Les Weatheritt

Les Weatheritt: ex-economist, author of three sailing books and one sailing novel

Born and educated in Newcastle upon Tyne. Two degrees from the London School of Economics (LSE). Went back to the LSE in 1985 as a Visiting Research Academic. I was hoping for an LSE pension by now.

Student jobs on building sites in England and Germany and after graduating worked as a miner in Ontario and deckhand on a sailing schooner in the Caribbean. Great experience; didn’t learn much about sailing.

Four years in industrial marketing in London before becoming a public sector research economist and policy advisor. My last assignments were an economic consultant for troubled local communities in England and Wales, regional development projects in Hungary and Poland, an arts-based peace project in Northern Ireland and EU funded Peace Project in Israel. To be frank, those last two did not have wonderfully successful outcomes.

An unlikely sailing author, I came late to sailing. In the early 1970s, living in land-locked London, and with virtually no experience, I bought an old GRP 20 footer and taught myself to sail on the east coast. In mid 1980s bought a 32 foot ferro-cement double ender for an (unsuccessful) single handed trip to the Azores. In mid 1990s took the 32 footer to the Caribbean and wrote Your First Atlantic Crossing to encourage others to have their own life enhancing experience.

In Trinidad I traded up to a 40 foot Joshua ketch (the design Bernard Moitessier raced in the first Golden Globe) and with my partner Gloria spent a decade sailing the Caribbean. The lessons of that decade went into Caribbean Passagemaking, so that others would have a richer and easier cruising experience than they otherwise might. Returned to Europe 2004-5 via a year in the Azores

For a long time our English base was a 60ft canal boat. We are now based ashore in Bath, Somerset but sail an old Amel Kirk 35 footer in southern Europe. I have some unpublished novels, poetry, a radio play and some amusing economic research reports securely locked away in a cardboard box somewhere.