British sailor completes Harbour Master Sailing Challenge, raising £25K for The Seafarers' Charity

 

Supported by Inland and Coastal Marina Systems (ICMS), British sailor Mark Ashley-Miller has completed his epic 9000-mile Harbour Master Sailing Challenge, raising over £25,000 for The Seafarers' Charity.

For the last five years, Mark has been sailing his 34ft Nauticat, Good Dog, around the UK and Ireland (including the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands) in a bid to meet every Harbour Master in England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland.

In the wake of Storm Agnes at the end of last month (28 September 2023), Mark sailed up the River Boyne into Drogheda, County Louth, on the east coast of Ireland where he was greeted by the port's Harbour Master, Captain Laurence Kirwan, concluding his extraordinary five-year challenge.

On his ambitious expedition around the UK and Ireland, a challenge which was conceived from a deep-seated passion for sailing and a desire to support the seafaring community, Mark has visited 310 harbours and met 256 Harbour Masters, receiving a phenomenal welcome by so many.

Not alone on his mammoth journey, Mark travelled with between one and three crew members at any one time. "Over 90 different people have crewed for me over the five years. Many of them have even done it several times. As well as my wife Fiona, I have had many good friends crew including journalists, naval officers, round the world skippers, members of the Queen's Bodyguard, ornithologists, vicars, soldiers, barristers, estate agents, farmers and even a scientist from the Met Office who tested the accuracy of different forecasting models as we sailed !

I'm very sad my journey has come to an end. It has given me an enormous purpose in life. Working alongside The Seafarers' Charity has been an enormous privilege, as has meeting some of the people whom the charity helps, be it fishing communities receiving mobile dentistry, or the staff of the various seafarers' missions who do so much behind the scenes. I now have a much better understanding of the near invisible life of international mariners, and I'm delighted to have been able to raise money to support them."

Mark will be documenting his adventures in a new book, coming out next year.

Donations to the Harbour Master Sailing Challenge can still be made via :-

donate.giveasyoulive.com/fundraising/harbour-master-sailing-challenge 

or via :-  harbourmastersailingchallenge.co.uk

To find out more about The Seafarers Charity visit :-  www.theseafarerscharity.org