For sale: Grit, Determination, Endurance

Chris Stanmore-Major, an experienced sailor and instructor, is The Mariner on social media. In an effort to further fund his adventures, he is testing the proverb, “One man’s trash is another man’s treasure”:

This is not just sailcloth. It’s a talisman of Tenacity

Built at the turn of the millennium, this mainsail carried Dominique Wavre through two Vendee Globe races (5th and 4th places) and across countless miles of ocean.

Then it sat waiting—for nearly a decade—until I bought Dominique’s IMOCA in 2015 and brought her back to life.

To follow that story on YouTube, click here.

On my solo transatlantic back to Canada, the mainsail I had bought the boat with ripped in pieces. That is when I opened the dirty green bag, I had hurriedly lashed down on the back deck marked simply, ‘Old Main’.

It took me 20 hours to change sails in the middle of the ocean, each weighed about 200kgs/ 440lbs each, and I had to recut all the battens and exchange all the hardware. I made Nova Scotia in 12 days, start to finish, including the stop, and so my awe at the resilience and fortitude of this sail began.

Since then, this same sail has kept going when all others failed, even racing the Newport Bermuda in 2024, when it saved my ass, after Osprey’s (much younger) mainsail flew apart.

Right now, as I write this, 1000 nm out in the Atlantic, two decades after it should have been retired, it’s pushing one last time. Laminate shreds keep ripping off, flying loose into the darkness, seams are inches apart, ripping under the strain of deep reefs, but as ever, it is indefatigable.

It is driving us headlong at speeds up to 15 knots, powering through the last rough miles toward Europe, where its successor waits to take me, solo & non-stop, West around the world.

So here it is: $100 for a physical piece of sailing history to support my onward voyages with Osprey; your part of the sail that would not die.

100,000 nm and twice around the world with Dominique, and then two solo transats and the 2024 Newport Bermuda Race with me, after a decade forgotten in a dirty old sailbag.

Unyielding and faithful to the end, what else can anyone ask?

If you need something to hold in your hands, or to look at on the wall when the road gets hard, something to remind you what Grit, Determination, and Endurance look like: This is it.

You will receive an 8″ x 10″ square of cloth, cut by hand, by me in La Rochelle where this sail started it’s life, labeled with its story & signed.

Thank you for your support. Together we are indomitable.