Simon 'Blue' Robinson

And they are hard beasts to work with.

You look after the deck and our maxi yacht was a charter yacht as well.

Guests would charter it to race it.

So you run the deck, you control the manoeuvres, the skipper helms and oversees everything.

But you're in charge of coordinating manoeuvres and that sort of whole choreography on deck.

And it's, you know, it can be dangerous.

You've got huge sails the size of tennis courts.

You've got huge ropes called sheets or halyards.

And don't forget you're racing at night as well.

You know, if they get caught in the wrong way, it can be chaos.

The yacht that I'd worked on, Ocean Leopard, we were in San Bart, San Bartholome in the Caribbean, and we'd all converged there because of the Route de Rosé, let's call it.

It was a fun race sponsored by vineyards in France to help promote Rosé, like the Bordeaux run, the Beaujolais run, should I say.

So it was kind of a fun thing.

And we were at a restaurant with all the guests and all the crew on this huge table or two tables.

And there was one other person in the restaurant the night before the race sitting on his own.

This really strangely dressed person.

We were all in polo shirts and shorts.

It was a warm evening in the Caribbean, December night, and he, this individual, was dressed in a long shawl.

He had thick, heavy trousers on, and he had a green beret.

But he had this face that was really arresting.