A LIFE LIVED WITH BOATS
doing and to our horror a tripper boat shot
past us, creating quite a wash. Our stern
lifted out and dislodged the outboard,
which promptly sank without a trace.
Of course we were most distressed, but
amazingly decided we might just as well
carry on and race. We completed the
course, and I started to use our oars to
paddle back into the harbour to our
mooring. Imagine our delight when, within
minutes, a chap from the Sub Aqua Club
hailed us and told us they’d spotted our
outboard in the clear, shallow water just
outside the harbour. With good sense they
had buoyed it, and planned to retrieve it
for us! True to their word, they rescued our
motor. We of course gave them a hefty
cheque to swell their club coffers as a
gesture of our extreme gratitude. As the
engine hadn’t been running when it took
the dive, a check up and a thorough rinse
with fresh water was all it needed. Phew!
While we were located at Scarborough,
we met many folk who were far more
experienced in sailing tidal waters than we
were, and so learned a great deal from
them, which stood us in good form for the
times ahead.
Jack and I were considered to be useful
crew material. Jack was an extremely
competent sailor and boat handler, and I
never got seasick. I could stay awake and
alert until I stopped – even up to 24 hours
without a break. And in any case, Jack
wouldn’t go without me! And I could cook!
Because of our usefulness, we were
co-opted at the last minute to crew on a
converted RNLI boat, owned by a feisty
Polish chap – an ex-Spitfire pilot. We
sailed on the Tulip Rally fromScarborough, across the North Sea to
Antwerp, then via the Belgian canals and
into the Dutch system. Eventually, after a
couple of weeks having a really riotous
time, we returned via the North Sea Canal
and out through the locks at Ijmuiden, to
check back into the UK at Lowestoft.Irish Sea crossing
This was our second major sea trip. Some
years earlier we’d helped deliver another
converted lifeboat from Liverpool docks to
Killeylay on Lough Strangford, Northern
Ireland. Due to severe storms we had to
wait for 10 days at the docks before
crossing via the Gulf of Man to the Irish
coast. It ended up with just the owner and
myself (fit to cope) as the rest of the
all-male crew had succumbed to either
seasickness or exhaustion.
I steered the boat through the notorious
whirlpools at the entrance to the loch
whilst the owner did the navigation and
coaxed the old Ford engine to keep on
running – quite a feat!
We also delivered a brand new yacht up
to York from a yard at Whitstable (where I
developed a taste for oysters!), so we
gained a lot of experience, a good
reputation as seamen and an ever-
increasing desire for full-time voyaging.
At this time, I discovered a 28ft yacht that
I’d admired had come up for sale. The
owner of the proper, commercially built
yacht was planning to buy a Virtue in
which to cross the Atlantic solo. I
happened to tell my mother-in-law about
it. She’d often worried about her nearest
and dearest sailing in such flimsy craft
(her words, not mine) so she offered to
lend us the funds to buy this much more
substantial vessel. We were delighted.
And we did repay her, incidentally!Bigger and better
Now we were the proud owners of Black
Swan. This boat, built by Blanks Boatyard,
had a substantial main cabin, centre
self-draining cockpit and an aft cabin- more than adequate to accommodate
three growing children.
Delighted with the luxury of our larger
boat, we planned a more adventuresome
holiday with our friends, the Firth family,
possibly up to Eyemouth, calling at Holy
Island and other interesting places on the
way north.
We still continued with our local cruising
and some racing. Just before the schools
broke up, we took part in an important
race up to and around Whitby Bell Buoy.
As we approached our turning mark, I got
ready to hand our large orange spinnaker,
when suddenly all went quiet and Black
Swan stopped in her tracks. The mast and
sails were in the sea alongside! We’d
suffered a compression break of the main
(and only) mast!
The Firths, sailing nearby, immediately
came across to us, abandoning their
place in the race. Luckily the wind was
offshore, we had a decent engine and
‘At low tide the kids mud-larked in the harbour
bottom, tripping over mooring ropes and
returning to the boat mucky and wet’
Black Swan was a centre
cockpit 28-footer built by
Blanks Boatyard