Lone Sailing Around Europe With Jono

The Clubhouse came to life on Wednesday evening, 10 January, when Club member Jono Dunnett gave an illustrated, and enthralling, talk on his solo windsurf around Europe.  This amazing feat saw Jono facing mountainous seas, total becalm-ment, freezing conditions, and sweltering heat as he windsurfed, with no support or back-up, from Norway to Ukraine before cycling back!  Averaging 20 miles a day, his very basic provisions affixed to his board, he would sleep, often in the remotest of areas, just under his sail.  One of Jono's strongest memories was of the wonderful, and very warm, people he met on the way, either through those tracking him on route, or literally stumbling across them on landing.  Jono took us through the highs and lows of his adventure, all illustrated with some fantastic photos and video clips which he managed to capture whilst out on his board.  Sitting snuggly in the cosy Clubhouse, the audience was spellbound by the extreme conditions Jono went through to achieve his goal, which followed on from his lone-windsurf around Great Britain, and his dinghy sail around Ireland (including sailing the dinghy from Scotland to Ireland before the adventure started).  Jono's modesty in undertaking such amazing ventures only added to the achievement and defies the "nanny-state" we currently live in, showing that anything is possible if you strive hard enough.

For those that are keen to dig deeper into his story, Jono has published a book on his adventures - "In The Balance: a 15,000km voyage of the seas of Europe", and this is available from Amazon at https://www.amazon.co.uk/Balance-000-Voyage-Seas-Europe/dp/0995778248

The evening was brilliant, and we all await Jono's next adventure; he indicated that there might well be more to come!!