Jack Laurence

Get the oars in the dinghy, get the life raft, and abandon ship.

Was there any trepidation from anyone going, guys, none of us apart from dad knows how to do this?

So how long from that first discussion and planning until it was a case of let's go?

Out on the open ocean, every sailor carries the same quiet list of worries.

Storms that arrive faster than forecast, equipment that fails at the worst possible moment, a ripped sail, a snapped rudder, even a collision with an unseen container drifting just below the surface.

Fire on board, running out of fresh water, losing power hundreds of miles from land.

Chapter three, nothing can stop us now.

These are dangers that you prepare for.

So two years before they would eventually set sail.

They're the scenarios discussed in harbours and anchorages, traded like cautionary tales between crews.

So of course the trip was all planned out and it gave them plenty of opportunity to not only plan, but also choose the wonderful exotic locations that they would travel to along the way.

They're the risks you learn to manage, the things that might leave you damaged, disabled or stranded, but that still fall within the realm of possibility.

But there are some threats, some outcomes that feel so unlikely that they don't even register as fear.

Well, you said you took two years.

I figured you did some planning.

The idea that maybe your boat might be deliberately struck.

Not by weather, not by accident, but by something else.

Something living in the ocean.

And you'd think that thought wouldn't even be discussed.

No, of course not, no.