Since the 1980s I had been a devotee of the Aries windvane self-steering. Tough as old boots, the worse the weather, the better it worked.

The trouble is that self steering is so important on a singlehanded yacht that you stop thinking about it logically. It becomes an emotional subject.

Then, I broke the rudder stock on the way to the Caribbean and ended up sailing 1,500 miles with it held together with string. If I’d had a Hydrovane with its own rudder, this wouldn’t have been necessary (in fact, the rudder stock would never have been under too much strain in the first place).

Finally, I backed the servo paddle of the Aries into an underwater obstruction in the slip at Varadero in Aruba, and later it broke in the middle of the North Atlantic on the way back.

Next, it got tangled up in Dutch custos – and the long and short of it was that I bit the bullet and bought a Hydrovane.

And I have not looked back.

I was so pleased, I made a list to send to the company:

Advantages of the Hydrovane over the Aries and other servo-paddle gears:

1. You have a permanently-installed emergency steering system instantly available in the event of primary steering failure.
2. The cockpit is clear of tiller lines
3. In fact, if you can lift up your tiller, the cockpit is completely clear.
4. The reins or “snaffle lines” can be adjusted to the smallest degree. The Aries required a sharp tug to alter course by 6° at a time – so to change by, say, 20° would require six tugs (providing the ratchet engaged every time, which it didn’t always).
5. The Aries ratchets needed a lot of maintenance. They would get clogged with salt. If sluicing with fresh water didn’t clear it, the whole apparatus had to be hauled inboard and dismantled, and the ratchet worked by hand with WD40 for half an hour.
6. The light air performance of the Hydrovane is immeasurably better than the Aries. If there is enough wind to move the boat, the Hydrovane can steer her. The reason for this is that the Hydrovane rudder is semi-balanced, so it takes hardly any effort to adjust. Better still, any flow of water over the leading edge helps it to turn. Servo-paddle gears have to overcome not only the resistance of the water, but the friction of two or three blocks on the steering lines, even before dealing with the inertia of the ship’s rudder. Consequently, servo-pendulum gears require a much faster flow of water.
7. In heavy weather, when it is sometimes necessary to apply weather helm on the main rudder, an electronic autopilot working in windvane mode can sense when this is needed.
8. There is no paddle sticking out to the side where it can get broken by passing flotsam or pick up a fishing buoy.
9. And no clamp on the tiller to work loose and fall off at awkward moments.
10. Finally, the Aries paddle has to be lifted out of the water at anchor; otherwise, the whole apparatus “clonks” all night with every ripple.
11. Mounting a Watt&Sea Hydrogenerator on the Hydrovane shaft gets the former lower in the water than would otherwise be possible. This means the Sargassum weed gets caught on the shaft, leaving the propeller free.

Advantages of the Aries over the Hydrovane:

1. It is easier to get the paddle out of the water when not in use – unless you happen to have a sugar scoop stern, which makes getting at the Hydrovane rudder a doddle. Anyway, you don’t need to get the Hydrovane out of the water because it doesn’t “clonk”.

…and if you’re wondering why I call it “Hawkins” – that’s after Jim Hawkins in Treasure Island. I like to think he’s grown up now, about 19, a fine strapping young man standing up at the wheel in all weathers, never resting – and too polite to question my habit of huddling below when things get unpleasant

Other people argue over politics or religion. Sailors argue over anchors.

When I started sailing back in the 1950s, my father taught me that the ultimate in anchors was the CQR. The makers wanted to call it the “Secure”, but the regulators wouldn’t allow a name that could be seen as some sort of guarantee. However “CQR” sounds a bit like “Secure”. So, the “CQR” it became.

It was a revelation to yachtsmen who had only known the Fisherman – a fine anchor in rock or kelp. But it used to drag through sand and mud at the speed of light. The CQR was a “plough” anchor. It used its curved flukes – taken from the design of the agricultural plough, to slow its passage through the substrate. After all, it took a team of draught horses to pull a plough. How much force could a 2 ½ ton yacht exert – and 2 ½ tons was about the size of an typical yacht in those days.

