Mark is the Principal Yachtmaster Instructor at Shearwater Sailing School, and has over 50 years sailing experience, 11 of which was while serving in the Royal Marines. 

Mark has extensive yachting experience of the East Coast, North Sea, English Channel, Scotland and Ireland, Baltic, Scandinavia, Iberian Peninsula, The Mediterranean, Atlantic and Australia’s Southern Ocean. 

He has also been a volunteer skipper for Adventures Offshore for 10 years, a sail training charity for young people. Adventures Offshore also enters the annual Tall Ships Races and Mark sailed as skipper on the boats during these events.

In 2010 Mark set up Shearwater Sailing School at Woolverstone as a RYA Yachtmaster Instructor and became a RYA Examiner in 2017. In and spare time he has he also still sails as a Senior Dinghy Instructor (advanced) and a RYA Powerboat Instructor teaching all age ranges.

Mark instructs in a fun, friendly and informative manner, passing on his passion of sailing and adventure

Vernon has been addicted to sailing for over 40 years and is keen to share that passion and joy with students and crew! He believes that the most important ingredient is ‘fun’ – which he tries to inject into every course.

He began his sailing career on Nicholson 55s in the Solent as a Royal Navy doctor. After doing the Fastnet race of 1983 he gained his Yachtmaster Ocean qualification and since then has been found sailing all over the world, from the Channel to the Caribbean, the Mediterranean to the Aegean, the Atlantic to Australia, sharing many of these adventures with Mark.

He has previously worked with the Princes Trust in introducing underprivileged young adults to sailing, and is now working with the RYA

Using skills that he developed on his RYA yachtmaster instructor course and has since honed on his wife and two daughters, he is dedicated to making your trip an unforgettable and enthralling learning experience!