Series 2 - Ep6 - Sir Robin Knox-Johnston Part 2

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This month double Olympic gold medalist Shirley Robertson sits down for a two part podcast chat with the first man ever to sail solo non-stop around the planet, Britain's Sir Robin Knox-Johnston.  In this, Part 2 of their discussion, the pair talk about life after the return from Sir Robin's incredible 312 day journey.

Having completed his voyage, and cemented his place in the annals of the history of exploration, Sir Robin's competitive streak soon saw him back on the global race course, and by 1977 he was joint skipper on an entry in the Whitbread Round the World Race, where amongst his crew was a certain Peter Blake.  With the announcement of the Jules Verne Trophy, Knox-Johnston and Blake went on to famously form the eventual record holding team, ENZA New Zealand, breaking the established record in 1994 with a 74 day lap of the planet.

Robertson and Knox-Johnston then discuss how a trip with British mountaineer and expedition leader Sir Chris Bonnington inspired an idea that would become the 'open to all' crewed around the world adventure, The Clipper Race.  It's a race that has been on going now for over twenty years, and is currently in it's twelfth, a fact that Sir Robin ranks as one of his greatest achievements.

"When I look at all the lives that have benefitted from the Clipper, and the number of those sailors, forty percent of them have never been on a boat before, who have taken up sailing subsequently as their sport, to my mind that is going to rank pretty highly because there's over five thousand people now that have taken the sport up all over the world." states Sir Robin, on being asked by Robertson what he sees as his greatest contribution to the sport.

This edition of the podcast is in two parts and is available to listen to via the podcast page of Shirley’s own website, at www.shirleyrobertson.com/podcast or via most popular podcast outlets, including iTunes, Spotify, Google Podcast and aCast. The podcast is produced and written by Tim Butt - for further enquires, please contact [email protected]

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