Tolis Pliatsikas was working as chief steward and head chef on a Greek merchant ship.  One shore leave in Falmouth Docks, he swept a Cornish girl off her feet and, when she fell pregnant, jumped ship.  Baby Jason in arms, Denise and Tolis capitalised on their combined culinary talents and opened a restaurant in the cutesy village of Mawnan Smith on the Helford River.  Jason’s younger sister Nicolle appeared four or so years later.

“I had the typical ‘Swallows and Amazons’ childhood,” said Jason, “exploring, camping, surfing and sailing – that was the way in Cornwall.  My grandfather had a 40ft boat and we teamed up for sailing adventures to France and the Isles of Scilly.  Sometimes he’d take a nap and leave me on watch.  At the age of five, I thought this was pretty cool.  It was only when I was older that I realised it was totally negligent – his response was ‘Son, the autopilot ‘George’ was always on’.”

By the time Jason was seven, the family upgraded to a larger restaurant looking out over Falmouth Marina.  His uncle managed nearby Port Pendennis Marina and his aforementioned nonchalant grandfather was a local yacht captain – between them, they had Falmouth sewn up.  Meanwhile, Jason was showing immense sporting prowess.

“From the age of 11 or 12, my focus was divided three ways between rugby, athletics and surfing, and I got pretty handy at all three.  So much so, that I was offered a partial scholarship to England’s most famous sports school – Millfield in Somerset.  Before long, I found myself in the British surfing squad, trialling for the England rugby team and competing for Great Britain in athletics.”

“Athletics was the one I struggled with.  I was a decent all-rounder – sprinting, javelin and heptathlon – and was good enough to win gold and silver medals at national championships, but there was something about the individual nature of it that made me anxious.  So, from the age of 16, I decided to concentrate on team sport and my life was all about rugby – and injuries.”

“Age 18, just as I was on my way to Gloucester Rugby, I got seriously injured and the contract was terminated.  My response was to bugger off and surf for a year.  I went to all the places I’d read about when I was young – Florida, California, Australia, Indonesia, Bali – spending my days surfing and surviving on a diet of banana jaffles and rice.  I was pretty big and athletic when I left and came back lean and 10kg lighter – Mum was understandably shocked when she collected me from the airport.”

Fully healed and refreshed, Jason earned himself a rugby scholarship at St Mary’s University in Twickenham, and in 2001 embarked on an undergraduate course specialising in sport psychology and rehabilitation – handy for analysing his aversion to individual sport and fixing up any future injuries.

“It was a rather boisterous few years.  A bit like being back at Millfield, living and playing sport with my best buddies.  In the end I stayed for six years, playing part-time rugby for Rosslyn Park and London Irish, and personal training on the side.  I also worked with local schools to try and change the way sport was taught.  It was enjoyable, but I could see I was just treading water.  Even though I was in my mid-20s with a steady girlfriend, I still lived with the rugby boys and was wrapped up in a fun London bubble that probably needed bursting someday.”

“A mate of mine from St Mary’s, Lloyd Bengtson, had left for France to look at this ‘yachting thing’ and said I should do it.  Knowing how my brain worked, he booked a combined STCW course and surfing trip to South Africa and sent me the flight details.  It was immense fun, aside from the time I had a gun put to my head in the Mozambique capital of Maputo.”

“I was a white middle class English lad in a car full of South Africans and, at a checkpoint, I didn’t have my passport on me.  They said I’d be chucked into prison for 24 hours, asked to pay a fine, and then I’d be free to go.  I envisaged certain defilement followed by painful death in an African jail and started to plot my escape from the car – surely my captor couldn’t be that good a marksman to get a bullet into me if I did some seriously fast sidestepping?  Mercifully, the guy in the front seat was a bit more rational and shoved a 20 dollar bill into his hand and we were on our way.  I went back to southwest London pretty shaken up.”

