The refit of the deck which was initiated in 1994 was finalised in 1995.
Many other things happened as well (new blocks, new cushions, new water tanks, refit of the Taylor cooker, new inflatable dinghy and engine.)
WHAT PRICE TRADITION ?
by Mike Burn
Why do we go yacht cruising? It is nearly as expensive as house ownership so surely what it gives must be worth a great deal? Yet, I maintain, the one feature that yacht cruising gives, above all others, is now almost forgotten, and the others have become poor versions of their former selves.
There are the skills so special to sailing, that most people refuse by motoring. There is the adventure, yet most people just hop from one marina to another. There is the chance to escape all landbased influence, yet people stay glued to the radio, attached umbilically to the crises and criteria of the world. That which yacht sailing uniquely gives is the chance to escape the clock and its disciplines, yet even this we have nearly lost.
Every day we drive ourselves to achieve,against a timescale. Cruising, as it was, removed that fearful taskmaster time and left solely wind and tide as arbiters. If we can discipline ourselves to do away with time we can learn to master wind and tide and find true cruising’s greatest virtue.
Alas, as Arthur Underhill remarked in the fiftieth year of the Royal Cruising Club, the infernal combustion engine has made us weak. We have opted for the easy path, and solutions aimed at making yacht cruising ‘easier’ or reducing the interference of nature remove the pleasure and challenge had from it. If one’s sole requirement is to get from place to place there are many ways it may be done more expeditiously than sailing your yacht. Alas modern day cruising is being reduced to just this, setting deadlines and ignoring the elements to dash under power to expensive harbours every night to rejoin that umbilical cord.
Those who have not drifted for hours in a calm, watching the weather patterns change while they read, or polish or splice have not known what I speak of, but the pleasure from this is only to be gained if there are no pressures; it is essential to be in the situation where “what is to be will be”. This is true relaxation, — the sole choice left is how to fill those peaceful hours from which there is no escape and whose duration is unknown. The light and shade of wind versus calm, activity versus rest, a rest that cannot be foretold and should not be denied, is the true essence of sailing.
I know what is required to savour the true enchantments of yacht cruising, those delights that make so many logs and records of early cruises such fun to read but I do not claim any merit for the discovery since I had it forced upon me and I am fortunate enough to have a boat with which the traditional methods can be ideally explored. I learnt my sailing in a gaff-rigged dayboat which would only go where the sails pointed, so I learnt the skills of sailing as opposed to those of driving. I learnt to get my pleasure from the act of sailing and to have my reward from the business of using natural powers to their best advantage for proceeding through the water under sail regardless of where I got to or how far I went. I’moved up’ to a cruising yacht in the same vein, but which had never had an engine. In learning to sail her alone I found the same pleasure in the act of sailing, a fizzing and bubbling joy not unlike the most intimate of human activities but which went on as long as the wind lasted. What need an engine in such as this? I taught myself all the skills required to get her to go anywhere under sail and when the wind did not blow lay back and amused myself with the sights around.
Most of all, as a man who drives himself always to be going, I taught myself to get full value from the-enforced stopping, it took time and was not easily done but was immeasurably worthwhile. The norm of maintaining 6 knots whatever the conditions just has to be the most boring business imaginable and to do it at expense and with noise and smell negates the whole business of sailing. But how about the getting from place to place? How to savour and get there as well? I can assure all that the getting there solely under sail adds a range of joys to the trip that are not had the other way. How, then, shall we gain the true flavour of tradition?
First we must change our attitude to the whole business of going, the perpetual forcing onwards, the ‘great god passage plan’, the restless desire to be somewhere where one isn’t. Indeed it is essential to learn to be happy where one is and to learn to gather full value from the circumstance.
Changing the attitude is not easy. One must, like giving up smoking, throw away the temptation. I recognise the temptation very well since to drive our 3 tons we have a sidemounted Seagull. It won’t work at sea since it is too slow, but it is there and could be used so the stress of decision is there. It is a recent addition to enable us to cheat in the early hours of windless mornings by motoring down our river to get out over the bar. But by its very use we have set ourselves a deadline — I can well remember the earlier disciplines of getting out of the river the night before, taking the wind while it served, and lying to anchor for the night, ready to pick up the first breeze in the morning.
There was greater adventure in this than the mad early morning dash down the river under outboard to which we have become enslaved because of its presence — and we sometimes lose a weekend because it does not go.
Those who go ‘world girdling’ have specifically abandoned the pressures of time yet we ‘three week holiday’ sailors can do so too if we can alter our focus on how we sail.
Since life is all about pressing on and rush we must learn to stop and relax. This is a most essential function in sailing, yet many people only consider stopping in the next harbour, are not equipped for stopping elsewhere and haven’t considered the possibilities of stopping at sea.
The most traditional method of stopping, other than that enforced windless one, is heaving-to. Most people equate heaving-to with survival in rough weather, but it is simply a method of taking way off the yacht in a controlled manner, with a set attitude to the weather and sea.
