I’ve been friends with Jimmy Cornell for forty years and have worked with him on a range of writing and sailing projects. I have to say that Jimmy has done more to promote the cruising lifestyle and bluewater sailing than any other sailor. At age 85, he is now a legend.
But it wasn’t always so. He was born in Romania, behind the Iron Curtain, in 1940. He managed to escape to England and married an English woman, Gwenda, whom he had met when she visited Romania as a tourist. They are still together 60 years later.
Jimmy found a good job as a reporter and correspondent for the BBC and it was through the BBC yacht club that he discovered sailing. A highly disciplined and driven human being, Jimmy managed to buy a hull and deck and within a year, and on an annual salary of 2,000 pounds, he had finished and fitted out a 36-foot ketch.
Coming from the repressive Romanian dictatorship, freedom is something Jimmy holds dear and that is what he saw and still sees in the cruising life. In 1975, he and Gwenda loaded their two children aboard their home-built Aventura and set off for a three-year cruise around the world.
That is where the legend began. After that first, 60,000-mile circumnavigation, Jimmy has sailed an additional hundreds of thousands of miles on all of the Earth’s oceans and seas. He has written a slew of excellent books on the cruising life, organized 38 transatlantic rallies, including the ARC, and run seven round the world rallies.
He also is the force behind the design and development of the aluminum-hulled Garcia Explorer 45, a boat created to take adventurous cruisers on voyages to the high latitudes and the world’s remotest cruising grounds. The builder, Garcia Yachts in France, has to date built 45 Explorer 45s.
Along the way, Jimmy has learned just about everything there is to learn about sailing, cruising and voyaging. And, through his books, lectures and rallies, has made the cruising life possible for tens of thousands of sailors.
Recently, Jimmy sat down with Sailing Today’s editor Sam Jefferson for an in-depth interview. At 85, he is still as sharp as a marling spike. Here’s his story.
