A boat crew in Whitehaven is set to combine sailing experiences with mental health coaching.
Seaclan, run by James Lovett and his partner Lisa Gallimore, originally from Portsmouth, is planning to run mental health-oriented sailing trips from Whitehaven Marina.
The duo first settled in Whitehaven six months ago after James stumbled across the marina while sailing back from Scotland.
Now they are settling in the area, James and Lisa are planning to combine James’ experience in mental health coaching with sailing, in the form of daytrips or weekend retreats.
James, who has been sailing since he was a child, said his inspiration to offer mental health oriented sailing trips has come his own experiences and time spent working with people on boats over the years.
James said: “I come from quite a line of it, I was in the Royal Fleet Auxillary, my father was in the navy and grandfather was in the Merchant Navy and so on and so forth.
“But I’ve always been a sailor, but my other business has been in psychology, therapy and coaching, I’m an advanced coach in stress management and a performance coach in advanced hypnotherapy.
“I’ve always wanted to bring the two together because taking people out to sea has a profound effect on them.
“I think that effect happens for several reasons, statistics have shown that just being around the sea, people have better mental health and also at sea you only have nature.
“There’s no emails or phone calls, there’s nothing you’d have in a social situation on land. It can be raw, brutal and very unfair, but it takes away all the fluff, if you like.
“You also tend to find it’s all encompassing at sea, you don’t worry about your problems on land and it’s fairly a unique situation where you have to be part of a very small group and at the same time you have to individually face your own fears and issues.”
James set up Seaclan in 2020, off the back of the pandemic, after he previously had a community interest company offering sailing experiences to homeless people.
He said: “When we were in Liverpool we set up a community interest company where we were taking homeless people out on the boat, but that stopped with Covid, then we found Whitehaven and fell in love with it and came this way.
“But I had quite a lot of issues when I was younger. I travelled a lot and was in the forces and visited lots of countries and places and met new people and it was really about understanding life and putting it back together.
“Once I did that for myself, I realised I was able to do it for others. So it really started off doing jobs being a skipper on big yachts for wealthy people and I’d end up coaching them until I realised what I had used to get me into a good place I could help others with.
“Most of the work I do I’ve empirically tested over the years.”
Alongside their plans to offer mental-health oriented sailing trips, they also offer skipper training, leisure sailing experiences and different kinds of courses for boat owners looking to sharpen their skills.
While Seaclan is a business, James said he saw it more as a community venture and was hoping to connect with local organisations further down the line.
He added: “The idea behind it was wanting to build a community. Obviously we’re a business and have to make some money at end of day, but it’s really about community.
“It’s about when we can and when it works, getting some people out on the boat who would really benefit from getting away and having this sort of effect on their life.
“Many people do this once and it changes their life and they’re hooked.
“We had a guy an oldish chap who had terminal cancer and it had been his life dream to come out and to go sailing so we took him out on a couple of trips and he said it completed him.
“Another chap we had was completely homeless with drug issues and so on and he started working with us and went out on trips a couple of times and then he went off and did some work to actually turn his life around.
“Once you get in a situation where there’s no point in ego anymore or no need to wear any masks then it’s quite liberating to just be yourself.”
James said he has been overwhelmed at the level of support for Seaclan he has already received locally.
He added: “As well as a commercial skipper I’m a RYA commercial yachting instructor, so when we came to Whitehaven, we wanted a coded boat, that means if you want to take people out, the boat has to reach certain safety standards, and we’ve just about finished that now.
“I got in touch with Whitehaven Harbour Commissioners and they’ve been extremely supportive, it’s been amazing to come here and get so much support, we’re still finding our feet, but it’s been great so far.
“I’ve been overwhelmed by all the support in Whitehaven and public response and I’m hoping in time we’ll start connecting with groups around here as we get to know people and hopefully have some open days soon and get some people down here.”
Leisure sailing experiences and courses will start in April and James said he is planning to update his website to reflect their plans for
