Interview

Author Tristan Gooley has made a name for himself as the Natural Navigator. He discusses his life long passion for sailing and how it has helped to shape his career path

Tristan Gooley is on the path to becoming a national treasure. What started as a somewhat offbeat idea to harness his passion for using nature itself to help you to navigate has snowballed into a strong following and ensured that books such as How to Read Water and The Natural Navigator were big hits. Now Tristan is back with a new book; The Secret World of Weather.

As you might imagine, it’s a book that chimes strongly for all sailors and it is therefore no surprise that

Tristan is himself as keen sailor and this helped shape his course from adventurer and wanderer to successful author.

“There was a moment of enlightenment in my childhood when we went to Bembridge for a holiday and my mum enrolled me in a RYA dinghy sailing course,” Tristan reflects: “I really wasn’t all that keen to take part and I had to be talked in to it. Things like that are quite daunting at a young age. Anyway, of course it was fantastic. At the end of the week we were given a day which was essentially. ‘free sail’ day and my instructor came up to me and asked me where I wanted to go. That was when the penny really dropped for me as I realised that sailing had given me the chance to go wherever I wanted. Over the years I then went through all the RYA hoops from Day Skipper through to Yachtmaster Ocean and then on to the art of navigation.

Back to nature

ABOVE

Tristan plotting a course to another adventure

BELOW

A challenging sailing trip into the Arctic Circle

Wanderlust

“After that I embarked on all sorts of adventures. I was at university in Newcastle studying Politics and History but I was far from a model student and, although I somehow scraped a degree I spent most of my time putting together a student magazine and I probably learnt more from that. “Meantime every holiday I was planning adventures – for example in my first summer holiday of university I told all of my friends and classmates that I was going off to climb Kilimanjaro and spent a good deal of time trying to persuade them to come – which of course, they didn’t – so I went off and did it on my own.

“To be honest, a lot of these early adventures were fuelled by a lethal mix of testosterone and adrenaline. “For example, I spent a memorably awful time lost at the top of a volcanic mountain in Indonesia and must have come close to dying.

“In time I came to realise that the size of the adventure was not necessarily the key.”

Prior to 2008 Tristan professes to a somewhat chequered career, taking in everything from working in the post o ce to a bit of time in the travel industry. “All the time though, I’d just be thinking of my next adventure, He re ects: “I was just too restless. Yet navigation was always my passion; be it sailing, ying or mountain climbing. It was the shaping of these journeys that fascinated me.

“When I was younger, I remember thinking that perhaps now was the time to take up, say, sailing instructing or becoming a professional pilot and, I remember, I felt bere and it was at that moment that I realised that my love was for navigation, not one particular discipline, and if I gave up one aspect of this obsession, I lost something.”

Natural navigation

“I was always aware that if you specialised in something, the chances were that you would be able to make a living out of it. I wanted to be the best at navigation and that was my aim. In 2008, I had a little bit of money and I decided to risk it on setting up e Natural Navigator. Given that I had spent much of my youth asking people to come on adventures and they generally said ‘no’ I did not expect a huge uptake but, in fact, there was evidently a huge gap in the market because it seemed to chime with a lot o people. “A er that, the BBC got involved and things just took o from there.”

In terms of sailing adventures, there have been many over the years. “I suppose the singlehanded crossing of the Atlantic was a big one and it was at that moment, having also completed a single handed crossing of the Atlantic in a light aircra , that I felt like I could do whatever I wished. Not to show other people, but just for myself.

“Perhaps the most interesting was a trip I took from Orkney to Greenland researching the navigational methods of the Vikings who, for example, used to navigate to Iceland to Greenland by sailing south and gauging how many birds there were about. e idea that you can navigate by counting birds fascinated me.”

“In terms of navigational heroes, I have a few. Captain Cook is probably a big one. We all know that most of our heroes are awed but Cook was not only a superb navigator but even his interaction with the south sea islanders seems ahead of his time.

“Aside from that, Francis Chichester was a huge inspiration; his account of taking a x with a sextant while ying solo in a light aircra was thoroughly inspiring.

“Other than that, a chap called Harold Gatty is a big inspiration.”

Blame it on the weatherman

Speaking of his new book, Tristan re ects: “All of my work is about outdoor clues and signs. e secret life of water has a lot of focus on clouds and localised microclimates. For example, we are dominated by weather forecasts that look at the e ects of huge pressure systems but I want to look at localised conditions and how they can completely change the weather.

“With sailing, I think it’s very important to see if you’re environment will help you before you turn to the technology. As an example, the Paci c Islanders could see that land was over the horizon many miles before it came into sight thanks to cloud formations.” ese days Tristan’s horizons have narrowed somewhat and sailing trips are generally limited to mucking about in Chichester Harbour. His eyes light up when we discuss his latest yacht: “I used to have a Contessa 26 but is switched it for a Sa er 26 which is a superb daysailer. It’s a great boat.

“In every area of life someone comes along at some point with a clean slate and rede nes what is already there. at’s what Sa er has done with the 26.”

Tristan remains realistic about the future of navigation too: “Look, the rise of GPS is unstoppable and, believe me, if I’m late for a meeting in central London, I’m not looking at the clouds to nd my way, I’m using my phone’s GPS like the rest of us.

“Yet I think there is a human habit that, just at the point when we have nearly ditched something for good, we realise how precious it is.

“Modern navigation is a bit like fast food. If you are looking for the most e cient way of getting some calories inside you then it probably is a McDonalds but it’s not necessarily the best or most satisfying.”

Tristan draws the analogy between TV and theatre, pointing out that even though TV has many advantages over theatre, the latter continues to exist and ourish. “I’m the theatre bu of the navigation world I guess!”

ABOVE

In action aboard his Sa er 26 in Chichester

e Secret World of Weather by Tristan Gooley is published on 8th April by Sceptre, priced at £20.00 hardback.