He may have crossed oceans solo, but it was a storm off the coast of Ireland that swept one-armed yachtsman Keith White overboard. The sailor – who has since become the first disabled man to cross the Atlantic unassisted – was circumnavigating the British Isles against the prevailing winds back in 2005, when he was hit by a force-11 gale.
His yacht capsized several times in the 10m-high waves, and when the RNLI lifeboat finally reached him 21 hours later, he was thrown overboard, managing to somehow climb back on to his yacht to safety before he was towed back in. Even with three cracked ribs, he refused to halt his challenge. “I discharged myself and got the sails fixed by the end of the week and sailed back home,” he tells me over the phone from his home on the Isle of Wight. “I was frightened to get sailing again, but I had to do it.”
Talking to the 68-year-old today, it’s hard not to listen open-mouthed at his refusal to be cowed by anything life throws at him. In 1991 he was at the centre of a 14-vehicle pile-up when a lorry crossed the central reservation and hit the van in which he was a passenger. “The police thought I was dead,” he tells me. White had stopped breathing. “They told the ambulance not to rush – but when they got there [the paramedics realised] I still had a pulse, and revived me.” White survived, but his left arm was crushed beyond repair, and he lost his memory for two years.
A former builder, electrician and computer engineer, White previously could speak German and Italian, but lost this facility, as part of his problems recalling words. His pilot licence was removed and he could no longer follow his passion for scuba diving. But he had been sailing since he was 16, and so, in 2004, he decided to buy a boat, fitting it out so he could sail it singlehandedly. “I didn’t know at that point if I could sail with one hand,” he says. “But at the back of my mind I had always thought I could do anything if I put my mind to it. I think this comes from my mum – she always said I had the ability to do anything I wanted to.
“You have to try to visualise things in your head before you start. Planning is important; to know what you are about to do and how you will do it. I can do a bow line and tie my laces up with one hand. You just learn a technique.”
Within a year, White, a father of seven, had taken on the challenge of being the first one-armed sailor to circumnavigate the British Isles. Then he crossed the Atlantic alone in 2008. Last year he attempted to become the first sailor with a disability to circumnavigate the globe, but had to postpone the challenge after a storm off the coast of Sierra Leone caused mechanical failures.
Sailing single-handed for weeks requires mental, as well as physical, strength – you have to be constantly alert and completely self-reliant. Especially when you are alone in the face of the huge storms White has had to battle. So how does he do it? It’s a question that makes the yachtsman laugh.
“When you have seven children it’s lovely to have a little time on your own! It’s heaven,” he jokes. “I’m a sociable person: I do like lots of people around. I don’t think about being alone at sea, because I am so busy.
“I do a log every hour, and my diary, and I read a few books. I have very little sleep. It took six weeks to sail back across the Atlantic, and I got about 26 hours’ sleep.”
Answering emails and chatting over Facebook can help stem any loneliness, he says. Staying optimistic helps for everything else. “Don’t I worry I will die? No, I am a cat! I never have a negative thought: you have to have positive mental attitude.
“You are too busy to think. I don’t panic, I just try and assess the situation and deal with it.
“I don’t back down and I don’t like things to control me – even fear. Fear of failing is the biggest fear for me. I’m not trying to be a hero, I just try to do my best.”
After weeks alone at sea, he says, there are physical challenges to walking on dry land. “On my longest voyage back to Dartmouth, my legs hurt for two weeks because I wasn’t used to walking anymore. I just hadn’t been using those muscles.
“If I turned too quickly, I had the sensation of losing my balance because you aren’t on a boat.”
But mentally, he thinks, he adjusts to life on shore quickly now – the trick, he says, is to stay equally busy on land and sea. “Today I decorated my bedroom. Yesterday I was fitting an alternator on the boat. Before that it was the water pump, and I had to strip the engine back.
“My days fly by and I feel like I am 20 years old. I just try and treat every day as something new and enjoy it.”
When he made his first Atlantic crossing he was, he admits, disappointed to have his peace and quiet broken by his arrival on land – when he was still halfway through reading his novel. But, he says, he threw himself into meeting new people, which soon counteracted his irritation. “I made sure I caught local buses so I could chat to people – I fill my life with people.”
In between adventures, he prepares his boat, and then I ask him how he relaxes. “I go sailing! I like sailing with people who haven’t tried it before. Or I get involved in yacht races with friends.”
Perhaps the main reason for his success in adjusting to life after a big adventure, he says, is that he always has an idea for a new one in his back pocket; from raising money for charity to sailing races. “It keeps me ticking over – there’s always something new to do. I just like challenges and one leads to another.
“My mum always said the worst part of any job is starting – the rest comes easy. Unless you make the first step you aren’t going to get anywhere.”
