ARC Passage, and Discovering Bluewater With the Family

BY NEIL CHESTON

In 2018 we decided to buy a family cruising yacht, take the kids out of school, and set off for far horizons. After almost a year of searching for the right boat, we settled on EUPRAXIA, a ten-year-old Discovery 55. She met almost every requirement: great shelter from the elements in a deep centre cockpit, a panoramic view from the nav station, an easily-handled sailplan, big galley, roomy cabins and the impressively high angle of vanishing stability (handy for those mid-ocean knockdowns I wasn’t telling my wife about).

However, it wasn’t long before Fate intervened. First, Covid, which effectively put the trip on hold for a year. Then, the retirement I was so looking forward to was scuppered by an unexpected job offer which I simply could not refuse. Our kids were growing fast, and the window for a year’s absence from school was closing. And when I broke the tragic news to my family that we might not, after all, be battling wind and waves for the next 18 months, I could not fail to notice the relief and joy in their little faces. Lesson learned, I hung my head in shame at my selfishness. But at least we still had a great boat to go sailing with – just a slightly less ambitious programme.

For the next few summers, we set out to explore the Mediterranean. Even though I had spent much of my youth as a professional yacht skipper in these very waters, we always seemed to be in a hurry to get somewhere else, in the 1980s, and we never really stopped to ‘smell the roses’. Now was the time to do it right. For four summers in a row, we “did” the Med: Croatia, the Ionian, Sicily, the Balearics, Amalfi Coast, Corsica and Sardinia. In the winters, we based EUPRAXIA in our local port at Cap d’Ail, and she became my Man Cave. On chilly winter mornings I would walk the 500 metres to the boat, put a flask of coffee on and spend the morning pottering, tidying up the tools, standing for long periods at the helm, lost in thought, plotting and planning our next adventure.

In 2024, I realised that I was beginning to find the Mediterranean summers a little stifling. Thirty-five degrees celsius has been pretty standard these past few summers, and the sea temperature barely less than that. I decided it was time for our own kind of climate change, and lobbied hard at the family dining table for next year’s cruise to take place in Scotland and the Western Isles. To my amazement I got the thumbs up! Even though it was already November, I decided to sail up to England immediately, before anyone could change their mind, and I booked the boat into Berthon’s shed for a winter refit straight after Christmas.

Had I been paying closer attention I might have heard the gods chuckling at my hasty arrangements, for they had other ideas. About ten miles out of Cascais, after a short stop for fuel, we were set upon at sunset by a group of orcas. Two adults of around 7 metres long, and two much smaller youngsters who just watched. The two bigger whales announced themselves by pushing EUPRAXIA’s rudder so hard that she rounded up 90 degrees head to wind, the wheel spinning fast enough to break bones. They then settled down behind the rudder, casually chomping through the layers of laminate, while we sat looking on helplessly.

The Portuguese Coastguard rather charmingly calls these incidents “Interactions”, but that suggests something far more benevolent than the reality. The reality is quite unnerving, especially when a pair of adult orcas hit the hull at speed, hard enough to almost knock you off your feet. Luckily, our interaction was quite short-lived, and as dusk became a pitch black, moonless night, we realised that, for the moment, our tormentors had swum away. Even then, we knew they might still be close. That night was so dark that we couldn’t even make out the horizon, and for those long hours, every splash or hiss along the waterline had us mentally repacking the Grab Bag: peanut butter sandwiches… check. Crisps… check. Wine… check. Corkscrew…

A damaged rudder meant we were in no shape to cross Biscay, so we decided to divert to Vigo to effect repairs. Galicia was still around 200 miles away, and by the time we reached port the rudder had virtually disintegrated. The local boatyard boss took one look at it and announced, with a mournful expression, that it would take 12 weeks to fabricate a new one. “TWELVE WEEKS?” I cried, incredulously. “Do you realize that Volvo boats routinely replace rudders, masts and keels OVERNIGHT?” “That’s true”, he replied calmly, “we’ve done it ourselves. Tell me though, do you have a Volvo budget?” Er… no.

Six months and a comprehensive refit later (don’t even ask) EUPRAXIA was back in the water and ready for a summer’s cruising. At that time, my new-build project at work was nearing completion and keeping me busy, so I asked John Eustace to get the boat back to England for us. John has been an indispensable part of our sailing plans since the day we bought the boat: nothing goes wrong on EUPRAXIA that he cannot source and repair, either in person or via a diagnosis on the phone. I recommend him to any new owner.

In November 2025 we joined the ARC from the Canaries to St Lucia. It was my 24th Atlantic crossing, so hardly a thrill for me, but it was made special by the presence of my 15 year-old son, released for the experience by an enlightened headmaster. The trip was also made special by the dawning realization that the Discovery 55 is far from a slouch under sail. We set off from Gran Canaria with a rag-tag collection of around 150 sailboats, among them a handful of new Oyster 57s and 575s. We had been tied up alongside these guys for a few days in Gran Canaria and, I can’t lie, they awoke in me some feelings of boat envy. However, shortly after the start we found ourselves ahead of almost all of them, and we held them off all the way to the finish. True, we didn’t catch a fish or spot any whales, but we absolutely relished the clean pair of heels our 18 year-old Discovery 55 showed those upstarts!

My affection for EUPRAXIA is deep and genuine, but realistically, we have done all we wanted to do with this yacht, and we’re ready to consign her to a new careful owner and move on.

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