Island Life Magazine Ltd October/November 2006 | Page 30

“Get me off this
damn boat!”

Dolores arriving off Antigua
after 36 days at sea.

How solo
sailor Dolores
battled with
the Atlantic
She had never skippered a boat
single handed in her life – or even
had any inclination to take to the
waves. But after Dolores Clover’s 15
year-old son Seb sailed the Atlantic

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single-handed, she was determined
to follow suit, just to experience
what he had gone through.
It was a journey that took the 52
year-old mum to the limits of her
endurance, and left her feeling she
never wanted to board a boat again
– “Not even the Queen Mary!” she
says.
“Every day I wanted to get off
the boat, but finally accepted that I
wasn’t going to. I sat there saying
‘I’m never, never, never getting on
another boat as long as I live’,” she
recalls.
“One hour out of the marina at

Lanzarote, I sat down and cried and
thought ‘What am I doing?’ It’s the
most unnatural thing to do, to put
yourself alone in a little boat with
the intention of sailing for 3000
miles. How stupid, how idiotic! But
then I reminded myself I was doing
it to find out what it was like for
Seb, because he did this and he was
only 15”
Dolores, a tiny 5ft tall and
weighing just seven stones, was
prepared for her solo six week epic
on the high seas by husband Ian,
a yachtmaster ocean instructor in
Ryde. She received intensive sail
training in the Solent and English

Channel and studied celestial
navigation, sea survival, diesel
engine maintenance and VHF radio
ashore before setting off for more
training with Ian on the two-handed
trip across Biscay, past Spain and
Portugal and on to the Canaries.
But she says nothing could
have prepared her for the sheer
loneliness, the sea sickness, or the
feelings of searing rage against the
elements once she set sail.
There was also an initial hold-up
when she had to turn back on the
fifth day of the voyage and head for
Tenerife because of impending bad

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