Bob Shepton RECYCLED // Arctic Legend & Round the World Sailor
On the Wind Sailing
Andy Schell
4.8 • 601 Ratings
🗓️ 23 January 2018
⏱️ 89 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
#224 / #173 Recycled. The Reverend Bob Shepton, now 81, got his start shortly after WWII as a climbing instructor in the British Armed Forces, where he used the outdoors to teach leadership & scripture. He didn't start sailing until much later in life, but got real serious about it real quickly. I sat down with him at the Southampton Boat Show to talk religion, spirituality, his early days as a climber, losing his boat during an Arctic winter, his 15 Atlantic crossings, meeting the Wild Bunch, and the story behind the film series 'Vertical Sailing Greenland.'
The music in this episode is courtesy of the Wild Bunch.
This episode is sponsored by Forbes Horton Yachts. Visit forbesyachts.com.
Bob Shepton might not be a household name in the US, but he certainly is in the UK. He was honored as 'Yachtsman of the Year' in 2014, which may sound irrelevant until you realize the winners in 2013 & 2015 - that would be Sir Ben Ainslie & Sir Robin Knox-Johnston. Good company indeed. Anyway, Bob is one of the most accomplished and yet most humble sailors I've ever met. My interview with him was like sitting down with your favorite grandfather and hearing him tell old stories. We could have talked for hours, and Bob seemed to enjoy every second of it. Before you listen to this episode, take five minutes and watch Episode 2 of Vertical Sailing Greenland - you'll find it in the show notes below. That film is what initially inspired me to reach out to Bob, and he tells the behind-the-scenes story of it at length about halfway through our chat.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hey, gang, greetings on a Tuesday, the day this comes out. |
| 0:13.9 | Thanks to everybody who came to hear us speak in Toronto. |
| 0:17.8 | It was awesome to see some future crew. |
| 0:20.1 | I think we met Brian and Kai, who were |
| 0:22.1 | joining us this year and next year on the boat. And it was awesome to see some of our former |
| 0:27.4 | crew. And I'm going to do a very good job at remembering names, because I am very lousy at |
| 0:32.0 | remembering names. But we got to see Daniel and Isabel, who were on our Key West to Annapolis trip a couple |
| 0:40.1 | years ago. We got to see James and Marianne, who's Mary Ann's name I screwed up in person. So sorry |
| 0:45.8 | for that, Marianne. We got to see Brian Bontor, who sailed with us in the Caribbean 600. So that was |
| 0:51.5 | awesome to see him. We got to see Vlado and Irena and had an awesome |
| 0:55.0 | Serbian dinner with them one night after the show. We got to see Steve and Paula, plus |
| 1:01.3 | Andrew, who sailed with us before we even bought East Bjorn on Serenity on the Shannon 43 |
| 1:07.0 | catch that we were loaned by Merrill, which was very nice to help us get the business |
| 1:11.7 | started. We also got to see some old friends, Pam Wall and Matt Rutherford. We had an |
| 1:15.7 | awesome night of Indian food telling sailing stories with them. And we met Eve Gellina, |
| 1:21.1 | whose book we published around the world was Jean de Sude. Eve was there selling books, |
| 1:25.6 | talking, and yeah, I just finished up the podcast |
| 1:28.8 | run on sailing stories with Eve. So check that out if you haven't heard it yet. Got to meet |
| 1:33.6 | Eve's wife, Celine, and then had a really nice dinner with James and Marianne. Thanks to Marianne |
| 1:39.0 | for speaking French with Celine and Eve, which we could not keep up with. |
| 1:46.0 | Anyway, it was an awesome time in Toronto. |
| 1:48.9 | We just got back yesterday in Sweden. |
... |
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