“Upon my return I got offered, through Lloyd, a PT job onboard 115 metre Pelorus – and a contract to play for Rosslyn Park.  This was a massive fork in the road moment.  Should I follow my childhood dream, to be a professional rugby player, or should I embark on a new adventure?  I had less than a week to decide, Pelorus wanted me in Malta in five days’ time.  The new adventure won.  I referred my personal training clients, gave my car to my sister, sublet my apartment and arranged a massive leaving party.”

The morning of the farewell bash, Jason got an email saying Pelorus could no longer take him on.  It was 2007, and the economic climate was changing – even for superyachts.  He was furious and wrote an impassioned email explaining he’d pretty much given up his entire life for the job.  ‘Welcome to yachting’ was the reply.  End of conversation.

“I couldn’t bear to explain things and repeat a sob story over and over, so I faked it at the party, got heinously drunk and woke up on my own sofa – as my bedroom was already let out.  There was nothing for it but to book a flight to Nice.”

“Back then, being a PT on a boat wasn’t really a thing, so I was offered some day work in Antibes.  ‘What’s day work?’ I wondered.  As soon as I stepped onboard, everything seemed to line up in my head.  I thought ‘I know this’, and it just felt right.  It turned out to be one of the most fun summers I’d ever had – and weirdest.”

“In September, we did a ten day charter.  Guests included former Italian royalty and a celebrity couple.  The male half of the couple immediately pulled me aside to warn me I looked uncannily like their deceased son.  Needless to say, the couple doted on me and I was asked to join them for every lunch and dinner.  The rest of the crew were not happy.”

“At the end of the charter they gave me a huge wedge of cash.  Before taking the job, I had 86 euros to my name, and the train journey to join cost me 80 euros, so I was down to my last six euros and on the brink of calling Dad.  I stepped ashore richer than I’d ever been.  It was my first charter experience and I thought they would all be the same – how naïve of me.”

“Next stop was the Caribbean for a job as a deckie slash PT slash chase boat skipper.  We spent our days surfing and hanging out in the US between trips.  Our captain, the awesomely-named Dusty Dial, was an absolute legend – so good that no one ever left.  I was ready for first officer, but the first officer wasn’t leaving, and if I get bored, I start playing up, so I had to look for progression elsewhere.”

 

“After two years, I went home, saw my family, took a job in Italy, fell into an open bilge hatch in the engine room, and damaged my neck, elbow, shoulder and knee – enough to take me out of action for nine months.  This put me at home for Christmas 2009 and my friendship with Anna, our neighbour as a kid, blossomed into romance and we got engaged a few months later.  Life now had focus.”

“Living in London, I commuted to short-term gigs with average captains in France and realised I really should be doing their job.  I hunted out work on smaller boats so I could get closer to the captains and learn as much as I could.  I also took my Yachtmaster in the US and studied at a maritime academy in Belgium.  I was ready.”

“My first day as captain on Mangusta 105 Samira was a rude awakening.  I stood on the bridge, the crew looked at me in expectation and I felt humbled.  I’d got the job that I so wanted, but was now worried I couldn’t do it.  Using the ‘what would Dusty do?’ method, I winged it for a year.”

“In September 2012, Anna and I got married.  She was managing actor Steve Coogan at the time and, in 2013, I left Samira to join her for the Oscar’s campaign for the film Philomena.  It was a strange but hilarious three months.  There was Steve and his then girlfriend Loretta Basey, myself and Anna, screenwriter Jeff Pope and his wife Tina – a strange English family holed up in LA trying to survive the weirdness.”

 

“While in LA, I was sounded out for a captain’s role on Sunseeker 90 Yacht Georgina and the first thing my Casanova interviewer said was, ‘Does your wife have a sister?’.  It stuck in my mind.  We went back to Monaco, I joined Georgina and found my captain’s feet, developing leadership skills and building up a charter client network.  We had a house in London, a house in France, and it all felt good.”

“Meanwhile, Anna was suffering from burn out and left her job to move permanently to France.  All in the same week, I lost two engines in a storm and had to be towed to a fishing village in Corsica, and Anna told me she was struggling with her identity and wanted me to quit and be by her side.  I had a boat to fix, a wife to fix, so I brought Georgina back to Monaco and, in June 2016, I left my job.  Let’s just say, Anna wasn’t there to pick me up when I got back.”

