How to Sail your Dream but Keep Your Career

by Southern Daily Echo/Sail-World Cruising on 18 Jul 2008 Almost every day there's another cruising yacht setting off for the sail of a lifetime - some cruisers, mostly couples, just stay in their own ocean, some circumnavigate their own country, and a few circle the world. Many give up promising careers or save for years for the 'big one'. However, not all cruising yachties have had to give up their careers, as this story demonstrates:

A financial executive from Newcastle in the UK has a new job in Sydney Australia, but he's not flying there - he is sailing the long way around the world - across the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans - to take up the job, which, with his company's permission, will start in just 16 months time.

Jonny Harrison, an assurance manager with PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) is embarking on the 16-month trip in his own yacht, as part of a secondment from work. When he arrives Down Under, he will work in PwC's Sydney, office.

Mr Harrison said the trip, which he will make with his wife, Kate, had been planned for almost two years.

'The idea of sailing around the world is something that has interested me for a long time, as has the ambition to live and work overseas,' he said.

'My wife harbours similar ambitions and, like myself, has sailed since an early age and has a passion for travel.'

He added: 'I look forward to bringing new skills back to the Newcastle team from my experiences, both on the high seas and from my time in Sydney.'

Mr Harrison's trip will start in the North-West, where the yacht is being refitted, then on to Ireland and northern Spain, with the aim of reaching the Canary Islands by late October before crossing the Atlantic in November.

After taking in the Caribbean and Venezuela, the final part of the journey will be via Fiji and New Caledonia before the couple reach Australia in October next year.