When the rum bottle falls over

Harbour rots ships and men – and I had spent long enough in harbour painting the decks, trying to work out why the anchor windlass has a mind of its own…

All I want to do is to get going. If I could head for the Channel Islands tomorrow, I’d be off like a shot. However, despite all the lists of things to do, I had completely forgotten that I passed my radio operator’s exam in 1987, have long since lost it and anyway a lot seems to have changed since.

Now I am due at the Shearwater Sailing School in Woolverstone on Sunday to take it again (and I have homework to do first). In other words, I couldn’t go far – but I just had to go somewhere.

This is why, for no particular reason other than the thrill of it, I hoisted the anchor (and a good deal of mud) out of the River Stour and set off for Mersea Island, some 30 miles round the coast. It really was the most wonderful feeling. For one thing Samsara is a much faster boat than I realised – certainly faster than I remember Largo used to be. Maybe it’s the feathering propeller – maybe modern sails make all the difference but coming out of Felixstowe and across to the Naze we were clocking more than seven knots and overhauling much bigger boats (all of which seemed to have in-mast furling).

There was a fresh wind blowing out the South West, a blue sky with fluffy white clouds and I discovered that one of the most useful features of AIS* is that it makes a much more precise business of choosing to declare a race against another boat which just happens to be going the same way. Now you don’t need those discussions with the crew (in my case, imaginary crew) about whether you really are overhauling her (or, come to that, weathering on her).

Now all you need to do is look at the screen and you get the other vessel’s course and speed. It does spoil a good argument, though…

Of course, as the wind picked up and the other boat wound in a bit more of his in-mast furling (probably on an electric winch), I had to clamber back and forth to the mast to take in a reef – and I’m still working out the best way to do it.

I was just beginning to feel that my new system wasn’t quite as foolproof as I imagined when The End of the World approached from the starboard bow. If you’ve seen a line squall coming at you across open water, you will know what I mean. I might have been under a blue sky, but to windward, all was shades of grey with a grey curtain extending down from the clouds to the sea.

Abandoning all thought of the first reef, I raced through my new system to tie in the second – and was just about to put four rolls in the already working-sized jib, when it hit.

Samsara went with it, putting more than half her side deck under water. She came up, of course, and accelerated but she was still over-pressed. This was solid wind – and not a good thing with the Wallet sandbank close under our lee. If I tacked now, I could get away into clear water and also use the tack to put those four rolls into jib.

All was going according to plan and I was sweating in the main when there was an odd noise. It was rather like the creaking of a rope under extreme load – but not quite… I looked up to the block at the end of the boom. That was where the strain would be.

And then, thinking at first that there was an unpleasant dirty mark on the sail, I realised that what I was seeing was grey cloud… through the sail. There was a horizontal split maybe 10cms long just above the second reef pennant.

The first thought, of course, was whether the whole thing was about to go. The instant solution was to get it down. All clear with nothing under the lee, I wrestled the whole sail onto the boom and tied it down, all the while gritting my teeth (over the sail ties in my mouth) and waiting for the sound of more tearing sail cloth.

Of course, the wind died after that as the squall went on its way to cause more havoc further up the coast. For the sake of some sort of progress, I tied in the third reef and we sailed sedately into the River Colne with a tiny scrap of mainsail and a full jib.

Anchored at the back of Mersea Island, I have just phoned a sailmaker in Woolverstone  who can repair it on Monday. But I’ve still got to get there and the question is whether to risk a stick-on patch just to give me a full sail. If I have a decent wind – and a following wind, at that, I won’t need it. I have a cruising chute or twin headsails. We’ll see…

Meanwhile I was interested to see how things had coped below. Since Samsara’s hugely experienced previous owners created a wonderful sense of space in the cabin by dispensing with the upper level of lockers and installing open racks instead so that the saloon now extends the full width of the hull, there is a worry that in violent weather various items will start flying about. In fact, on the list of things to do before setting out into the Atlantic, is a reminder to make nets to keep everything in place should we suffer a knockdown.

Well, two apples took flight and I think it might be a good idea to eat them sooner rather than later. And, oh yes, the rum bottle fell over, probably in disgust.

 

*AIS: Automatic Identification System – a vessel tracking system compulsory for large ships and popular with yacht-owners.

The Old Man

Please yourself

This was written a few days ago…

I don’t suppose it would suit everybody but for the first time, I feel I really can say I am Living the Dream. This is what it is like to do exactly as you please…

Samsara is anchored off Stone Point in the Walton Backwaters – that maze of creeks and mud made famous in Swallows and Amazons. In fact it was here, more than sixty years ago that I first went sailing and began to become fanciful about living on a boat.

We are here because I have to paint the decks so I need somewhere quiet not too far away from a water tap (have to wash off the degreasing agent). I arrived a couple of days ago. It’s perfectly sheltered and there is just one other boat here – an old wooden yacht with the bluff bow you see on Dutch classics and a bowsprit almost half as long again. To begin with I thought there was no-one aboard (although there was an ancient dinghy alongside).

Admittedly I had anchored at such a respectful distance that I was looking at her through binoculars – and then today I saw the skipper. A man of about my age – although with more hair. He came out, did something on deck and disappeared without looking my way. But then, why should he. I was watching him through the window.