You can then rest. This is an amazing feature once you have learnt it. It can be done for 5 minutes just to get some coffee, or all day for a sleep. It can be done for thirty seconds in the river while you get the anchor ready. If you have missed a tide and need a sleep don’t be afraid to stop, with due consideration to hazards and others of course. Those who regularly do will tell you what a simple boon the facility is once the attitude is established and the art learnt.
The most obvious stopping method of all is anchoring, specially if you are making a coastal pasage. Anchoring at sea is only an attitude of mind and once gained then freedom is yours. You do need proper tackle and a stout point to make fast to. We cruise our 3 ton yacht on the East Coast with 90ft of 5/16th chain spliced to 150ft of multiplait, and have the 150ft of kedge warp to add to the bower scope if we want to anchor much deeper than 80ft of water. This method we have used many miles off shore, when the wind has died and the tide is against us. Don’t forget to use the break the weather gods give you to maximum advantage, eat, sleep, or correct your navigation and be fresher on your way when the wind does come.
Once you have acquired the habit of stopping by heaving-to or anchoring you can use both to advantage and give yourself much freedom. You can sail with a weaker crew because you have learnt how to stop and rest them. You can cease to drive yourself into harbours every night and free yourself of the deadlines of tidal entrances and the time so lost. But most splendid of all you can free yourself from the land. One break from the land frees your mind and time is replaced by the demands of wind and tide.
So, set yourself easier targets, and be childishly pleased when they come off as, mostly, they will. Be happy to admire the view and relax when the wind dies. Delight in the adventure of ‘sleeping out and learn to be relaxed doing so — the children will enjoy the adventure enormously. Learn the sort of places that will provide a good night at sea and don’t be put off by those who say “never anchor on a lee shore”; be prudent about it but recognise that most yachts can beat their way off a lee shore and if your tackle is good and well laid there are few conditions in these waters where you will be unsale, even if occasionally uncomfortable. Your reward will often be a spectacular dawn and a heightened sense of adventure because you are up and away before even the keenest. You will find that, by not having the problems of getting into and out of a marina you have saved a whole tide and are further on your way. A night anchored at sea in a blow makes a better pub story than one spent in the saloon ashore and gives you a greater mastery of your vessel and conditions at sea than you will acquire otherwise.
This point is the nub of the sailing matter because it is this that creates safety at sea.
To keep the sea and learn the way to sail (not motor) your yacht under all conditions lie as the bedrock of safety at sea, and has always been so. Safely at sea consists of as complete a mastery of our vessel as us amateurs can achieve so that we can make it do anything under any conditions (hat may happen to us. Reading the lifeboat reports one is more aware than ever of how many calls could be avoided should yachtsmen simply learn their crafl properly. Learning how to put the power of the rig to its full use and learning to use the elements to your advantage is the essence of safety; the more time spent on the element rather than in harbours the higher is your chance of success and sailing without the engine is a superb forcing house for this experience.
Lastly, do not be put off by your conventional friends, and all today’s arguments raised to justify the modern “6 knots everywhere” approach. There are none that are valid or yacht cruising would never have started. So go to it, plan your next holiday on more modest lines, without the engine. Learn to sail your boat, by taking only 1 pint of diesel and vowing to buy no more. It is curious how many cruises are spoiled by engine related failures; you will never need to put into port, and waste days, finding that elusive spare again if you can consign your engine to the memory locker. Set yourself the target of creating no deadlines and come back home having spent three weeks ignoring time’s relentless marching pace, which is the true measure of a cruising holiday.
So, what price tradition? Only the price of the strength of mind to make the change is required, even less than required to give up smoking. The gains in safety and tranquility and the quiet sense of mastery are worth the tussle with your hidebound self and the norms of the modern world; open your mind and try.
THE SUNKEN DINGHY
Wisdom is supposed to be knowledge gained by experience – but temptation is a wily mistress. Do we not all know that taking a rigid dinghy to sea is treading fate’s toes ?
I certainly do from hard experience but for our first outing to an Old Gaffers event since ‘Sheila’s’ restoration we did not have a’rubber’ and also it is such fun to sail when you have arrived that temptation overcame goodsense.
The results of this decision were not helped by one of the roughest weekends I have ever been on. The East Coast OGA Walton rally broke the long weather pattern of July and August with three gales in three days but for us in the Deben the Walton Backwaters are only just round the corner. This fact and two years not sailing relaxed disciplines and small mistakes crept in to the venture.
To ensure a sensible time for rising to cross the Deben bar we had come down river on Friday evening with the tail of the first gale behind us to take a mooring closer to the entrance. The dinghy’s centre-plate blocking piece, to stop water slopping inside when towing, had got lost and I had not plugged it for the ramping trip down river – but the dingy was entirely dry when we arrived at the mooring. This dryness led to a false assumption about the short sea passage that was to prove fateful.
We rose at 0600 clapped on sail and away down river to cross the bar to perfection, accessible to us we had checked at dead low water, on a broad reach in ideal conditions.
