Q: You’ve said you couldn’t sail before your accident. Why did you decide to take it up afterwards?
A: ‘I came up with the idea to sail back when I was doing diving. I was pricing up dive charters, and I’d go: “Oh for that price I could buy a boat and go there myself.” It was always in the back of my head, but I’d never learned. So then after my accident, I was reading about around-the-world sailing records – they have all these notations for largest boat, smallest boat to sail around the world, and I was like: “Hey, I’d be the first double amputee, I’m going to go and sail around the world by myself.”

Q: How did you learn?
A: ‘I watched a bunch of videos and read some books, sailed around Hawaii for about one month with my friends, and then after that I set sail across the pacific. The first time I ever set sail by myself was from Hawaii to Palmyra, which is about a thousand miles.’

Q: Have you made any adaptations to the boat?
A: ‘No, my boat’s not set up for one-handed sailing. Boats are pretty notorious for having things in hard to reach places. So, some things don’t just need two hands but need a left hand, so sometimes I’m pretty much standing on my head. It’s hard to say how much tougher it is than for regular sailors, because I’ve never sailed with two hands before.’

Q: Did you have any particularly difficult moments?
A: ‘Yeah, I still remember the first time I had to reef the sails. I was sailing between Palmyra and Fanning atoll – I was maybe 40 knots away and there was a thunderstorm. After my first four or five days at sea I realised you can’t really wear clothes on deck. There are waves coming over the back of the boat every ten minutes, so everything gets soaked and because you’re keeping the boat closed it doesn’t get dry until you hit the next port. So, I’d be naked, mostly, and the first time reefing the sail I was naked with lightning smacking the water close by and I was like: “I’m here straddling the one metal thing in the whole ocean, naked, this suddenly seems like a bad idea.”