Sam Llewellyn writes nautical thrillers and
edits TheMarine Quarterly. He is currently
patching up a 30ft ketch
Flotsam and jetsamFlotsamand jetsamSam Llewellyn
M
y favourite how-to book is
an ancient edition of the
Glenans sailing manual.
There are thoughtful
essays on boat handling,
navigation, and careening (in the
Glenans world you sit at the top of the
mast until the whole thing lies on its
side, and stand on the keel to scrape
the bottom).
There is also an excellent essay on the
quantity of wine and whisky desirable on (if
I remember rightly) a 22ft boat carrying 14
French people. This is important stuff for
the cruising sailor, and is often overlooked
by authorities on British cruising.
Not, of course, that anyone is advocating
alcohol abuse when at sea. No, nay,
heaven forbid. What we are emphasising
here is that comforts are necessary to
beguile long passages. A basic comfort is
perhaps the Rule of Four: do not sail in
more than Force 4 , for more than four
hours, or with more than four people on
board. Which is fi ne until you come to
cross a fair-ish body of water like, for
instance, the English Channel, at which
point it becomes completely useless.
Victualling is vital. There are two main
kinds: the normal stuff of which breakfast,
dinner, lunch and tea are made, and
comfort food, for use when things are
tiring, boring or just plain out of hand. Thismay or may not include Fray Bentos pies,
Mars bars, Farley’s rusks or any other
childhood favourites. The object is to put
yourself in the boots of the French novelist
Marcel Proust, who was taken for a
16-volume walk down memory lane by the
taste of a French bun soaked in tea. Will a
bit of bread and strawberry jam bring back
fond memories of your dear old white-
haired mother as you slam through a fresh
breeze over a spring tide in the Chenal de
la Helle? If so, bring it on.
Less psychologically sophisticated
comforts will almost certainly feature
pineapple for the seasick (tastes the same
coming up as it did going down, as all the
world knows) and – this one from a
Victorian ancestor of mine who commutedvigorously to and from the Isles of Scilly- vermicelli soup, which has roughly
the same effect and looks like puke into
the bargain.
In a more spacious age the comforts
extended to the medicine chest, in which
the only nostrum which had any actual
effect was opium. This is nowadays
unpopular for reasons of law, health, and
safety, but Stugeron is, well, I suppose, if
you insist, some sort of substitute.
Beyond food and drink are the comforts
for the boat itself. You will have been
wooing the thing all winter, expending
quantities of time and money buying it little
presents. You may of course learn that it
does not like its new backstay, the radio is
the wrong kind, and the depth sounder is
sulking, giving readings of 1.5m while
transiting the Marianas Trench. Never fear.
It is more blessed to give than to receive.
Also you are a PBO reader, so you will be
revelling in the satisfaction of sorting the
NMEA to make the plotter gossip with the
VHF about the AIS while the radar sulks
halfway up the mast feeling that it is no
longer part of the conversation.
Engine enthusiasts, a cruder mob, will
take comfort from spending the winter
fi tting eye-level raw water intake fi lters and
making plans to install a battery charge
monitor monitor monitor before they put
the boat in the water, whoops, it can’t be
November already.
Then there are the notions of what
constitutes a comfortable cruise. Some
fi nd comfort in sailing from marina to
marina. To the purist, marinas, increasingly
popular but with a surprising resemblance
to fl ooded supermarket car parks, scarcely
qualify as cruising comforts. Their
amenities are on land, and we are at sea,
with books (pilot, guide, bird, and
thrilling), musical instruments if played,
and enormous lengths of line of many
thicknesses with which we will perform
experiments on the rig. An old-fashioned
view, granted. But comfortably so....
And we’re off. Victuals and fi ne vintages
stowed, we drop the mooring pennant.
Beyond Arran the horizon lies fl at and
pure, and if we turn right round the Mull of
Kintyre the whales will be demonstrating
their ancient skills. Point the nose to
seaward, intoning the mantra that brings
the greatest cruising comfort of all: To the
horizon, and beyond!Cruising comforts
For serious passage making, victualling is vital
‘Will a bit of bread and
strawberry jam bring
back fond memories?’
Nice picnic... but
rarely found on a
mud berth in a
draughty British
estuarynagelstock/AlamyGlenans sailing manuals, old and newer