Lying in my berth in the bows, I’d been lulled asleep by the undulant waters of the Chenal du Four, sheltered between the Brittany coast and the outlying Ushant isles. But the change in conditions brought me back awake to find myself wedged onto one side of the berth, on the verge of being thrown out. The rigging was soughing above my head, and the Grayhound was bludgeoning northwards like a tractor ploughing a field of rocks.
I could hear footsteps on deck as the other watch brought down one of the sails to reduce the power. With the heeling eased, I had the luxury of lying there for a while, enjoying the surging rollercoaster ride as 64ft and 60 tonnes of boatbuilder beef took on 30 knots of wind and a rising sea.
Eventually my watch was called and I surfaced into the starry night just as the Grayhound, a replica of a three-masted customs lugger from the 18th century, was emerging into the shipping lanes of the English Channel. There we joined cargo-carrying colleagues many thousands of tonnes heavier, and far more polluting, than us; a sail-clothed David venturing out among smokestack Goliaths. In the dark, it felt a bit like a cat trying to cross a motorway.