‘I’m a Wales rugby icon who sailed to Cardiff for a night out but my yacht nearly sank’

Ex- rugby star Gavin Henson has shared a hair-raising tale of sailing his yacht from Cardiff to Swansea following a night out, an adventure that nearly ended in disaster.

The 33-cap international, renowned as one of the most gifted players of his era, recounted the story during an appearance on with ex-Scotland player Jim Hamilton.

Prompted by host Hamilton to elaborate on a ‘boat trip’ mentioned by a mutual friend, Henson began: “I had a yacht, a pretty decent-sized yacht. I kept it in Swansea but I took it to Cardiff for a night out. It’s only an hour, it’s not far.”

When asked who was at the helm, Henson replied: “Oh, me, I’m the skipper! Few of my mates on board, it was good fun. Get to Cardiff, night out, big night. Get up in the morning, and I didn’t check the weather, I just looked out – sunny – I’ll be fine, I’m only going back to Swansea.

“Out we go, about half 10 in the morning. Two of my mates on board with me, there’s only three of us. Out we go, and there’s a bit of chop. Few waves, but it was good. A bit of fun, you know?

“It was a decent-sized boat, a two-storey boat, it was quite high, it was like the size of a house. Four bedrooms, four en suites – it was a proper boat. We go out, bit of chop, I thought it was a bit of fun. Boys are like – ‘Wahey!’ – carry on.

“But then I got the tides and winds wrong. They were sort of against each other. So we had these rogue waves, but it was bad. I got up and I couldn’t turn around, it was so big. Think of the boat now – two stories – the waves were coming over the boat. We were under water for about three or four seconds.”

He continued with the chilling details: “Now that is scary! Then we come out, we’re coming down the back of a wave and there’s another wave coming again. We left Cardiff at 10.30am. Two mates are balling their eyes out, crying their eyes out. I was being seasick it was that bad. I’m hugging the thing, I’ve rung the lifeguard, they wouldn’t come out it was that bad.”

Drawing parallels with a famous movie scene, Henson said: “You know The Wolf of Wall street? When he’s on his yacht.” He added emphatically: “(It was like that) but worse,” and reflected on the gravity of the situation: “On my life now, it was worse. When I watched that film, I was like – ‘That was us! ‘ – how we didn’t die…

“I say two of my mates, the one guy has never spoken to us since that day, he’s had nothing to do with us. He just thought – ‘You guys are nuts’ – I have never seen him since. We get to Swansea and it’s 11 o’clock at night. We were fighting these waves in the same spot, I couldn’t even get the boat to move forward, for 12 hours.

“But it’s true what they say – you will give up before the boat does. Thank god the boat didn’t sink and just kept going. That was a mad, mad story. We got off at that pontoon, and the boat was an absolute mess – seaweed all over it, I lost a little boat off the back, some lifeguard found it like four days later down in Barry somewhere, I had to re-collect that, that was funny. The boat was a mess, it was terrible! That was one of my lives, I was luck there.”

From the heights of elite sports and its attendant adrenaline rushes to a more subdued existence, Henson has dialled down the intensity of his daily life. The Welsh rugby star resumed playing last summer, taking up his position as fly-half at Pencoed RFC, his childhood club.

Off the field, he manages ‘The Fox’, his pub in St Brides Major, and enjoys a quieter personal life. As Henson approaches his 43rd birthday on Saturday, he nears another significant milestone—20 years since booting the famed penalty against England which would alter the course of his career. 

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