Mark Wynter
Commodore 2014-2017
Born in September 1947, and after local schools went to Downside, a Catholic monastery public school in Somerset. After that, he got a place at Churchill College, Cambridge, to study natural sciences. Happily, the college was greatly orientated towards sailing. Most of the sailing was in Fireflies on Grafham Water.
Coming down from Cambridge, Mark joined a large firm of accountants in London and started sailing on Cherub dinghies at Seaview when spending weekends at what was the family’s holiday home there. Mark later changed jobs to work at J. Henry Schroder Wagg, and moved to the Portsmouth office, initially to help with an accounting problem and then as an internal audit manager.
He was able to live in the Seaview house and commute by ferry or hovercraft. At this time, Mark took on the first of several spells as a general committee member, and later as Rear Commodore (House).
He decided that Cherubs were a bit small for his lanky frame, and bought a part-finished Carter 30 in Jersey in 1977, joining the ISC at the same time. In the same year, he took part in his first offshore race, with Junior Offshore Group (JOG) to Deauville. Later that year, he got caught up in the ‘Half-Ton mania’ and ordered an Ed Dubois designed boat from Lallow’s in Cowes. Alchemist was built from varnished cold-moulded wood and always looked wonderful. Mark and his crew sailed extensively during the years following, sailing some 73,000 miles in her and making nearly 300 crossings of the English Channel. Alchemist took part in two Fastnet races, but mainly competed in the Round the Island Race and the JOG series, becoming both inshore and offshore champions in 2004. In 2014 Mark became Commodore and was, of course, not able to compete in the windy 2016 Round the Island Race. Sadly, Alchemist hit the wreck of the Varvassi when rounding the Needles and sank shortly afterwards. Picking himself up from this terrible blow, Mark decided that he was much too young to give up sailing and bought a second-hand but rather neglected X-332 in Spain later that year. The delivery via the Strait of Gibraltar was most enjoyable.
After a lot of preparatory work, Alexa was ready for the 2017 Fastnet race. Mark reckons that he must be the first serving Commodore in living memory to compete in and finish this race. He retired as Commodore at the AGM in November 2017 after a three-hour meeting – with some relief!