Of course, the 1950s yachtsman didn’t actually trust the CQR to be “secure”. He checked his transits regularly. In a blow, he might sit up in the cockpit with a pipe of Navy Cut and keep an anchor watch. Father always used to lie to a scope of 3:1 by the leadline – never more. And he never added anything for the height of the stemhead above the water (although, in a Folkboat, it wasn’t much.)

When I got my first boat – the little 18ft Caprice, she came with a “plough” (a CQR copy), five fathoms of 1/4in chain and plenty of rope. I never questioned it.

Largo had the same – but 3/8ths. I remember getting up one night off Pottery Pier in Poole and wondering why all the other boats were leaving.

They weren’t. I was going backwards.

By the time Lottie Warren came along in 1992, Simpson Lawrence had invented the first of the “new generation” of anchors – the Delta. You can still see them today on charter yachts: They’re cheap and charter crews aren’t going to anchor anyway. They go to marinas or pick up mooring buoys (at the third attempt).

Serious sailors give an absolutely absurd amount of thought to their anchors. Samsara came with a huge and rusty artefact on the foredeck which might once have been a 35lb CQR but there was so much play in the hinge that the geometry must all have been shot to hell. I bought a 20kg Rocna – but only after watching hours of underwater videos of anchors skidding across the seabed without digging in.

That Rocna served me well – not least in Alderney in a northwesterly gale when the swell hit the harbour wall and shot 60ft in the air.

But I had three problems with the Rocna.

1. It was so big (and the 20kg was one size up on the makers’ recommendation) that I couldn’t get it through the pulpit to bring it on deck when I needed to.

2. It presented so much surface area to the sea when the boat was punching to windward that once going up the North Sea, it jammed solid between the bow roller and the windlass and I had the devil of a job freeing it.

3. It gave me nightmares after I saw a YouTube video of a Rocna failing to reset after a sudden and violent 180° wind shift.

After number 3, I conducted my own test in the Summer Isles off the west coast of Scotland: I deliberately drove over it at about a knot and a half, simulating a wind shift. There was the jolt as it plucked out of the seabed. I waited for the second jolt as it dug in again.

The second jolt never came. I puttered in stately fashion all the way across the anchorage until I was in danger of grounding on the other side – the Rocna dragged merrily all the way.

Now I have a Spade. I dig it in with the engine slow in reverse – gradually stretching out the chain until it’s bar-taught at full revs. The thing about the Spade is that it resets without breaking out. It keeps on digging – just in the opposite direction. Or so I’m told…

It’s called “The Octopus” because, you have to admit, it does look like one.

Also, like an octopus, it is very clever. For the cost of a single elastic band, it solves one of the oldest problems on a boat: What to do with all the bits of string.

Boats accumulate bits of string – and sailors are always needing bits of string (that’s why they never throw them away.)

But neither do they tidy them up – at least, not in a way which makes all those bits of string easily accessible next time they’re needed.

Instead, they tend to accumulate in the bottom of the cockpit cave locker, or at the back of the chart table. Aboard Largo, I used to loop them round the handholds on the inside of the companionway.

The Octopus is the solution. Any thin piece of line less than about a metre in length gets added to the Octopus – just push one end into the elastic band.

When you need a piece of line less than about a metre in length, hold up the Octopus in one hand, give it a shake, select your piece of string and pull.

You don’t need to coil it neatly again – just bundle it up and chuck it back where it came from. The next time you need it, just give it a shake.

I always thought the daftest thing on any boat was the three-piece washboard. I suppose it’s easy to stow. But have you tried putting in the pieces when there’s a socking great wave advancing like an express train and about to fill the cockpit up to your waist?

Maybe the designer who first thought it up was only pottering off to the pub and decided as an afterthought that he’d better lock up (great waves not being too much of an issue in the Twizzle).

But there are times when it can be quite a juggling act keeping track of the three pieces when you daren’t put any of them down in case the wave washes them away. In Largo, I used to tie them on with long pieces of 3mm line. It turned into wet knitting.

Short of rebuilding the whole aft end of the coachroof and installing a watertight hatch like a round-the-world racer, I was left with the one-piece option.

