Yachting

CRUISING

MAY 2016 http://www.yachtingmonthly.com 41

power station a blaze of light on a lone
promontory. We were tired and took turns
to nap until Dover where we both stayed
on watch to wonder at what looked like
a space city floating in a black sky over a
black sea. One ferry broke away heading
south: a space shuttle, a layer cake of light.

Inside the Goodwin
Passing Deal Pier, bored anglers hooted,
made catcalls and shone searchlights on
us as Wendy May slid slowly past. We
then took the inside passage through
the Downs, well inside the Goodwin,
which squats like a giant lobster, its back
towards the Dover Strait, its flailing claws
towards Kent, and well inside the Brake.
Just before dawn I picked out the B2 buoy
against the background lights of Ramsgate.
Our fair tide finished, we anchored off
Broadstairs and slept. As I dozed, I
thought of all the jobs the passage had
thrown up: a leaking stern gland suggested
new packing was required; the throat and
peak halyards needed replacing – every
time the mainsail was handed, frayed

running rigging shredded in the

blocks and flew away like straw

in the wind; the skylight needed

stripping off...

Voices woke me up.

‘Funny place to park.’

‘Quaint, though, innit?’

‘It’s old, that’s for sure.’

I left my berth and climbed

up the companionway into

brilliant sunshine.

‘Mornin’.’ A fellow in tight,

brightly coloured clothing

paddled past in a sea-kayak.

‘Mornin’.’ Another paddled

furiously past.

‘All right?’ A third swept by.

‘Fine, thanks.’

We rounded the North Foreland and

took the flood up the Thames inside the

Margate Sand, then straight for Southend

Pier. We passed the Loway buoy up

through Hadleigh Ray and into Leigh

Creek, passing the fleet of discharging

cockle boats with no time to spare. I had

prepared a mooring in Gasworks Creek,

a tributary off Leigh Creek. This was to

be the berth of my dreams: a mooring to

which I could walk from my doorstep,

but it was tight, too tight. Wendy May

dominated the little creek and even though

she was nestled in the bight, where I’d dug

in fore and aft moorings, there would be

insufficient passing room for shoal draught

yachts using the mud berths further up

the creek under Two Tree Island. My wife

Cathy and son Richard were waving at us

from the bank of cockle shells ashore, but

we were going to have to disappoint them.

‘We’re going back out,’ I said to Martyn

and, using the moorings, turned the boat

end for end and scooted off while there

was still enough water. We took her back

out to Hadleigh Ray and up under the

lee of Canvey Island where, after frantic

mobile phone calls, I was kindly loaned a

mooring by a fisherman, Ian Barratt.

At low water, Wendy May took the

ground at a 35° angle, too extreme for a

permanent mooring. I moved her further

up Benfleet Creek to a horse, on the north

side of which I dug in two mooring roots,

one an old anchor, the other an abandoned

truck wheel. The plan, by mooring her fore

and aft, was to get the boat to lie against

the bank at a more acceptable angle of 10°.

I stowed gear below on the bank side to

get her to fall that way and for several days

the plan worked, but then a stiff southerly

breeze defeated all my ballasting and made

her fall the wrong way with her mast below

the horizontal. To my relief, she picked

up OK, her full bilge lifting her before the

water came over the cockpit coamings.

Then a local suggested a mud berth at

the Island Yacht Club on nearby Canvey

Island. In time I secured a berth there. The

annual cost, £227, is exactly half of what I

paid to keep her in Yarmouth for a month.

It was good to be home. W

Wendy May newly painted following her refit

at the Island Yacht Club on Canvey Island

Dick’s son Richard tries to get Wendy May to fall to port

Wendy May leans

against the horse shoal

in Benfleet Creek