In some far away time, around April, I was asked if I would be interested in sailing in the Volkswagen Touareg King of Cowes Race. Unfortunately, like quite a few others in my line of work, I tend to express an interest in pretty much everything – well it would be rude not to. Then, later, if I am feeling particularly discerning, I manage to say: “No thanks, I don’t think I can manage to compete in an iron man charity triathlon this week.”

With zero sailing experience, I imagined that the organisers would probably expect me to have some pictures taken with beefy sailors and then on the day I would be one of 20 or so people on a huge boat, wearing a lifebelt wandering around below deck making tea for people. I had never been to Cowes Week properly and thought it would be a great way to see what the fuss is about.

Even when an e-mail came through explaining that the race was going to take part on Laser SB3s, with last year’s Cowes winners skippering the boats, I still did not have any clearer idea as to what this meant.

Here is what it meant: this race was like a Champions League of Cowes champions, a Formula One race in which every car is identical. The Laser SB3 is a keelboat, so it relies on the weight of the crew to stay upright. There is a 270kg weight limit. This usually means that three quite big men or three slimmer men and a woman take their places on the boat.

My first hairy moment came on dry land when I had to make the weigh-in the night before the race. When they asked for my weight in April, I naively put down what I always say I weigh and thought that they would take my word for it. Cut to August and after a week enjoying the catering while making an advertisement on location, I got home to an e-mail that made me feel like a 13-year-old gymnast again: there will be a weigh-in tomorrow.

Somehow I made it and spent the rest of the night being briefed and generally frightened. How did I get myself into this? With only one day of training in Weymouth six weeks before, when the conditions were awful, I had learnt little – not the teacher’s fault, it is just that there is something about fear and trying to stay alive that stops information being retained.

I always say I am very hard to embarrass. I like to look at every experience as a learning curve and even falling over, twice, when I came off stage at the Chelsea player of the year awards (straight into Carlo Cudicini’s lap) could not make me blush. I now know what embarrassed feels like.

I was posing reluctantly for some pictures on a glorious 70ft sailing boat, resplendent with brass bells and mahogany finishes, when a small, unassuming woman and her dog walked by. It was Ellen MacArthur. Who was I kidding? Imagine sitting a physics A level having never studied the subject, or lining up in a Wimbledon final with only a morning of tennis under your belt. I was as ill-prepared as it is possible to be.

I was introduced to the crew: Graham, who had won a class at Cowes last year; Greebs, the European Laser SB3 champion; and Craig, who had held the title the year before Greebs. They were friendly, but they wanted to win and had been given me.

My first job was to hang on to the radio as the race officials announced the numbers of the boats who had infringed the rules. I kept my talking to a minimum and learnt to listen for impending tacks to avoid being hit by the boom. However, I saw stars before my eyes when I received an elbow to the nose as the spinnaker was hoisted. “There’s no blood,” Graham, the skipper, said as I kept feeling my face. Which I think meant: “Get on with it.”

We had about 20 minutes between each race to drink water and recap what had gone wrong. For me, impending plastic surgery is what had gone wrong. I let the men debate, I pretended to listen, but inside I was trying to figure out if there was time for rhinoplasty before the start of the football season.

We made a dreadful start to race two and we were all but last on the first turn, before the skipper threw caution to the wind and followed his own route to the next turn, picking off ten boats. The tide was turning and the wind was getting up, but we finished ninth, a remarkable recovery after our awful start.

I was starting to go into survival mode – my legs were surely bruised to bits because I seemed to knock a knee or a shin every time we tacked. I had been pretty much soaked and the nose was still thumping.

Going into race three we were seventh overall and decided that we wanted a top-five finish. I say “we” decided very loosely – I was still intent on staying alive. There was drama at the start as all the boats were sent back and we had a restart under black-flag conditions, which meant that any boat over the line at the next start would be disqualified.

It was all over in a flash; almost every moment involved concentration and decision-making. Finishing fifth overall, the crew seemed pleased with our recovery, if not ecstatic at the result, and once on dry land the euphoria kicked in.

I had survived and the crew were still talking to me. It had been an amazing day: I was alive, my nose was not broken and my respect for sailing was well and truly in tack (if you’ll excuse the pun).