More false security here as the bar, for us withouf an engine, is always something of a mental rubicon and having crossed it with such ease we relaxed a little. With the tide under us and a crisp fetch Sheila was clipping along at 6 1\2 knots to bring Landguard point up in 40 minutes; exhilirating progress which dulled the caution. We had looked carefully at the dinghy, a lovely mahogany stem tender I had had specially built for Sheila’s 75th birthday 15 years ago, early on the way. It seemed to be riding well.
We arrived at the shipping lane with the usual steady string of shipping in view. The last ten minutes or so before crossing the Harwich shipping is always taken up with careful planning as to which gap can be got through or whether one will have to heave-to to wait. The dinghy got forgotten.
With 2 cables to go to the edge of the northern side of the shipping channel close in to Landguard and a nice gap to cross before a large ferry my crew looked back to see the dinghy full of water and close to foundering.
Here I made the cardinal mistake. Sheila is an Albert Strange gaff rigged yawl and she heaves-to perfectly in almost any attitude immediatly and with no fuss. I am completely practised in this art, use it constantly for many purposes, and its execution is second nature to the way we sail. Perhaps two years out while we gave her a mammoth 90th birthday restoration had blunted the automatic judgement processes that are essential in crises but I dragged the dinghy alongside, while still sailing, and started to bucket it out. The tide was under us as we sped towards the edge of the channel and the approaching ferry and, with the sinking dinghy’s drag, too close to one of the huge green cones that mark this channel.
Sudenly the realisation of what I was doing dawned as we entered the channel now, with the dinghy’s drag, far to close to the ferry. I ceased bucketing and tried to get Sheila to gybe round back the way we had come. The dinghy’s drag prevented this and in at moment of desperation I thrust the helm down and prayed that she would tack. There are many times I have thanked the ghost of Strange for the wonderful manners Sheila posesses; she did tack and we hove her half to. This configuration allows her to proceed at any chosen pace, in almost and direction, to stem a tide – or escape a ferry! It is done by adjustment of size of jib hauled aweather (it is a reefing one); adjustment of mizzen and main and tiller position (it has a pegboard) complete the process.
By now the dinghy had sunk alongside us, but we had escaped the shipping. Here began the desperate business of saving it. It soon became obvious that we had to be stopped absolutely dead in the water to achieve this as any motion at all made handling its waterfilled deadweight impossible. The crew was myself, very fit indeed but 53, my fiancée at 45 entirely new to sailing and her son, immensely fit and strong but only 13.
Sheila is not easy to stop as her fishlike profile seems to go forward whatever you do but with the main peak dropped and the sail completely free, the jib half rolled up and hard aback against the mizzen (a large one at 18% of the sailplan) with the tiller pegged hard a-lee she did stop totally.
But what to do. The sailing centreboard was still in the boat and this was pushed into its slot to stop water coming in the plate case but the dinghy floated just under water and was impossible to handle anyway. The situation looked desperate but the dinghy was beautifully freshly painted with its lovely carved transom and merely cutting it adrift seemed a craven course to adopt.
I started to think properly. We rolled it upside down and then as one side came to the surface I attached a line to the farthest beam through a frame. We then completed the rolling process and I attached another line to the nearside frames. With these two lines we were able to haul its gunwale just clear of the water. The bucket, our heads bucket and therefore readily to hand and of substantial build, was wielded with manic dexterity as Landguard point itself became ominously closer. We managed to get the dinghy adequately afloat to be able to set Sheila gently creeping over the tide enough to sail off this nasty prominence while we completed the salvage; she looked after herself and us while we rescued her baby
It took a full hour from entering the shipping channel the first time to re- entering it thoroughly chastened and minus one of the after thwarts, the oars and the collapsible trailer we use for its launching – and with much red dinghy anti-fouling smearing Sheila’s beautifully restored topsides. It was my fiancee’s first trip in Sheila at sea! We had two more gales to contend with that weekend and in each having the dinghy added an element of real concern and extra risk that also spoilt some spectacular sailing.
Three mistakes. One – taking it in the first place; a towed dinghy in hard weather can even endanger the ship herself. Its presence astern alters and warps judgements because of a natural reluctance to cut it free when the going gets dangerous, very specially in a following sea. Two – failing to take all precautions with its preparation by plugging the plate case with a towel (I did this promptly upon its salvage) and emptying it of all loseable items. Three – failing to heave-to immediately on spotting the problem. This could have retrieved the mistakes inherent in the first two and we need not have lost what we did – far less embarrass ourselves by an undignified shimozzle in the shipping channel.
Continual practise in such seamanlike activities as heaving-to is the very bedrock of safety at sea because we all make mistakes. No modern aids, no gismos, no certificates nor theory – not even here an engine – can make up for the innate one-ness between skiper and yacht with the constant practise that ensures adopting the correct seamanlike course when mistakes are made. I failed to adopt a course I know so well because I was out of practise so I paid the penalty of a modest accident nearly becoming a very grisly business. Mercifully I know Sheila extremely well from my 15 years sailing her without an engine and this harmony untangled the mess that resulted from my initial failure.
April
Gaffers Log – Spring / Summer
Gaffers Log – Autumn / Winter
