Legendary yachtsman Chay sails into Heart of Hawick

His passion for sailing dictated that the legendary yachtsman lived a large portion of his life ‘down south’.

But once his racing career was over he started to plot his pathway home, arriving back 12 years ago.

He’s still attracted by the lure of the ocean waves, spending on average 12 weeks of the year sailing around Turkey, Greece and, on occasion, the Bahamas.

These days it is usually in someone else’s yacht and the pace is much more leisurely.

“What I tend to do now is sail during the day and anchor up where there’s a taverna for supper ashore”, he said.

Sir Chay has lived a remarkable life.

Born in Hawick, the youngest of seven children, two brothers and five sisters, he was brought up in a council house in the west end of the town.

Leaving school at 15 he joined the Parachute Regiment three years later and after learning to sail embarked on a string of achievements, mostly notably becoming the first person to sail non-stop westwards around the world in 1971 on a 59-foot boat called British Steel.

There were many highlights to follow including organising around the world yacht races, across the Atlantic yacht races, even rowing racing races and he also moved successfully into the field of business sponsorship.

Sir Chay is to look back over his life and career during an appearance at the Heart of Hawick on Wednesday, March 22, one of a series of ‘Teri Talks’ at the venue.

Despite sailing with entrepreneur Richard Branson and winning the admiration of Princess Anne he’s not intending to ‘name-drop’, but the talk is certain to be enlightening and memories of his home-town will feature heavily.

He said: “I’ve been back in Hawick for about 12 years now. I always knew that I would return. It was just circumstances meant that I had to be down south, at the end of the day that is where the yacht racing is. But once I stopped racing I could move anywhere.

“The major difference I see in Hawick now from when I was growing up is the knitwear. In my day the place was bustling with all the companies making products going to America, mostly cashmere stuff, and you had huge mills all over the place, Lyle & Scott, Pringle and so on, and they were making big money.

“What was interesting was that the girls, the ladies, were all very smart. They used to buy the best of everything because the wages were good, and they were very smart. There was a lot of money in the town, but of course times have changed and now we are much like every other town anywhere.”

Yacht racing too has changed beyond all recognition.

“In my day it was very manual but now they have gone into hi-tech with all the machines that are available that you can put on-board, you have yachts racing doing 40 miles an hour, just incredible, and you should see them when they’re racing, they’re just out of this world.

“It’s all very professional, gone are the days when you could be just a ‘Jack the Lad’ and get on a boat and race. To race competitively you’ve got to have some brains about you now, it’s a very technical sport.

“When you’re sailing single-handed I think music helps you a lot in the background, and you can sing along with whatever the song is. It is a known fact that music and song does help morale. I had a radio on which you could pick up music from almost anywhere in the world, of course you had to fiddle with it all the time to get the right waveband.

“I also had on-board a tape recorder and I had a number of pre-recorded tapes and I’d get one from the family that I’d play for my birthday or Christmas. It was all mostly rock and roll, not much the lovey-dovey crooning stuff.

“I still get two, three, four letters a week, from someone wanting to sail around the world looking for a piece of advice. Just last year I got an email from an American who was going to sail around the world and he had a 72-feet yacht, a very luxurious yacht, and offered me to sail across the Pacific with him, unfortunately I couldn’t go.”

Sir Chay also revealed his thoughts on Scottish independence – and his general low opinion of politicians

“They are all professional politicians and low in our esteem nowadays. Beforehand you’d give a lot of respect to an MP, now an MP is neither here nor there really.

“I can’t see the point of independence at all, far from it. You get this thrown at us that smaller countries can make a living and survive and we can do much the same, but we can’t. The smaller countries they are referring to have longevity with regards the weather whereas we haven’t got longevity with the weather, which is very unpredictable here in Scotland.

“We talk about the oil but that has all gone, well almost gone. I wouldn’t want independence, no definitely not.”

* Sir Chay is donating his normal fee for the appearance to Save the Children, a charity of which he has long been a supporter. Tickets for his ‘Teri Talk’ are £5 to £7.50 and are available at https://www.liveborders.org.uk/heart-of-hawick/