Tell us about the experience so far
Viewers of the programme will have arrived at the conclusion that we didn't actually have a trip away. This makes our family gap year totally different from the other five families as we haven't even left the UK.
The whole experience has been difficult from the start on every level. We have had set backs with family member's (and our own) health, job insecurities, financial worries, time pressures of completing the boat, the list goes on and on.
If anything it has split our family apart. My relationship with Ann Marie has fallen apart and until recently, my children were begining to wonder who I was. I am working hard to rectify both these things.
How did you go about organising everything?
It started off quite well apart from totally underestermating just how much time, effort and money it was all going to take. Lots and lots of lists, hours and hours of research,asking endless questions to people who know far more about sailing than I ever will.
It is no wonder that the biggest proportion of people setting off on long sea voyages are either retired, financially very comfortable, or able to take months off without worrying about the bills.
Any moments that you look back on with happiness?
Actually taking the boat out of Plymouth with the family and putting the new sails up for the first time and really going somewhere under wind power. Might have been just 30 miles round the coast but it was a feeling I won't forget for a very very long time. I think it was a bigger moment for me rather than Ann Marie though.
Worst moments?
The cost to the family. I set out with this amazing plan to try and improve my family's life and in the end nearly lost it all.
Any advice for another family considering embarking on something like you had planned?
Definitely have a go! But once you have planned it, double the time you think it will take, tripple the amount of money you think it will cost and be prepared for the setbacks and struggles. You will get over them, even when you ask yourself,'what the hell have I got myself in to?' People will criticise, comment and berate you. Don't let them put you off, they only do that because they don't understand. Like I have said before, at the end of your life all you have is stories to tell.
Let yours be more interesting than everyone else's.
