A sailor who lives on a yacht in Portsmouth said he was up all night listening to the howling winds of Storm Darragh and is “just riding out on coffee at the moment”.
Ed Coll, 29, told the PA news agency he has been living on a yacht in a marina in the city since January after he was diagnosed with testicular cancer and decided to following his dream of living on a boat.
He has since recovered from cancer and has been documenting his experience living on the yacht on his TikTok @sailing.optimist for more than 5,000 followers.
Mr Coll has been filming his experience grappling with Storm Darragh, with one of his videos showing him preparing ahead of the storm gaining more than 1.2 million views.
He said the storm “sounds so much worse” in the marina with the various noises made by the wind and surrounding boats, adding: “Your mind can’t really switch off.
“My parents’ boat is four boats down from me, so I was going over there in the night to see if their boat was OK,” he said.
He pulled a neighbour’s dinghy out of the water in the morning after it had been blown off their boat by the strong winds.
“I heard this massive bang this morning and I was like, what on earth was that, and their dinghy had flown off of the front of their boat onto the pontoon and wedged down the side of the boat,” he said.
He added: “There’s a few boats in the marina where the covers have ripped. It’s just one of those annoying things. There’s nothing you can really do.”
Ahead of the storm, he prepared for the incoming winds by buying water and wine, and by laying down towels because his boat’s hatches are leaky and were “dripping all night”.
He told the PA news agency he was kept awake by the howling winds.
“At maybe 11pm I tried to go to bed and by that point, the storm hadn’t really come, it was maybe 30mph winds, and then it started progressively getting worse,” he said.
“I probably had about an hour and a half of sleep and I think I might have just dozed off around like 5am, and then my grandad decided to call me at 6am to make sure I was OK.
“To be honest, I thought last night was going to be the worst of it, but it’s been like it’s only just tailing off now so it’s been a pretty long morning.
“I’m just riding out on coffee at the moment.”
He said: “I’m not looking forward to another sleepless night and I’ve got work first thing on Monday … the joys of living on a boat.
“I’m not worried about the wind, I’m worried about my boat because things break so easily and you have to think about the lines, they’re under tension quite a lot, so they’re creaking all night, and they can just snap.”
Mr Coll said he has a passion for boats and at age 18 he sailed around the world when he took on the World Yacht Race.
“Then last year, when I got sick, I was like, what am I doing with my life? Why am I not living my dream? My dream has always been to buy a boat and live on it and then sail around the world.”
Next year, Mr Coll is setting off on his second circumnavigation of the world.
