Richard Butler joins Bristol Clipper from Aerosystems International, a world-class company specialising in complex, software intensive systems for the aerospace industry, and is set to bring a wealth of managerial and organisational skills to the city’s yacht.

With 33,000 sea miles under his belt, since learning to sail aged 12, Richard has developed considerable offshore experience and has successfully raced in three Fastnet Races, one as skipper, winning his class aboard ‘Boozeroo’ his own Sigma 33 in 2001.

With many hundreds of hours spent instructing on dinghies, Richard is well equipped to provide leadership and guidance to the Bristol Clipper crew, many of whom are sailing novices. He will command the crew through a wide variety of weather systems which require the full range of sailing skills, from patience to steer through calms, flying downwind under spinnaker before a trade wind, to beating through the Southern Ocean around the Cape of Good Hope