And it started off as just that – a great big piece of 17mm marine ply.

First, I gave it a RORC-approved catch – one of those gadgets which can be locked from either side (and just as important, opened from either side).

Then I gave it a pair of barrel bolts to hold it in place in case gravity stopped working (or started working from the opposite direction).

Two neat brass handles on the inside make it easy to hold and put in place from the cabin. But the really difficult part was a window. I really wanted to be able to see what was going on in the cockpit without sticking my head out – and this proved to be the major problem.

I approached any number of glaziers, asking for a small but incredibly thick piece of glass with rounded corners to fit the hole. Most refused to look at it. A new windscreen? No problem. Repair my patio doors? We’ll be round tomorrow morning. But a single piece of glass 195mm x 237mm x 17mm…

A company in Alaska quoted $600 (I was in Panama).

In the end, someone with a little glass business in Guernsey admitted: “I like problems” – and came up with a rather ugly solution which works very well – but in a totally unexpected way.

Because, you see, this isn’t just a washboard. In a boat less than 10m long, everything really ought to perform at least two functions if at all possible.

So, the one-piece companionway is also the cockpit table – and the piece of glass sits proud on the underside – leaving what is effectively a fiddle in the table for the salt, the beer can, whatever…

See that piece of wood screwed into the back of the cockpit above the rudder stock? The bottom of the companionway slots in there, is held in place by two metal pegs through holes which match up with holes in the companionway, and underneath the peg for the autopilot finds a hole which locks the tiller in place (while the tiller holds up the table).

So, in fact, this device performs three functions: It is also a tiller-lock.

And I must tell you, that there is nothing, absolutely nothing more rewarding than eating your breakfast off a table which you know performs two other functions…

…as a washboard

…and what it looks like from underneath

6th May 2026

Ben left yesterday. Ben is my grandson. He came for two weeks, and we did a circuit from Antigua to Montserrat, to Nevis, across to Barbuda and back to Antigua. He said we certainly had some adventures.

They started in Montserrat with picking up 20metres of fishing net. I wrote about that. Then, in Nevis, the engine started making a funny noise. In Barbuda, I put it in reverse to back down the anchor. There was a loud “clonk”, and the engine stopped.

We could go forwards – although that didn’t work out too well either – not since I had confused Enoch’s Beach Bar with Uncle Roddy’s Beach Bar. I remembered Enoch’s from two years ago – just down the Princess Diana Beach from Nobu. I certainly remembered Nobu. I had promised Ben a wildly expensive lunch at Nobu – last time, a cocktail set me back $12 – and that’s US dollars, not the East Caribbean kind (EC – as in EC come, EC go).

It seemed only fair: I had already promised my son Hugo a wildly expensive meal at Basil’s on Mustique when he came to join me in Grenada (actually, it turned out to be very reasonable, but maybe that was because Mick Jagger didn’t pop in for a Carib…)

Anyway, Ben and I had anchored within swimming distance of what I thought was Enoch’s – although inspecting it through binoculars, it seemed Enoch must have been doing particularly well with his charcoal-grilled lobsters, because gone was the rickety shack and the oil-drum barbecue. In its place stood a very permanent-looking two-storey building with upstairs dining under the stars and a terrace running down to the sand.

We had a couple of cold Caribs and established that this wasn’t Enoch’s at all, but Uncle Roddy’s and you couldn’t walk along the beach to Nobu because it was the other way and round the point where there wasn’t any beach, just rocks.

That was when I realised I had brought one of my sandals and one of Ben’s spare pair – both of them left-footed. I ended up hopping from rock to rock. When we got to Nobu, we felt we ought to add a brace of cocktails to the Caribs, but only if they would add a taxi to the bill to take us back to Roddy’s for dinner (and more Caribs and cocktails. Ben said Uncle Roddy did the best spicy margarita with ghost pepper he had ever tasted.)

So, you could hardly blame us for moving the boat the mile and a half down the coast to Nobu the following morning to avoid the rocks (even if I would have had a right foot).

