Nautilus member reflects on four decades at sea

'My husband, Chris, was working for Caledonian MacBrayne and I wanted to be closer to home,' Capt Campbell explains. 'There was lots of leave – two weeks on, two weeks off – and it was in this time that I started doing some trips as a volunteer on the Sail Training Association (STA) vessels Malcolm Miller and Winston Churchill.'

Bitten by the tall ship bug, she became increasingly involved – even taking unpaid leave to serve on the sail training ships. 'I had enjoyed my time on the cruiseships and learned a lot there, and despite some of the weather on the Orkney-Shetland service I had a good time, with a great crowd of people on the ships,' she recalls. 'But the tall ships were something completely different – much more than a job, more a way of life.'

After seven years with P&O Scottish Ferries, Capt Campbell moved from volunteer work on sail training ships to a full-time job as mate. She got her first command on Malcolm Miller in 1999 and spent four years as a captain with the STA, also serving on Stavros S Niarchos and Prince William before moving to the Jubilee Sailing Trust (JST).

Working on the JST vessels Lord Nelson and Tenacious has been a marvellous experience, she says. 'The vessels aim to integrate people with disabilities into the crew and are built to enable them to join in as much as they can. On every voyage, up to half the people onboard will have physical disabilities, but everyone joins in. They get to do all sorts of things – steering the ship, helping to set the sails, keeping watches day and night, scrubbing the decks, and climbing the rigging with assistance from the permanent crew, no matter what their disability. Some of the crews are really dedicated, and on every trip you see amazing sights of people who achieve so much with their disabilities.'

Capt Campbell says it is hard to pick highlights from such a long career – although she does admit that being part of the Lord Nelson's round-the-world voyage between 2012 and 2014 stands out. 'It was a massive undertaking at the time and was quite challenging in many aspects. We had some amazing sailing – sometimes at speeds in excess of 13 knots – and Lord Nelson was a great workhorse, ploughing through 60-knot winds and everything.'

That voyage also reinforced her love of the sea. 'When you sail across an open ocean and don’t see any land or any other ships for day after day, averaging five or six knots, you realise just how big the world is.'

Capt Campbell clocked up some 25,700nm in the various legs of Lord Nelson's circumnavigation that she participated in. 'I sometimes wish that I had calculated how many miles I have sailed in total,' she adds, 'but when you look back you see all the highlights within the highlights.'

There was one last highlight before she signed off, however. Lord Nelson and Tenacious spent a week racing each other around the UK in the first 'Battle of Barques' for three years. 'It was such fun,' she reflects, 'and it really brought home to me just what our ships do.' It was also rather good to finish as the winning ship she adds.

Capt Campbell has also enjoyed passing her skills on to a new generation of seafarers. 'We nearly always have a cadet onboard, and have lots of cadets from Chiltern, Clyde Marine and Trinity House,' she notes. 'I think all MN cadets should have the opportunity to do a trip with us – they learn so much. It’s completely different from an enclosed bridge; you are outside regardless of the weather and develop a much better sense of awareness as a result.'

Retirement is a wrench, she admits. 'This has been a job that is pretty hard to give up, but at some stage everybody has to. I learned from every ship I sailed on, but I certainly don’t think I would still have been at sea if I hadn't joined the JST - it’s really been something special.'

However, Capt Campbell won’t be getting bored. 'I am looking forward to doing all the various things that I haven’t had time for in the past. I’m pretty active, and enjoy things like cycling and yoga.' And she won’t be leaving the water anytime soon. All those years after sailing a Mirror dinghy on a reservoir inspired her interest in going to sea, she's still to be seen off the west coast of Scotland in a sea kayak.