'I Was Saved From Death Alone In Mid-Ocean'

Crippled by pain while sailing solo in the Indian Ocean, Andrew Halcrow had to call for help

In the late 1980s I built a steel yacht in the Shetland Isles with the intention of doing a solo non-stop circumnavigation. It didn’t happen. Instead my brother Terry and I set off on a fiveyear trip round the world on the trade wind route. The desire to do the long solo trip never left me and in 2006 events conspired to make it happen.

My yacht was a Tahitiana, a double ended steel cutter 9.6m long, called Elsi Arrub. I had huge confidence in Elsi as a superb sea boat but she was overweight and undercanvassed by today’s standards and I expected to be at sea for about a year.

At the end of 2005 I left my job after eight years as skipper on a local sail training vessel, Swan, and worked full time on preparing Elsi. The voyage would follow the old clipper route down the South Atlantic, through the Southern Ocean south of all the Great Capes: Good Hope, Leeuwin and Horn, and back up to Shetland.

Refitting for a green passage

I knew from our previous circumnavigation that we only used the engine to charge batteries so before leaving I took it out and relied on renewable energy; the wind, the sun and the water I sailed through, for my power. There was no challenge for me in using GPS for navigation and, although I carried a GPS, I used a sextant, compass and log line to keep track of my position.

Although this was to be a 'solo' trip, the only single handed bit about it was that I was the only one aboard Elsi. It was really a team effort with my wife Alyson doing the all-important shore side work while I was at sea. As well as helping to get Elsi ready on time she would provide me with regular weather forecasts and be the vital link between the ocean and the shore.