The Plimsoll line is a marking on the side of a ship that indicates the maximum depth to which the ship can be loaded.

I started this blog in 2011, before I started learning to sail. Back then, I named it Plimsoll Line because I grew up wearing a type of canvas sneaker known as plimsolls. I didn’t know at the time that plimsoll shoes were named after a British MP who pushed for the regulation of the shipping industry in the 1870s.

At the time of writing, I am learning to sail, working as researcher, freelancing as an editor, trying to master buoyancy whilst SCUBA diving, and developing Salty Characters, a new sailing podcast with Captain Paul Willison for launch in late 2026.

It is my goal in writing Plimsoll Line to create a place where journalism, shipwrecks, food politics, sailing, data science, ecology, Japanese culture, hiking, SCUBA and black humour collide.