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Wednesday, February 19, 2025

Sailor, 85, plans Atlantic adventure

by

1277 days ago
20210821
David Lihou

David Lihou

At the grand old age of 85, David Li­hou is about to em­bark on a big ad­ven­ture—sail­ing from Fal­mouth, Eng­land, to his birth­place in T&T on his cata­ma­ran, Swan Song. He ex­pects to reach his des­ti­na­tion in time to cel­e­brate Christ­mas here with fam­i­ly and friends in De­cem­ber, cel­e­brat­ing his 86th birth­day along the way in Oc­to­ber.

This is not the oc­to­ge­nar­i­an’s first At­lantic cross­ing. In 2010 at age 75, Li­hou sailed to T&T from Spain.

Orig­i­nal­ly from Port-of-Spain, Li­hou left T&T in 1956 with a Shell schol­ar­ship to study Chem­i­cal En­gi­neer­ing at Birm­ing­ham Uni­ver­si­ty.

That is where he met his Birm­ing­ham-born wife Shirley. They mar­ried in 1960 and had two daugh­ters. Their sur­viv­ing daugh­ter and two grand­sons live in Aus­tralia.

Li­hou, who got the nick­name “Taxi” at his al­ma mater Queen’s Roy­al Col­lege, ad­mit­ted that his pre­vi­ous At­lantic ad­ven­ture was not with­out in­ci­dent.

He ar­rived in Bar­ba­dos on Jan­u­ary 14, 2011, af­ter spend­ing ten days at sea with­out hot food be­cause the gas ran out two days af­ter he left Cape Verde. For the next ten days, he and his two Span­ish crew­mates sur­vived on canned ra­tions and a dai­ly break­fast of fruit and ce­re­al, with milk.

“They all lost weight but re­mained healthy,” said Li­hou, who dropped from £159 when he left Spain in De­cem­ber 2010 to £130 by the time he com­plet­ed the voy­age, the fol­low­ing May.

Shirley and David Lihou

Shirley and David Lihou

“This time around, he will be sail­ing with a crew that in­cludes ex­pe­ri­enced French skip­per Christophe Ori­on and Eng­lish aero­nau­ti­cal en­gi­neer Richard Ov­erend, who he de­scribes as tech­ni­cal­ly knowl­edge­able with the skill to fix any­thing,” Li­hou said.

Ori­on, who helped Li­hou sail the Swan Song from Mar­seilles to Con­wy, Wales, in 2016, has crossed the At­lantic at least once every year for the past 20 years. The French­man has al­so de­signed many types of small sail­ing boats.

Ov­erend, orig­i­nal­ly from Man­ches­ter, Eng­land, trained as an aero­nau­ti­cal en­gi­neer with Dan-Air at Man­ches­ter Air­port. When that com­pa­ny col­lapsed, he start­ed a re­frig­er­a­tion com­pa­ny and for many years has been self-em­ployed, re­fur­bish­ing yachts in Fal­mouth. This will be his first trans-At­lantic trip, al­though he has sailed all over Eu­rope.

De­tail­ing all the prepa­ra­tions be­ing made ahead of his lat­est sail­ing ad­ven­ture, he re­vealed: “I do all the cater­ing and cook­ing be­cause then I have good food ready in ad­vance and easy to cook when meal times ar­rive. Hot din­ners are es­sen­tial prepa­ra­tion for long night watch­es.

“Us­ing a satel­lite phone, Christophe will down­load week­ly wind fore­casts for our sea area. From this, we will sail fast and free on whichev­er course leads most di­rect­ly to Trinidad.

“At­lantic waves sel­dom pose prob­lems for yachts, but cata­ma­rans do not heel, so the sail area may need to be re­duced so as not to over­pow­er the rig­ging. When close-hauled in wind above 20 knots, I shake the shroud on the lee side. If it feels slack, we need to re­duce sail.”

Shirley Lihou at the launch of the catamaran Swan Song, on June 8, 2021.

Shirley Lihou at the launch of the catamaran Swan Song, on June 8, 2021.

Li­hou said the on­ly oth­er haz­ard they ex­pect to en­counter is pass­ing too close to large ships, but an au­to­mat­ic iden­ti­fi­ca­tion sys­tem transpon­der will en­able them to steer clear of those ves­sels.

He said fish­ing trawlers are an­oth­er mat­ter as they nor­mal­ly stay on a pre-set course on au­topi­lot.

Li­hou has been sail­ing since the age of eight, when he crewed for his un­cle Con­rad Pot­ter and cousin.

On his up­com­ing voy­age, the plan is to sail from Fal­mouth to St Ma­lo, a port in Brit­tany, on France’s north­west coast where Ori­on will join the crew. From there, they will set sail for Trinidad with a pos­si­ble stop in Madeira if sup­plies are need­ed.

Li­hou ex­pects an east­er­ly wind for the voy­age to Trinidad, av­er­ag­ing at least 180 nau­ti­cal miles (360 km) a day.


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