“There followed a few months of soul searching.  I sought the services of a counsellor, and a lawyer, with the latter advising to curtail my income while the divorce proceeded.  True friends reveal themselves at times like this and, after a little too much partying, a very good pal sat me down and suggested I go find myself.  So I ditched my phone, took my surfboard to the northwest coast of Nicaragua and surfed at sunrise and sunset every day for four months solid.”

“With no distractions, I focussed on myself and the simple things.  I journalled, meditated, and wrote a book – although didn’t quite finish it.  The surf-yoga retreat, Coco Loco Eco Resort, invested heavily in the local community and we worked on projects to provide clean drinking water and improve infrastructure.  Being of service, seeing the other side of the coin, with some amazing people, was the most valuable experience of my life so far.  I followed the lawyer’s counsel to the letter and spent every cent – confident I could earn it all again.”

“With a fresh, clean slate, I drafted my life plan on a vision board and within seven days it all came together.  An American guy had purchased a Mangusta 110 and she was in refit in Italy.  I spent a year and a half running her, first in Italy, before bringing her back to Miami.  He didn’t use the yacht much, but took me under his wing and introduced me to his friends.  I found myself living on Star Island with Will Smith on one side and Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs on the other.  In time, the Miami life was wearing a little thin and the crew got disenchanted, as did I.  I left in spring 2018, with another smashed shoulder.”

“Loretta, now married to The Honourable Nathaniel Rothschild, got back in touch and declared that I was a ‘good guy’ and I needed to be found a ‘good woman’.  I told her ‘no models, no actresses or LA madness please’ and jumped on a plane to spend a bit of time as a houseguest in LA.  Soon, I was dating their personal trainer.  She came to stay with me in France, but it quickly became apparent that she wasn’t going to cope outside America and wanted to move to Dallas.  So I was basically a single ‘captain without a ship’ for summer 2018.  And then, Mangusta 130 Veni Vidi Vici came along.”

“I spent seven months in a cold boat shed in rainy Viareggio learning a lot about Italian workplace politics.  They seemed to put an awful lot of energy into explaining why things hadn’t been done, and I couldn’t help feeling that energy would be better directed into actually doing those things.  To top it off, that Christmas, my grandad, the guy who had introduced me to the ocean, got sick very suddenly.  I remember driving from Viareggio to Brittany in a bit of a pickle and missing the old boy by two hours.  This was another defining moment, so I doubled down on work.  It was an epic experience, being alone, up against it, and fighting the good fight.  And, with the help of a great mentor, we got the refit wrapped up and Veni Vidi Vici was crewed up and launched.”

“Then followed a mental last-minute back-to-back summer charter season, doing Sardinia, Capri, Corsica, repeat.  We hosted top quality people, young fun clients, and I attacked the job with great gusto.  I had the energy, the drive, and nothing was pulling me in another direction.  Clearly my enthusiasm and spirit paid off, as I won The Islander magazine-sponsored Captain (Master 500GT) Category at The Crew Awards 2019.  I was totally blown away to even be nominated.  I only wish my grandad could have seen it.”

“The secret to a good crew is to be on your game when you’re employing them.  You have to get the right characters.  Veni Vidi Vici has six crew and we have a nice family ethic.  Larger boats don’t appeal to me right now, as they can be too corporate and don’t necessarily fit with my style of leadership.  I invest in my crew, focus on what they’re good at and help them fulfil their potential.  As an example, I am rubbish with figures, but my chief stew loves them.  She gets to do the number crunching and we’re both happy.  The unavoidable truth is that people don’t stay on boats forever, each is a stepping stone to the next, and I want to help them develop skills for that journey.”

“As for me, I don’t plan too far ahead.  I learnt the hard way that strict set-in-stone plans can both close doors and lead to disappointment. I prefer a series of short-term goals and these currently include being the best Mangusta 130 on the charter circuit, doubling our income for summer 2020 and, in the future, keeping an eye out for a Mangusta 165 in need of an award-winning captain.”

Sarah Forge, hello@sarahforge.com