Being fit and healthy didn't protect me from Parkinson's

My big adventure

It is only just over ten years ago that I was sailing around the world in the Bt Global Challenge, the toughest yacht race in the world.  It was the challenge of a lifetime and it turned out to be a very eventful and exciting experience. 

I volunteered for the job of bowman, the most dangerous role on board.  It was my job to hank on new sails to the forestay right at the pointy end of he boat, sometimes with solid water crashing over me.My work took me to the top of the mast, 85 feet above the deck, often being swung around like a rag doll, or climbing like a monkey out on to the end of the spinnaker pole 25 feet out over the sea. I experience being capsized off the West coast of Africa, saling Round the Horn and helming through the tail end of a hurricane.The following footage is of my race, but not of me. My boat was one of the fourteen identical yachts racing around the world Rough weather sailing Click to enlarge to full Screen.  This gives a flavour of what I experienced. In 2001 I was climbing at 18,000 ft in the Himalayas, sleeping in the rarified air of Everest base camp. It is difficult to think I was doing all that so recently and now I have Parkinson's Disease and my life is heading off in a new direction.

 Even the fittest of athletes can get Parkinson's

Muhammad Ali versus Richard Dunn 

Richard Dunn was a very fit and strong man. You don't rise in a short twelve year professional career to become British, Commonwealth and European Heavyweight Champion unless you are the best.  As a raw recruit in the parachute regiment, Richard soon proved himself fitter than the rest.He told me how, in a five mile assault course race over very challenging terrain carrying a telegraph pole, all the men in his squad of six, except himself collapsed exhausted unable to carry the pole up the final steep hill to the finish. Undaunted, Richard picked up the pole single handed, slung it over his shoulder and ran into the finish. For this remarkable achievement he was awarded outstanding recruit of the year.There is no doubt that Richard Dunn was an exceptionally fit and strong man who towered above the rest.But he was  no match for Muhammad Ali who was probably THE oustanding athlete of the century. Richard can attest to Ali's oustanding ability. "I don't watch the video of the fight anymore. However many times I watch it, I always lose"

Richard kindly agreed to become a Patron of Pedal for Parkinson's

Ali versus Dunn fight