Today was not a day to go out – bright sunshine but a strong and bitterly cold wind. For the first half hour, I fretted about this. It will probably take me a whole day to clean the decks to standard required by the paint manufacturer… but then, what’s the hurry. My next appointment is for renewing my long-lapsed radio licence on the 29th.  I can please myself until then.

And pleasing yourself is one of the most wonderful – and yet one of the rarest-  opportunities we have in this life.  In fact, looking back, how much of our lives do we spend “pleasing ourselves”. If you live with other people, you have a whole separate agenda to consider – and who wants to be inconsiderate.

But if it’s just you – and nobody knows or cares what you will be doing today – that means you can, for once, please yourself.

I do know that I didn’t get up particularly early – I think it was about eight O’clock. I lingered over breakfast and pulled my one non-navigational book out of the bookcase (it’s all right, the rest are on Kindle but this one has photographs).

I do know that I had several phone conversations with people interested in Network Marketing (more about that on www.networkmarketingblog.org.uk) – a bit of work does have to intrude. There was a text from Tamsin asking whether I would be joining everyone for the annual bucket-and-spade holiday in Southwold but I should be on my way back from the Azores by then. However, it will all have to be paid for (hence the bit of work).

Interestingly, I didn’t resent this at all because it was on my terms. In fact, it was exciting to see that the plan seemed to working – although one conversation lasted for an hour and ten minutes. I’m not sure that’s  a good idea – but we talked about all sorts of things and I was in no hurry to say goodbye…

And so, the day slipped past. Lunch was an occasion. I’m getting a real taste for large mugs of sweet tea with condensed milk. Some time in the afternoon, I became so thrilleod with the way things were working out that I decided that tonight will be movie night. This will be a first: I have a dozen favourite DVDs which I will be quite happy to watch again and again (must have seen It’s a Wonderful Life 20 times already). The computer is charged up from carefully monitoring the solar panel and I’ve got a wire to plug in the little waterproof speaker.

It’s not really that cold but the charcoal stove makes the cabin so cosy that I’ll have that as well. In fact, time for dinner, I think…

Friday the 13th

This was supposed to be a short stop. If you have been following events, you will know that Samsara and I arrived home in Woodbridge in mid-December. It was supposed to be just for Christmas and repairs to the damaged rail from getting clobbered by a motorboat in Brighton (not to mention my own foolishness on the River Orwell within reach of home). I had planned to be off again by the end of February.

Why do we make these plans? Has any plan actually survived a brush with reality?

First of all, if the boat was going to have to come out of the water for the work, then I might as well touch up the paint. I didn’t sound much to ask: All I needed was a couple of days with the thermometer over 10oC. And what did I get? The longest, coldest winter in living memory.

Then there was the sailmaker whose excuse was: “I’m afraid we took on too much work.”

… and the elderly engineer whose apology goes into my collection of cherished quotes: “Look, it’s going to cost me more to heat my workshop than I’m going to charge you for the work…”

So, one way and another it was Friday 13th of April when I set off.

“What time are you leaving?” said Lottie who seemed to think the correct protocol was to wave a damp hanky from the quayside.

“Oh, about 11 O’clock, I should think,” I replied with all the assurance of one who has decided to spend the night before departure on the boat, just to make sure everything would be ready.

And what didn’t I have? Possibly the most important item – and it wasn’t even on the list: Music.

Last time I did this sort of thing, I had a plastic suitcase full of tape cassettes (remember them?) Oh, the pain of trying to decide what to leave behind (Frank Sinatra made it, Fred Astaire didn’t). Now, of course, you can take all the world’s music on Spotify. Except my phone seemed to have forgotten the lot. One way and another, by the time I had downloaded it all again (and walked the dogs since I was home anyway – and taken that cheque to the bank…) I was late leaving.

Now, here’s the thing: If this was a strange port, any competent skipper would check the tides, read up on the pilotage information, have the chart ready…

If it’s your home port, you assume you know everything – at least I do. I’ve sailed a Laser around here every summer Saturday for years. I left (but never returned) with the catamaran Lottie Warren. But Samsara is rather a different prospect. For instance, a Laser has a centreboard. Lottie Warren drew 0.7metres. Samsara draws 1.5metres and her keel is most certainly fixed … as became clear when we reached the shallows off Kyson Point.

The river path down to Kyson is where everyone walks their dogs – it’s where I walk the dogs. This is how I know how fascinating it is to stop and inspect the yachts that misjudge the turn and spend six hours settling comfortably to an angle of 45 degrees on the mud.

By the time I floated again, it was dark with no moon and this is when I made the next  discovery: That the night vision gadget Tamsin gave me for Christmas is not as simple as the instructions would have you believe. In the end, I groped my way down the river with a torch until I found a mooring in what appeared to be deep enough water (it wasn’t, as became evident when things started falling off the chart table at 4.00 a.m.) But by then I was past caring.

 

Now, I don’t care anyway. On Saturday the 14th, I have sailed all the way down the river in beautiful spring sunshine and as I write this, the stove is going, The Frankie is on Spotify and in a minute, I shall get up and cook myself some dinner.

There’s still a long list of things to do and for the first week, I shall be holed up in an Essex creek painting the decks. But for the meantime there is an immense sense of contentment in the fact that at last The Adventure has begun.