Harbour Master Sailing Challenge 2019 to 2023
After a varied career in the army (QDG), farming and e-commerce, Mark Ashley-Miller and his wife sold their business in 2018. The next day Mark bought a boat!
Like many sailors Mark had an ambition to sail around GB. He wanted to do it slowly and with a purpose, so he decided to attempt to visit every Harbour Master and raise some money for charity.
Plenty of sailors come up with mad-cap ideas for nautical expeditions, but none quite so mad as the challenge dreamt up by Mark Ashley-Miller.
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 late September 2023 Mark sailed up the River Boyne into Drogheda, on the east coast of Ireland and was greeted by his final Harbour Master, Captain Laurence Kirwan, concluding his extraordinary challenge.
This epic 9000-mile voyage, has raised over £30,000 for The Seafarers’ Charity and was supported by pontoon manufacturer Inland and Coastal Marina Systems (ICMS). Since departing Dartmouth in 2019 Mark has visited 310 harbours and met 256 Harbour Masters, receiving a phenomenal welcome by so many.
“The thing that will stay with me is just how incredibly welcoming and supportive of my mission all the Harbour Masters were. In Newlyn, Capt. Rob Parsons texted me long before I arrived and told me I would be ‘his guest’, while in Ullapool, HM Kevin Peach, welcomed me with a bottle of malt whisky.
“In Aberdeen, Capt. Alex McIntosh found a berth for Good Dog in the massive port, usually off-limits to yachts and she jumped aboard and gave us a guided tour of her impressive port.
“And in the Port of Tyne, HM Steve Clapperton kindly filled up Good Dog with diesel as his ‘contribution to my charity challenge’.”
Mark’s meeting with Hamble’s HM Jason Scott in June 2022, typified the welcome Mark received around the country. This is an extract from his log:
16 Jun 2022. River Hamble Harbour Authority. Harbour Master Number 195 – Jason Scott.
Entering “The Solent” filled me with more trepidation than the most dangerous seas I had faced so far… I was now in the home of yacht design and the heartland of seriously experienced “Yachties”. The River Hamble – contains the highest density of yachts in the world.
To control this epicentre of egos takes a very strong character, and Jason Scott is that man. After a career in the Royal Navy which included being a bomb disposal diver, a wartime mine hunting commander and finally the Captain of an Aircraft Carrier… controlling the 400 vessels that pass his office window each hour in the high season is a doddle.
As well as home to 3,200 yachts and numerous other speeding watercraft, the salt marshes of the Hamble are an internationally important habitat for rare birds. One of Jason’s more unexpected jobs was to host John Craven and his Countryfile team filming in the estuary. 64% of these habitats have been lost to marina development and Jason is heavily involved in protecting the remaining habitats which involves understanding ten different acts of parliament.
The interpretation of law comes easily to Jason, who hands out a carefully worded “Red Card” official warning to any river user who breaks speed limits or drives dangerously on his patch. International Regulations for the Prevention of Collisions at Sea (known as COLREGS) apply equally to users of jet skis and skippers of oil tankers. Did you know a HM has the power to give you a criminal record? The window of Jason’s office is perfectly positioned to catch any culprit on The Hamble! Thank you Jason – I learnt so much about a very wide range of subjects visiting your famous river harbour.
Challenge by name, and challenge by nature, Mark Ashley-Miller navigated dangerous entrances with shifting sandbars (The Wash), very remote harbours (St Kilda – 50 miles west of the Outer Hebrides) and commercial shipping traffic. In the Port of Larne in Northern Ireland, port control asked a P&O ferry to ‘hurry up’ with its loading as ‘THE Good Dog was standing off, and the skipper has important business with the Harbour Master’. “I found this very funny, the captain of the P&O ferry did not.”
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!
Mark Ashley-Miller will be documenting his adventures in a new book, and donations to the Seafarers’ Charity can still be made via: www.harbourmastersailingchallenge
