeTag Man Overboard system.
Because a planned route is impractical, being dependent on the wind and tides each day, the entire project depends heavily on the land-based support team - a Land Rover and two motor homes, one of which has been specially modified for Geoff, and will be driven during the expedition by his wife, Elaine. They have a four-year-old son, Timothy.
The Land Rover is equipped with Raymarine hand held VHF radios, as well as an ST60+ wind vane system to show wind strength and direction. Route planning, tides and weather analysis will also be provided from inside the Land Rover, using Raymarine's RayTech RNS software running from a laptop computer.
Geoff says he chose Portsmouth-based Raymarine because its name is synonymous with quality and from previous experience he has always found the equipment reliable and functional without being overly complicated. It is also vital that the Challenger, the RIB and the Land Rover can communicate and exchange data with each other.
Geoff says: “The Challenger is not designed to carry extra weight from electronic kit and batteries so we've chosen key products as they are small and compact and don't have too much of a drain on our meagre battery supply.
“There will be times when I'm out of sight of land and if I'm capable of sailing a boat around the UK, then the last thing I want is someone telling me which course to steer simply because I can't see land. With these pieces of kit, I'll be able to make my own navigational decisions. They may be good decisions, they may be bad, but at least they'll be mine!”
Geoff's Personal Everest Challenge has been sponsored by lawyers Blake Lapthorn Tarlo Lyons and is planned to depart from the Royal Southern Yacht Club on May 13th, setting off in a clockwise direction.
For more information, visit www.personaleverest.com
