winchman that he is alive. It would have been extremely dangerous for them. First of all managing to locate him in such terrible conditions, then managing to winch him up. The pilot has to keep the helicopter steady overhead which is very difficult in such conditions".
Mr Passmore was taken to the oil platform where medics tried to raise his body temperature before flying him to Lerwick. Shetland Coastguards immediately scrambled a rescue helicopter from Sumburgh when the EPIRB signal alerted them. An RAF Nimrod was sent from RAF Kinloss to locate the vessel and to be on standby should the helicopter get into trouble. Two Norwegian fishing vessels, one British fishing vessel and the Scottish fisheries protection vessel Westra also made their way to the scene.
Mr Passmore, whose wife, Tamsin, is expecting their third child in November, had decided to make this his last major voyage. He had previously made a transatlantic solo crossing, and he and Tamsin had resigned their jobs five years ago and set off around the world. He was a London-based journalist and she was a school nurse.
They abandoned their plans when their first son, Owen, was two. But Mr Passmore, who has two sons from a previous marriage, felt he wanted to undertake one last sailing challenge in his beloved catamaran, and set off alone from the River Deben near their Suffolk home in the Lottie Warren on June 3.
He wrote in The Daily Telegraph at the time: "This trip will be the final chapter and that is one of the many reasons I am not attempting it in a more suitable boat: I have no doubt that the choice of the Lottie Warren will raise some eyebrows in yachting circles."
The catamaran was better known, he admitted, for its home comforts than an ability to set records and bash windwards down the west coast of Ireland. This was to be his last great solo voyage. "If I succeed I will sail back up the River Deben with a For Sale sign hanging in the rigging," he promised.
He added: "I dare say there will be times when I shall be frightened and times when I shall be lost. But there is nothing quite like a dose of terror for sharpening the senses".