But it wasn’t rocks that were the problem. If you look at the chart for Barbuda, you will see the legend: “Uncharted coral heads are liable to exist anywhere within these areas. Mariners are advised to exercise extreme caution.”

We hit one of them at three knots. The reason we were only doing three knots was because I thought we might hit one. It was a bit cloudy, and well before noon, so that we could walk to Cocoa Point to work up an appetite. You couldn’t see the colours in the water. Of course, not having any reverse, all we could do was wait for the wind to blow us off.

Then we hit another one. We were only doing two knots this time. Ben didn’t seem nearly so surprised.

If you’re heading that way. I marked them on the Navionics chart – but I have a suspicion they might not be the only ones. We took a detour out to sea after that.  Then I dived under the boat, but it was just a couple of scrapes – nothing that a touch-up on the antifouling wouldn’t fix.

Nobu did much more damage.

I suppose I should have done my research. I thought it was just a posh beach bar. In fact, I should have known better because I wrote about Robert de Niro’s Barbudan developments last time. Of course he was going to need a high-end restaurant – and de Niro’s Nobu chain is one of the most exclusive luxury brands in the world. Next year, he’ll have a hotel to go with it.

I couldn’t very well tell Ben he would have to do without his Princess Diana Rum Punch at $28 – and then it would have seemed odd if I baulked at Devil Killer Sake ($32).

After that, there was no holding us – and since Hugo’s inventory of my protein intake and the discovery that my vegetarian diet had left me woefully lacking, Ben recommended the Wagyu beef tacos ($65), and it all rather went downhill from there.

By the time we got to the end, and it was getting on for four o’clock, we finished with a couple of cigars and Hennessy (not the XO – be reasonable.)

Hugo and I had tried cigars in Bequia. I haven’t smoked since my 30s (when my pipe fell out of my mouth into the trough in the gents at the top bar of the Harrow in Fleet Street). It turns out it’s not like riding a bicycle, and Hugo and I just couldn’t keep them alight.

Nobu’s Chateau Fuerte Naturals worked much better. Maybe it helped that they were only half as long (but $50 each, all the same).

The bill, when it came (as they were getting ready to close), was just a smidgeon under $800.

I’ve stopped worrying what it’s going to cost to fix the engine.

Ben contemplates Nobu’s sushi

The bill for lunch for two (no, I can’t believe it either)

Martinique nightlife

3rd April 2026

“In the last 24 hours,” said the ship’s doctor, “you have fainted, fallen over and started another fire on the boat.”

Then he added: “This cannot go on.”

I started doing my” ‘Bu…bu…bu…” routine, which means that I have an objection, a justification or, at the very least, some sort of protestation to put forward – only I cannot find the words for it just at this moment.

So, I had better explain.

Ever since arriving on board Samsara in Grenada, fresh from the family skiing holiday in Austria, my youngest son, Hugo, has usurped the role of ship’s doctor.

The holiday had been marred only by the family ganging up on me over my vegetarian diet – or, to be more precise, my paltry protein intake. Since we now have a doctor in the family in the hulking shape of Number Two Son Theo, there wasn’t much I could say in my defence – and Liana, Number One Son Owen’s fiancée, and a fellow vegetarian, was no help at all.

No sooner were we back aboard than Hugo insisted on taking an inventory of my typical day’s diet and counting up every gram of protein. It was quite clear that I was woefully lacking in this. Half a tin of kidney beans… one boiled egg…a handful of pistachio nuts. These things do not grow rough, tough ocean sailors.

And, I must confess that over the past few years, I have despaired at seeing pictures of myself with my shirt off. What happened to my muscles? I look like an old man…

So, under Hugo’s guidance, I have started to eat chicken, fish and cheese again – but no red meat (and certainly no pork – there is a reason so many religions ban pork). Also, I cannot bear to face a plate of delicious calamari knowing that the Octopus is such a gentle and intelligent creature that it really does arrange “an octopus’s garden in the shade”.

Consequently, yesterday, at anchor in Fort-de-France, Hugo took the dinghy ashore before breakfast to buy a proper French baguette from a proper French boulangerie.

We ate it with two boiled eggs each and half a jar of Bonne Maman Confiture d’abricots – along with the obligatory freshly squeezed orange juice and black coffee.

