‘I kayaked the Shipping Forecast in memory of my brother’

Katie Carr found solace and joy in finishing an adventure started by her late sibling

The Shipping Forecast is popular poetry. It reminds Britons they are seagirt islanders, assures them order prevails over chaos, and freights into waking or dozing minds a sense of safety and comfort tinged with something darker. 
Yet few sail through its 31 sea areas on anything more exciting than a ferry or ocean-going cruise liner. 
In July, Katie Carr, 45, finished the challenge her late brother Toby set himself in 2018: to sea kayak the areas of the Shipping Forecast. Originally intended to be a project lasting one year, it took the siblings six and a half to complete. 
Toby was just 40 when he died in 2022 of liver cancer; like his brother Marcus, whose death in 2017 had inspired the kayak challenge, Toby had a rare genetic condition called Fanconi anaemia. He had completed kayaking trips to 16 sea areas. Katie added a further 11.
“When Toby died, he left me a book to write and an adventure to finish,” says Katie, who authored the book her brother intended to write, published as Moderate Becoming Good Later by Summersdale in June 2023. “The book was a huge project and when I handed in the final manuscript, I thought, why not learn to sea kayak and finish the Shipping Forecast?” 
“There are four which have no land and cannot sensibly be reached by kayak,” she says. “While Toby paddled in all the western European sea areas – Iceland, Faroes, Norway, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, France, Spain and Portugal, as well as those in the English Channel – I was left with all the Irish, Scottish and Welsh areas, as well as Tyne and Lundy in England.”
Katie – a mum of two boys – launched for the first time in Clevedon in the Lundy sea area in March 2023 and completed the challenge in July in Shetland. 
She talked to the Telegraph about the book and her adventure.
It was a dream of Toby’s to tell his story, but he didn’t have time to do so. He had a contract with a publisher, but hadn’t progressed further than the book proposal, which contained three sample chapters and a plan. 
I decided to write it because I think it’s a good story, one without a kitsch happy ending but full of hope. Toby was the last member of my family of origin, so it felt like I needed to do something special to mark that. Writing the book was the one thing I could still do for Toby after he died and a chance to talk about him in the present tense.  
There were hundreds of voice recordings, five books of handwritten notes, hundreds of notes on his phone and hours of GoPro footage. I also spoke to all the people he met on his journey to hear their side of what happened and their impressions. It was important to me that the book reflects as closely to what happened as possible. 
I spent a year working on the book. The first half was figuring out what he did exactly, plotting it all out on Google Maps, knowing where he stopped for lunch and to stay the night. Some of the thousands of photos had geolocalisation, which made this easier; some did not. I then needed to fit all the different ways he recorded his trip into one timeline. Always keeping it non-fiction.
The Shipping Forecast areas form the backbone of the book, in that each chapter focuses on one of them. Toby’s challenge was to sea kayak in each of them, and his journeys were structured so that he could spend time in some of the most beautiful places in them. 
In the book each one has a different character – not only because of the different look of the place, but also due to who Toby met and what he experienced. The book is very much about connection with others, despite focusing on a man in a one-person craft. 
Even people who have no connection with the sea or understanding of the information it is giving find the Shipping Forecast comforting. It’s partly the names of the places, familiar but still strange, partly the sense of coded information – and also the idea that in the comfort of our homes we are safe from all the storms and gales. 
All other nations with sea have a maritime weather forecast, updated by their respective Met Offices, but many of them are not broadcast on national radio, which means they are lesser known than our Shipping Forecast. Toby found an exception in Iceland, where people there told him they listened to it in a similar way to Britons and also had an emotional connection with it. Toby recorded the different forecasts in the countries he visited, most of them only transmitted by the coastguards on VHF radio. 
Being new to kayaking, I still find it strange that going out on a sit-on-top kayak on a calm river is considered the same sport as long-distance sea kayaking or whitewater river kayaking. There’s quite a difference. Toby travelled huge distances in his kayak – up to 60km (37 miles) in a day – often over challenging seas. To do this you need training and experience on how to handle the kayak, how to deal with tidal situations, changes in wind and weather, as well as a great deal of safety kit. 
What I’ve found in my own sea kayaking is that it’s a fantastic place to be. There is a great sea kayaking community in most places near the sea. I’ve enjoyed the special mix of pushing myself and my own skills while also working as part of a team to make sure everyone is safe and comfortable. 
I’m trained in expressive art therapy and I know from experience that creating anything from a place of loss can help. Through writing and researching the book, I got to spend an extra year with my brother, finding out about his adventures and turning them into something other people could read and enjoy. There were moments when this was incredibly hard – voice recordings and videos, for example – but I just kept going. I’ve completed large projects before and know the importance of keeping at it even when you lose your confidence, think everything you’ve done is bad or feel alone in the world. 
The one thing that helps get through tragedy and loss is time. The book and finishing Toby’s challenge gave me focus points for the two-and-a-half years following his death. They have been rather unique ways of being able to feel close to him without him being here while also challenging myself, developing my skills and experiences in writing and kayaking. 
The book teaches hope in the face of adversity, a love of nature and its healing powers, and the importance of connection with others. Both Toby and I wanted it to inspire people to find their own adventures and get outside, whatever that looks like for them.
Katie Carr is working on a second book and “further improving her sea kayaking skills”. Her and Toby’s adventure will be the focus of a BBC Travel Show documentary to be broadcast on BBC One and BBC iPlayer on September 21 2024.