Trapped in harbour by a howling gale and pouring rain,
it’s easy to forget why we love this sailing lark at all...MORE
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EVERY MONTH TOM RECORDS
A PODCAST OF HIS COLUMN
Listen online or download at:
http://www.yachtingmonthly.com/podcasts10 http://www.yachtingmonthly.com NOVEMBER 2015
T
he rain it raineth every day.’ So sang
Feste, Shakespeare’s wise old clown,
probably describing the state of affairs
in Illyria some time around 1600.
I suspect, though, that he saw the future and
was actually thinking about the second half of
Summer 2015. What a shocker!
Most home-waters sailors seem
to have some tale to tell of being
storm-bound, asking themselves
if the whole carry-on was
really worth all the money and
commitment. One of my chums
capitulated to the downpour
in a mud berth in Faversham;
another had to concede that
South Brittany wasn’t at its
best when Metéo France’s
precipitation pots were fi lling at
over 30mm a day. As for me, I fetched up on a
desolate pontoon in Brixham being stiffed for
forty quid a night. This, it should be noted, was
for a berth that lay outside the wave breaker
with no power, water, Wi-Fi, or security and not
a smile to be had in the offi ce, except from one
lovely girl who saved the day.
‘The best Wi-Fi’s in the caff just up the quay,’
she waved a hand brightly in a northerly sort
of direction. ‘Me and some of the boys from the
harbour have a beer in there after work. You
could join us if you like...?’
I squelched off with my briefcase and found
the watering hole. I bought a pot of tea and set
to my duties behind a steamy window, starting,
as always, with the Inshore Forecast. No change
in the offi ng. Next, Passage Weather with its
seven-day reach. Maybe an improvement in
three days, they said sheepishly. Discouraged,
I reverted to my emails to be greeted by the
usual demands from creditors and vitriolic
rants about my being photographed without a
lifejacket on a summer’s day. I was losing the
will to live when, at fi ve past fi ve, the girl from
the marina blew in from the downpour with
her pals. Stamping to shake the water off their
oilskins, they commandeered the table next to
mine. Drinks arrived in short order and soon we
fell into conversation.
It’s been said by, I believe, no less an authoritythan Picasso, that when critics get together they
talk about painting. When painters meet up,
they discuss the price of turpentine. So it is with
sailors. These folk were the business. Nobody
mentioned such dull subjects as changing a jib
or how to secure a yacht alongside. This was
proper, salty stuff. Everyone
cursed the weather and, with
that opener out of the way,
we all got around to ships
and their people. Boats we’d
known, skippers dug from the
pit of Hell for our personal
discomfort, tropical seas, pliant
girls in lands less formal than
our own, extraordinary drinking
feats and a woman who had a
jumped ship in mid-Pacifi c by
hopping onto the bowsprit of a
boat that was overtaking rather too close. The
stories grew taller, although I know that the one
about the bowsprit was true.
The sea is a small village, so it was no surprise
to learn that some of us had once had shipmates
in common. A shared history drew us together
and as I wandered back to the yacht later in the
still-driving rain, I had a big smile on my face.
Boats and their technicalities are only a
part of what we do. The magic is spun by the
human factor. The phenomenon of social media
and its ‘friends’ is a pale substitute for true
comradeship. Only in common hardships do
we discover who is who and, indeed, who we
really are ourselves. Friendships forged in bad
weather at sea, or even when hiding in the same
harbour from the same gale, are likely to last a
lifetime even if the ocean road carries us apart
for years. When we happen upon one another
by chance in some far-off port, it doesn’t matter
what decades have passed and that our hair has
turned grey, we know the inner spark burns on
and we understand why, even when the rain
rains every day, we still put out to sea. W‘One woman
jumped ship in
mid-Pacifi c by
hopping onto
the bowsprit of
another boat’