Martin was brought up in Essex and frequented Maldon where he became interested in the fleet of Thames sailing barges. From 2000 or so seagoing barges in the 19th and early 20th centuries to about 50 in 1960, these unique craft were the last sail trading cargo vessels in Europe with one continuing to trade under sail alone until 1970. Most became charter vessels or private yachts. Martin started sailing as a child on the River Blackwater on a gaff rigged sloop in the 1960's seeing many barges being restored to sail.
Friendship with Tony Ellis who was a founder of the Society for Spritsail Barge Research and the architect of the Cambria Trust and joining the Thames Barge Sailing Club led Martin as a 16 year old school boy to spend many years sailing on numerous barges and working on the restoration and operating of Pudge and Centaur as a volunteer, mate and committee member and officer of the Club and its successor the Thames Sailing Barge Trust. 
Interested in all kinds of sailing he took all opportunities to sail in craft from dinghies to square riggers. Sailed as a mate on Thames barges from 1980 to 2005 as often as his family life and career allowed.
Together with Peter Boss and Brian Dawson, Martin was one of the founding trustees of the Trust in 2003 which took over ownership of Pudge and Centaur as a charity and this opened the path to Lottery funding. The Trust preserves and sails two barges and has a unique training scheme to preserve the traditions and skills of the sailormen. In 2003 with others he bought the steel sailing barge Wyvenhoe and operated her as a charter barge until 2014 gaining his MCA Sailing Barge Masters Certificate in 2005. 
As a skipper Martin sailed Wyvenhoe from a London base at St Katharine's Dock and Maldon and Ipswich. He has sailed many miles on the Thames estuary and various ports and rivers on the Suffolk, Essex and Kent coasts between Lowestoft and Ramsgate. As a barge mate from 1980 and since 2005 skippering Pudge and Centaur as well as Wyvenhoe. He knows these waters very well because he has sailed them since childhood. It is true to say that Martin has been something of a sailing barge fanatic, but he also always had an interest in multihulls that started with Wharrams but has now brought him to Trilogy III. Aged 68 he has sailed Trilogy III while based in the Solent and now in his home waters of Essex, since 2015. It is no coincidence that Martins sailing life has taken him from working on and maintaining timber boats to a large steel vessel, on to the choice of a yacht with grp foam sandwich construction which he loves due to the absence of rot, or rust!