Henry Bomby

Henry Bomby is one of Britain’s most promising young sailors. The former Kingswear lad was chosen to compete in the 2017-18 Volvo Ocean Race, which takes teams 45,000 nautical miles around the world across four oceans and six continents. It was the realisation of a life-long dream, but also meant he got to see first hand the damage plastic bottles and bags are causing on the far-flung shores of uninhabited islands. Steph Woolvin had a chat with him about astronaut food, ‘screensaver’ memories and the romantic end to his round-the-world journey…

Henry Bomby was taught to sail on a reservoir in Yeovil on a topper – (the small sailing dinghy so named because it fits on the roof of a car). He took to it straight away and every time his family visited Kingswear, which he says was quite a lot, he couldn’t wait to get out on the water. He moved here when he was 16 and joined the local sailing club. “That was it!” he says – from then on he knew he wanted to be a professional sailor. He kept improving his skills and was soon competing in big events like the European Championships.

Then, when he was 18, he decided to sail single handed around Great Britain, a daunting task for well established sailors, let alone a recent school leaver with little money to play with: “My parents weren’t wealthy, they didn’t just hand me thousands of pounds to buy the boat and set off! I had to raise £2,000 myself and I was lucky enough to receive a £5,000 loan from Baltic Wharf in Totnes who helped me throughout the whole project.” Once Henry had got the boat he says it suddenly got easier to get sponsorship – no longer was he just a young boy with a dream, he had something tangible which proved he was serious. It was then that Mitch Tonks got on board. “He was a great source of support. In fact, I received a huge amount of help and goodwill from the Dartmouth community which I won’t forget,” he says.

Following that first round-Britain adventure Henry was selected to join the prestigious Artemis Offshore Academy – Britain’s centre of excellence for solo offshore sailing. He was one of only three to be chosen from 300 applicants. He was with the academy for four years and competed in four arduous La Solitaire du Figaro single-handed, multi-stage races. He was also part of the crew that achieved five world sailing speed records onboard trimaran, Phaedo3.

This impressive CV helped Henry secure a coveted place on the United Nations team for the famous Volvo Ocean Race, formerly known as the Whitbread Ocean Race. Henry had watched the round-the-world race avidly as a child and always dreamed of being in the competition, which sees seven teams travel 45,000 nautical miles, this time in identical vessels. “Every boat in the race had to be exactly the same with no modifications,” explains Henry. What matters, he says, is the money that’s spent on the salaries of the crew: “The team that won spent about £20 million, we spent £10 million and came second to last”.

Henry’s team consisted of five girls and five boys - the only boat to have a 50/50 mixed team - and the majority of them were under 30. They started in October 2017 and finished in July 2018 in sixth place. “We were actually last during the whole race, all nine months, until the final leg when we pushed it and got ahead. We were pleased with the result as we were the youngest team and it was our first Volvo race. There is usually a huge amount of preparation that goes into the race, but our crew was put together relatively late so we only had two months to get ready.”

There are 11 legs; each lasts three weeks, and teams are given two weeks off between each leg to debrief, prepare for the next stage and deal with any boat repairs. Henry says a lot of the time was spent in gyms with personal trainers trying to bulk up and rebuild muscle: “We lost a quite a bit of weight at sea because we couldn’t carry that much food as it would weigh the boat down, so we took the same freeze-dried food astronauts eat in space. You add water to the carbonara, roast chicken or beef stroganoff and hope for a tasty meal, but most of the time it just looked like brown or white mush and you had to really use your imagination to believe it was the thing written on the front of the pack!”

He says he had to work hard during the breaks to make sure he was in top health, but team members were allowed a little rest time to explore whichever country they had stopped in. Henry’s parents came out to join him in New Zealand and they explored North Auckland and Bare Island. His girlfriend flew to Brazil and the pair hired a car and took off for a week. “It was certainly nice to switch off for a few days. It was gruelling on the boat. We had four hours on and four off when we tried to sleep, but you were often called on to help with a tricky manoeuvre.” Henry says they sailed through some tough environments with water temperatures of three degrees Celsius. The conditions were so harsh on the Southern Ocean leg that a man died on one of the other boats. “It snowed and hailed for four days pretty much non stop.”

Henry says there were some breathtaking moments he won’t forget like the sight of turtles, dolphins and whales swimming close to the boat. He also saw sunsets and picturesque islands which, in his words, “you would normally have as a screensaver on your computer and never dream of actually seeing in real life.” But one of the most shocking things he saw was the build up of rubbish, mainly plastics, on uninhabited islands around the world including Polynesia. “It was awful to see these beautiful natural places being ruined by people who live hundreds of miles away.

We were passing rubbish every 30 seconds and it really opened my eyes to the damage humans are causing. I’ve been concerned about plastic pollution since I started sailing and the tag line on the side of the boat we used for the Volvo Race actually said ‘Turn the Tide on Plastic.’” Now Henry is Plymouth National Marine Aquarium’s ‘Ocean Ambassador’ and, as part of the Turn the Tide on Plastic team, Henry supports scientific research by collecting water samples to investigate micro plastics in our oceans. “At least people are talking about the problem now, 10 years ago when I started sailing it wasn’t even considered a problem. I hope we will all start using refillable water bottles and cups and hopefully rid the world of plastic bags – I hope it will be like the next smoking ban.”

Henry finished the race on a romantic note as he proposed to his girlfriend, Sophie, soon after crossing the finishing line. “I had just finished one of the toughest sporting events in the world but the thing that had stressed me out most throughout the nine months wasn’t the size of the waves or the lack of food – it was keeping the engagement ring safe! I did actually lose it twice but managed to find it and hang on to it until the magic moment.” (She did say yes by the way.)

The couple live just outside Exeter in an 1800s coach house, and Henry escapes the competitive world of sailing by immersing himself in the garden. He grows his own courgettes, spinach, tomatoes and peppers and hopes that one day he and Sophie can be self-sufficient and the healthy eating is obviously good for his fitness regime! The next Volvo Ocean Race is in 2021 so Henry has a bit of time to get ready! He says he would still rather be sailing than doing any other job in the world. “I am privileged to spend my working hours doing something I love. Professional sailors don’t do it for the glory and there’s no prize money – most of us do it because we are living our dream.”

www.facebook.com/henrybombysailor

First published in By The Dart magazine October 2018

Tags