Sailing is an uncomfortable and expensive passion that baffles many people and is hard to explain. Here are a few very personal clues:

Follow the links under the Old Stories heading above to read about dinghy sailing in the early fifties and other tales about boats. They include the saga of Ted Heath and the Guardian newspaper’s Fastnet Race entry, the tragedy (or comedy?) of how the Bank of England lost its racing yacht and I got the blame, and research on Homer’s geography for a cruise round the Peloponnese.