I came to Cornwall to get away from it all, but I couldn’t. Four days of sailing on Eve of St Mawes, a replica 19th century Cornish Pilot Cutter, temporarily did the trick. I found myself hauling ropes and taking the tiller in various combinations of rain, wind, and windy rain.

But even the distraction of such challenging conditions was not total. Having spent much of this year thinking and writing about the UK's relationship with the European Union, I could see too many parallels to ignore on my first trip to the Cornish peninsula.