Founding father – Part I


             


Does Robin Knox-Johnston, or rather William Robert Patrick ‘Robin’ Knox- Johnston – Sir Robin since 1995 – listen to Bob Dylan? Not such an odd question for they were born just two years apart and both seem to have been around for as long as anyone can remember, reinventing them- selves, growing old fairly disgracefully,


42 SEAHORSE


refusing to bow to age or critical opinion, and showing similar signs of wear and tear, although inflicted in very different ways. Those conceived in the past three


decades will know Knox-Johnston not so much for his Golden Globe voyage, the man who accompanied his return to Fal- mouth after 312 days at sea with a solo rendition of the Pirates of Penzance, a voy- age that earned him the untarnishable title of the first man to sail solo and non-stop around the world, but for his bringing to so many so-called ordinary sailors the chance to emulate, albeit in company, the feat he achieved in 1969, and with a plethora of pleasant stopovers en route. The Clipper Round The World Race for paying crew may yet be his more lasting legacy. Merchant seaman, pioneer solo yachts-


man, Admiral’s Cup foredeck hand, Whit- bread skipper, Jules Verne record holder, Arctic climber, a pioneering builder of yacht harbours, honorary member of the Royal Yacht Squadron and at least a dozen other yacht clubs, 1986 world champion in the 60ft multihull class, historian of early navigation (he is an expert on the Viking


sun compass), Fellow of The Royal Insti- tute of Navigation and gold medallist, ISAF World Sailor of the Year 1994, Yachtsman of the Year four times, Cruising Club of America Blue Water Medal holder, Lt Commander RNR, this grizzled, ‘profusely whiskered and gimlet-eyed’ seaman, as one writer described him, stares out of the cover of the account of his third, and final, solo circumnavigation, defiantly. Photographer Wolf Marloh’s portrait


(above) and Penguin Books’ title, Force of Nature, are perfectly matched. This is the face of a salt-cured old seaman; the eyes those of a man used to standing watches on a bridge deck and staring at the horizon for hours in his early days as an officer in the merchant marine, and for days on end during his time at the helm of first little Suhaili, Condor in the 1977 Whitbread (winner of legs two and four), Enza (the big cat that he and Peter Blake drove to a Jules Verne record in 1994), Saga in the 2006 Velux 5 Oceans Race and on so many races and expeditions in between. Born in Putney on 17 March, St Patrick’s Day in 1939, the eldest of four


WOLF MARLOH/PPL


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