Yachting

CRUISING

38 http://www.yachtingmonthly.com MAY 2016

I

was glad to see the back of

Cherbourg. As the Napoleonic

masonry of its harbour walls

dwindled to a dark line on the

horizon I felt I was at last away.

I had bought a new boat there, Wendy

May, a 26ft gaff cutter built in 1936

and designed by a former editor of this

magazine, Maurice Griffi ths. The sale

had been completed in October, but work

requirements and inclement weather had

kept her in port until the following May.

Now it was time to bring her home, so

I arrived on the Portsmouth ferry with

Cherbourg

START

FINISH

FRANCE

ENGLAND

The Needles

Isle of

Wight

Beachy

Head

English Channel

Dungeness

Dover Strait

Margate

Sand

Isle ofSheppey GoodwinSands

River Thames

Canvey Island

North Foreland

Yarmouth

Bembridge

Seaview

Rye

Dover

Deal

Broadstairs

Southend-on-Sea

Le Havre

Dieppe

Calais

0 25nm

Southend-

on-Sea

Leigh-on-Sea

Island YC

Southend

Pier

Two Tree Island

Hadleigh Ray

Leigh Creek

Canvey

Island

Benfleet Creek

0 1nm

CRUISING

Bringing Maurice

Griffiths’ boat home

Dick Durham sails

his new gaff cutter

Wendy May home in

a piecemeal delivery trip from

Cherbourg to the Thames

my crew, Martyn Mackrill, Royal Yacht

Squadron artist-in-residence and owner

of Nightfall, a beautiful 31ft gaff sloop,

not designed, but nevertheless once sailed

by Griffi ths as well: we’d joked over stale

croissants in the ferry canteen that we’d

become Griffi ths’ clones.

Wendy May’s decks were covered in

the dust of the city, sent billowing across

the dock of Port Chantereyne by harbour

workers’ Renaults as they turned up

for the daily grind. Her brightwork was

peeling from many months of Normandy

sunshine, her sail covers faded, and a limp

French courtesy fl ag hung in tatters from

the rigging. The romance had died for the

previous owner and I was in two minds

about picking up the baton.

‘It’s all your fault, Martyn,’ I said. ‘If

you’d never talked me into sailing aboard

your Edwardian yacht I might have stayed

sane and stuck with GRP.’

‘It feels a lot to take on, Dicky, but you’ll

fi nd it’s worth it in the end,’ he replied.

I wanted to scrub off before leaving port

and as the boat has a pair of sturdy oak

legs I planned to beach her somewhere in

the confi nes of the harbour and brandish a

scrubber. The look of horror on the gaunt

Norman face of the duty harbourmaster

CHART: MAXINE HEATH

LEFT: Our fi rst sight

of a rather care-worn

Wendy May in

Cherbourg