It always amazes me just how fascinating people on this island are. Everyone has an incredible history as to how they ended up where they are and none more so than the delightful Ed Danby, owner of Marine Results here in Palma.
We first meet at the A Ma Maison birthday party and I get the briefest peek into what is to come. Despite being a little reticent to do the interview at first, Ed finally agreed and we set up a time and date. It was a beautiful day when I went along and met Ed at his lovely apartment opposite the Melia Victoria so we grabbed our waters and headed up to the sunny roof terrace to have a chat.
Born in Tiffield to a New Zealand Mum and English Dad, he was sent off to New Zealand when he was three to live with his grandparents. However he finally returned to England where he started boarding school and it was at this time that he came in touch with the marine industry. His mother actually sold the first Henri Lloyd jacket which brought her into contact with Robin Knox-Johnston, and so therefore did Ed. HE would spend his holidays doing pretty much anything and everything that Knox-Johnston needed him to, but it meant that it got him messing around on boats and learning the ropes. This is what he would be doing every holiday of his youth.
He started at a local Sea Cadet school, where he says he was a bit rubbish and very badly behaved. He couldn’t think of anything worse than being a sea cadet and having short hair. That was until he realised that he was missing out on all the fun water based activities that the other children were taking part in. If he was out on boats rowing, sailing and having adventure training then it meant he wasn’t in the classroom and this suited him just fine.
It was here that he began taking part in and winning regattas and for a while was onboard the training ship Royalist as a rigger. It turned out that splicing and rigging came far more naturally to him than academia and he threw himself into it wholeheartedly, even winning Cadet of the Year. However this didn’t help with his exams and led to him receiving a bad school report. But this was to be his sliding doors moment. Instead of returning to school he instead took a train to the north, stole a uniform, lied about his age, 17 at this point, and joined a three masted rigger and set sail for the Persian Gulf. The first his mother was to hear of this was when he sent her a postcard. She promptly enlisted someone in Gibraltar to remove him from the ship, but it wasn’t to be. Instead he ended up living in the Sultan’s palace training the Omani navy to splice. And the rest they say is history.
Roll forward a couple of years and he’d returned to the UK by way of a few different gigs in New. But it was in the UK in 1979 when everything really kicked off. His mum, who he says was a force to be reckoned with, was supplying the gear for the 1980 America’s Cup and he landed a role on the trial horse for Lionheart. He missed out on the Fastnet but in 1980, at the meagre age of 20 he flew out to join the team of the America’s Cup where he was tender driver, diver, rigger.
What happened next was a little left field as he found himself delivering a Swan 46 to the Caribbean, navigating merely by the stars. All was good and they found Bermuda and finally found their destination in the Caribbean, however it was at this point that they discovered that the boat was being used as a drug mule so he promptly hopped off. Finding himself penniless he quietly returned to the UK.
Here he joined Condor and started racing in the Maxis. He fondly remembers leaving Cornwall with his friend in his VW Beatle and discovering that Bob Marley had died, so they did the only thing one can do in such a situation, and pulled over and rolled one. By the time they arrived in Lymington for practice day, Bob had been thoroughly toasted and neither he nor his friend were much use to anyone.
From here he went on to the Maxi Worlds in Sardinia, the Sydney to Hobart in 81, take part in the Americas Cup 82/83 campaign, join Frumious Bandersnatch as part of the Southern Cross team and then on to sail with the late legend that is Sir Peter Blake in the 84/85 Whitbread on Lion. Lion finally arrived in the UK and they took part in several races from Cowes to the Fastnet and at 24 he did the Round the World Race. During this race off the coast of South America in the Southern Ocean at 3am the spinnaker stuck and he went up to fix the problem, however the buckle on his harness came undone. Thankfully he managed to grab a spreader, holler to be lowered down with just his arm wrapped around the harness. His guardian angel was definitely looking out for him that day.
The list of other races and events that Ed has taken part in is endless, including joining Chris Dixon’s team on KZ7 for the 86/87 Americas Cup where they won 88 races and lost 4. Sadly they were the 4 important ones. But regardless of this it was an amazing campaign where the crew was one of the most disciplined he’d been involved with. In the following years he was simply living the dream all over the world.
Fast forward 3 decades and Ed has been Shore manager for the GBR America’s Cup Challenge 2003, project Manager for Royal & Sun Alliance for the Jules Verne Trophy, played a key role with Team Group 4 for the Transat Jacques Vabre, completed two Whitbread Round the World Races, competed in three America’s Cups and crewed on Enza, breaking round the world record, again skippered by Sir Peter Blake. He has also coached and managed Tracy Edwards all female team, and fathered two of his very own girls Felicia and Tilly, both in the yachting industry and who you can see he is so very proud of.
This story really is scratching the surface as there are so many other death defying, groundbreaking adventure fuelled stories that I have written down but don’t have the room for. If you get the chance ask him about the Spinnaker with Sir Peter Blake or what happened in Freemantle or his time at the Shakleton Passage with Skip Novak.
Ed finally hung up his competitive racing boots thanks to a damaged back and set up Marine Results in 2003 with nothing more than a hammer and a screwdriver. As luck would have it, Mirabella, now M5, was in need of having her mast fixed and needed a local rigger. Step up Ed Damby and Marine Results. Now with a team of 14 they have worked on some of the most prestigious boats in the world including stepping the masts for Maltese Falcon and Black Pearl. He’s a self-confessed workaholic, and completely hands-on, but they never take on more than they can handle and it would appear that this is a key to their success.
As Ed says with a delightful twinkle in his eye: work hard, sail hard, play hard. And I think I can vouch for him that he has done all three tremendously.
By Victoria Pearce
Marine Results
