Against the flow – the first woman to sail solo the ‘wrong way’ around the world
by Dee Caffari
Review by Tim Robertson

The comparisons are inevitable I suppose – two women competing solo in a ‘man’s world’, both taking on terrifying mast climbs, lonely Christmas celebrations, and tear-inducing exhaustion. But while I recall Ellen MacArthur as a little scary in her single-minded drive to achieve her ambition, Dee Caffari exhibits here a self-doubt and vulnerability that make her someone whom we might be able to relate to, an ‘everyman’s’ hero’.

Dee tells of early family boating on the River Thames and the canals of France, her short career in teaching and the sudden double loss of her father, with whom she was very close, and a colleague at school. Forced to look at her own life and ambitions, she chooses to ‘seize the day’. Thus begins a remarkable chain of events that will see her enter the record books and become a household name. In a radical departure from working in a Dorset school, Dee signs up for a course at the UK Sailing Academy, joins Mike Golding’s racing team in Southampton, then secures a position as the only female helm on the 2004–5 Global Challenge.

Taking a novice crew round the world the ‘wrong way’, that is against all the prevailing winds, involves surviving frightening conditions, many disappointments and a dangerous injury to a crew member. But it also confirms her love of ocean racing. Through her work with Chay Blyth, the first man to sail solo the ‘wrong way’, she is introduced to the idea of becoming the first woman to do so and, using the same 72’ class (22m) yacht that she had previously raced fully crewed, she sets out on a gruelling 178-day voyage, entirely alone. As we know, it ends in success, fame – and membership of the Cordon Rouge Club of great adventurers (see page 15).

This is a good read with daring do aplenty but also with an accessible and very human heroine who, just maybe, given the opportunity, we could see ourselves trying to emulate. [Readers of the Offshore supplement will find an interview with Dee, just back from another record-breaking sail, this time with an all-woman crew around the British Isles.]

Paperback book
Published by Adlard Coles Nautical
ISBN 9781408100011
Price: £8.99