The sun was hot, the baguette was full of protein, and the confiture d’abricots was as sweet and glutinous as ever. I began to feel a little dizzy with the excitement.

“I feel a little dizzy,” I said.

“Drink some water,” said Hugo. He’s always saying: “Drink some water”. I think this was his parting instruction from Dr Theo at Salzburg Airport.

The next thing I knew, Hugo was standing over me in a state of great alarm, and my shorts were all wet.

What had happened (and I am ready to dispute this – after all, we only have Hugo’s word for it). Is that I passed out even before my shaking hand with the water bottle reached my mouth. My head lolled back, mouth open. The water poured all over my lap. And Hugo went into full panic mode.

He phoned Dr Theo. Dr Theo did not answer. He was due for his face-to-face Zoom Italian lesson (Dr Theo should have a receptionist). Hugo phoned his Mum. She was in London, in the West End, watching Lifeline about the discovery of penicillin (very appropriate – Tamsin is a former pediatric nurse). She didn’t answer.

The Panic Mode now rising to DefCon Five, Hugo punched out a message to the family WhatsApp group: “Somebody answer the phone. Dad collapsed.”

That was when I woke up, wondering what all the fuss was about (and why my shorts were all wet). I felt fine. I said so, repeatedly, as one by one, every member of the family phoned back, clamouring for news.

And Theo went all family doctor on me: I should get myself checked out. Did we have an ECG machine onboard! I should at least have my blood pressure taken. Had I banged my head? Was I lying down? Good idea – a little lie down after breakfast…

It took ten minutes to get him off the phone, and even then, I jumped every time I heard an ambulance siren.

But I really did feel fine. It was just too much breakfast in the hot sun, and maybe I really should drink more water.

And so, panic over, Hugo and I took the bus to the giant Carrefour to stock up on sardines and pink salmon and French cheese – and no men in white coats appeared, so we decided to take ourselves off for dinner in a really good French restaurant (the “When in France” compulsion covering more than just fresh baguette for breakfast).

The really good French restaurant was closed (much to the annoyance of the man who turned up at the same time – he had a reservation). Never mind, we found another – and it really was very good indeed. I forget quite what we had – it was that good…

The only mouche in the consommé was that it had been raining – one of those sudden showers so typical of the Antilles in April, and the pavements were wet – and Martinique, being part of France and not your usual, somewhat basic, Caribbean island, has decorative ceramic pavements which gleam attractively under the party lights shining from all the bars.

Deceptively attractively, in fact, given that these pavements become dangerously slippery under an old man wearing Crocs. I fell heavily and got up to find my right forearm bleeding all over the attractive ceramic patterns.

I went into the place where we’d had lunch to wash it, reasoning that, technically speaking, I was still a customer (as well as an emergency). I rocked up at the Really Good Restaurant clutching a wad of paper towel to my arm so they would still let us in.

Anyway, it stopped bleeding by the pavlova.

When we got back to the boat, I dressed it in Elastoplast soaked in tea tree oil, and I’m sure it’s healing nicely.

Besides, by this morning, I had other things to worry about. The batteries were down to 23%. There’s not much wind in the anchorage under the fort and it had been generally cloudy. Breakfast was going to be courtesy of the little alcohol camping stove.

I filled the reservoir carefully to two-thirds. I placed it on the gimballed stove. I wiped away a few drops of spilt alcohol. I lit it with the turbo lighter. It burst into flames.

The next few minutes I shall gloss over. It is enough for you to know that the fire blanket took a long time to douse the flames. Hugo wanted to break out the fire extinguisher and “strike knob hard”. I said this would make an awful mess. He said: “Not as much mess as burning down the boat.”

The flames went out just in time. Hugo looked up how many times you can use a fire blanket. Answer: “Normally, once”.

I claimed this was a one-off because, in wiping away the few drops of spilt alcohol, I had allowed the gimballed stove to swing and spilled a whole lot more.

I will know better next time.

“There won’t be a next time,” said Hugo.

Doctors don’t know anything. Especially ship’s doctors.