From Wales Online

Mark and Suze Hicks from Tenby spent five years building the twin-hulled catamaran before braving the Atlantic

Tenby couple Mark and Suz Hicks, who are sailing around the world on their home-made catamaran Tenby couple Mark and Suz Hicks, who are sailing around the world on their home-made catamaran

You fancy a holiday of a lifetime, so you book a round-the-world plane ticket, a tour through Asia, or a train through Africa.

Or you could spend five years building a boat and brave the Atlantic with its 20ft high waves to sail to the Caribbean.

That’s what Mark Hicks and wife Suze, from Tenby have done. The pair, and dog Dickie, are now moored in Barbados after a hairy 2,800 nautical mile journey across the Atlantic.

Describing himself as a “lifelong Pembrokeshire surfer” 37 year-old Mark spent years building his twin-hulled catamaran, christened “Aleph” after a Jorge Luis Borge short story.

Speaking to Wales on Sunday from Barbados, he said: “I’ve always liked catamarans, they’re a bit different, and fast. The first boat I sailed – aged about seven – was a tiny beach cat.

“The idea to build one came about by chance. About 15 years ago I was killing time waiting to use a computer in our local library and saw a book about multi-hulled boats.

“I flipped through it and came across a design drawing for a Shuttleworth Catamaran.

“For some reason the drawing lodged firmly in my mind and festered away there until Suze and I decided to actually build one.

“Our boat is high-tech in terms of its construction and design and it took a huge amount of figuring out to turn the design drawings into an actual boat.

“It took us five winters of hard work to build with me doing most of the work alone and Suze helping when she wasn’t working to pay our bills.”

Mark did several jobs to raise funds, and Suze also did her bit, and she had no qualms about leaving wet and windy Wales for even wetter and windier times at sea.

“Before we set off I worked as a adventure guide and instructor and also a Tenby boat skipper,” said Mark.

“Suze recently helped our friend at Blue Sky Marquees but has worked in many jobs, from banking to shop-keeper to chef. Suze is a bit of an adventurer – a keen freediver, climber, mountaineer and off piste skier – and needed no convincing.”

With help from family and friends, Mark and Suze’s catamaran was built in locations around Tenby including a polytunnel in Mark’s parent’s back garden.

Because the boat was too wide for the roads, it was finished the job in a potato shed in Cosheston owned by a farmer friend who then used his tractor and a hay-bale trailer to tow it to the nearby river.

After a few test runs exploring Spain’s Galician coast, the Mediterranean and Balearics, Mark and Suze set off from Barcelona on their Atlantic adventure.

“We sailed out down the west African coast to the Canary Islands. During the leg between Casablanca and Agadir in Morocco we encountered a full gale with probably the worst conditions I’ve ever seen.

“We met our friend Dickie in the Canary Islands and after waiting for a weather window left on the 2,800 mile crossing to the Caribbean.

“The crossing was arduous. Unfortunately the conditions that brought the storms back home added to the giant pressure systems in the north Atlantic and pushed large waves all the way down to the tropics.

“We sailed most of the way with just one very small storm jib sail up and had to be constantly on the look out for large cross seas. On occasion waves would loom up to twenty feet above us.

“About half way across we encountered our first other boat – a 150 foot super yacht. I radioed the skipper and his immediate assumption was that we were in distress.

“Even his large vessel was getting knocked about in the crazy sea. We pushed on through though, helping each other out if we were down and finding solace in porridge, super noodles and the Jack Reacher books.”

For more on this story go to:

http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/welsh-couple-fulfil-caribbean-holiday-6593221