Round the world then back to race officer for the night

10:16am Saturday 12th July 2008

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ROUND the world yachtsman and skipper of the Clipper yacht Durban 2010 and Beyond, Ricky Chalmers arrived back at the Royal Southampton Yacht Club on board the 68ft Clipper yacht and immediately found himself helping out with race officer duties on the regular Thursday evening racing spot.

He sailed into Ocean Village with his wife Maggie and some of his crew who accompanied him from Liverpool where the 35,000 mile Clipper race ended last weekend.

Both Ricky and his wife are active members of the Royal Southampton and regular competitors in Club racing. So perhaps it was no strange thing that almost within minutes of mooring in Ocean Village, a stone's throw from the Yacht Club, they found themselves joining Kathy Smalley, captain of racing, on the Club's committee boat, The Hound, for an evening on Southampton Water for the second round of the Club's summer series.

And then it was back to the Clubhouse in Ocean Village where Ricky was formally welcomed back by Commodore Colin Lewis, and joined by Thursday racers and members of the Durban crew.

The Commodore complimented him for the manner in which he had coped with all sorts of highs and lows in his race around the world - highs when they were winning individual races, lows when the mast fell over the side.

"Welcome back. You did a fantastic job and we are all very proud of what you've done. We have followed your voyage on both our website and the Clipper website and we have had a fantastic virtual trip around the world," said the Commodore.

Ricky responded by thanking the Club and its members for their support.

South African born, he skippered Durban city's entry in the Clipper 07-08 Round the World Yacht Race and finished sixth overall. At one stage he headed the leaderboard of the ten identical Clipper yachts in the race.

Yet he has only been sailing 11 years, admitting to having first got the sailing bug on a family holiday in 1997 to Cornwall, and hasn't looked back.

"One of the big regrets in my life is that I actually didn't discover sailing before," he said.

In 2004 he went round the world with the Global Challenge race. As he set off on that adventure he had a vague idea that he might like to skipper a round the world yacht race himself someday. Halfway across the Southern Ocean he was convinced of it.