Yacht Master - matt harvey

My father was a marine Engineer, used to build dinghies for a hobby and provided me with my first sailing experience at six weeks old without telling my mother. He wrapped me in a lifejacket, stowed me in the bow and off we went. Obviously, I don’t remember it, but I don’t think that my mother ever forgave him and that’s where the bug began.

I grew up sailing a variety of dinghies on the south coast of England. My abiding memory of which is of having to use my teeth to hold the mainsheet because my hands were too cold to grip anything! Despite this I spent most of my spare time at the local sailing club, joined the sea scouts and charged around in Mirror’s, Topper’s, Laser’s and OK’s. As adulthood arrived and professional obligations took hold, I took a hiatus from sailing until moving to QLD in 1996 where I realised that you didn’t always need to wear a dry suit in order to get in the water.

My transition to Yachting did not evolve until much later in life in the not quite as warm water of Pittwater in Sydney. After a 10-day charter with the family aboard a catamaran, I was hooked yet again. I started working my way through the RYA sailing syllabus and building my experience on a variety of yachts.

Our first yacht was a share in a syndicated Hanse 415 to test the family’s commitment to spending time aboard. We had a good couple of years with that yacht sailing around Sydney and the East coast. Eventually we wanted more flexibility in our access to the yacht, so we exited the syndicate and purchased a Sun Odyssey 37 with family.  

Whilst she was a smaller yacht it did mean that we had access to her pretty much whenever we needed it which allowed us to explore more widely.  After some inshore racing, short ocean point score and a couple of blue water races I really started to enjoy the offshore passages and the opportunities they provided to explore new locations only accessible by water.

In conjunction with some chartering, I slowly built up the required skills, experience, mileage, sea days and ancillary qualifications to be successfully examined for my RYA Yachtmaster offshore. Whilst my wife and family are keen sailors, they are not so keen on the longer distances much preferring shorter trips and more time at anchor with the sundowners! So, I started to search for another way to fulfil my offshore ambitions and discovered David and Ocean Sailing Expeditions. Coincidently, David has just put out his call for Chief mates to help him manage his new acquisition Silver Fern.