NOVEMBER 2015 http://www.yachtingmonthly.com 51A BOOK AT BUNK TIME
Shoal Water &
Fairway, by H Alker
Tripp, was fi rst
published by Bodley
Head in 1924. It’s
now back in print
and available from
Lodestarbooks.comA moonlit night is no help
for spotting estuary mud
H Alker Tripp risks his luck through a shallow channel on passage along the East Coast.
us into the full run of the tide.
If the tide really got us and
took command, we shouldn’t
escape at all till the next ebb.
We’d have to anchor.’
‘I wish the North-West Knoll
were lighted,’ replied the crew.
It would have been a minor
blessing tonight, if need for
economy had not recently
occasioned its untimely
dowsing. Instead of a
fl ashing beacon of light,
it was now a painted tub
only that rocked invisibly
somewhere away in the
darkness. Close-hauled, the
yacht approached the hidden
shoal-line through the grey
moonlit sea. The lead had been
splashing into the water, but
was now hastily discarded in
favour of the more primitive
‘boathook’ method, and the
long boathook was jabbed
downward at rapid intervals to
test the depth.
‘Less than a fathom,
shoaling, shoaling, shoaling –
no good – lee oh!’
She swung into the wind,
catching the moonlight
brightly on the other side of
her white sails as they shivered
doubtfully a moment, and
then fi lled confi dently to their
smooth rounded contour as
she bore away on the new tack.
‘A near one that,’ one ofI
t is a strange fact that
the moon – pleasant
and companionable
creature though she be- seldom makes night
sailing appreciably simpler,
here among the shoals. If
one desires to locate an
unlighted buoy, for instance,
it is practically as hopeless a
task to fi nd it by moonlight
as in night unmitigated.
No buoy was at this
moment wanted, but
the shape and position
of the land, if declared,
would have helped. Clear
though the moonlight
became, the land
remained invisible; it was
lost in the long grey blur,
indifferently the same along
every horizon, save the
one silvered slip of sea-line
eastwards, directly under
the moon.
‘It’s a nice little breeze,’ I
meditated appreciatively, as
the living little fl aw reached
out from the greyness and
fanned one’s cheek, ‘but
its direction isn’t kind. It
simply is not. For a well-
behaved little draught
like this, it is just about as
contrary as a wind can be.’
Gentle though it was,
the wind had been quite
capable – so long as the
us laughed. ‘I felt the keel
touch as she came about- not that it matters. One
board further down and
we’ll sneak across, if the tide
hasn’t stopped us too much.’
‘Shoaling still, shoaling - but carry on, shoaling
a little, yes, yes, all right,
the same, the same, barely
enough, the same, deeper,
deeper, more than a fathom
now.’ She was over.
Then a dark channel buoy
leapt into sudden shape
right beside us and slipped
astern. We decided to
anchor off East Mersea and
sleep while the ebb tide was
running down. We had soon
reached the position where
we proposed to lie, and it
was just three o’clock in the
morning when the anchor
was let go.
‘The glass is tumbling
fast; we shan’t lie as snug
as this when we wake up in
the morning.’ He scrambled
back on deck, after having
put the kettle on below,
and helped me to fi nish
furling the wet sails. We
lay anchored in the wide
openness of the moonlit
night. I might have told him
that it was morning already,
but I only yawned instead,
and we both turned in. W
tide had favoured and had
given us gradual progress, by
the beam. But the fl ood tide
was now running up between
the shoals out of the dark
sea into the Crouch, fl ooding
through, lapping round the
grey islanded shoals still
uncovered, and streaming into
the channels. The whole grey
face of the water was movingagainst us. The same process
would have been a perfectly
attractive happening, could
we have but weathered the
long line of the Knoll Sand
before the tide had turned
southward again, for in that
event it would have taken us
with it up the Blackwater.
As it was, the tide was busily
trying to slide us back, with its
insidious smooth current, back
to Burnham and the Crouch.
‘This ain’t no good,’ I added
colloquially, but with settled
conviction; ‘we’ll cut the tail
of the Knoll and take the risk.
The water’s smooth and the
tide rising. Those boards out
towards the Swire Hole carry‘Less than a fathom,
shoaling, shoaling
- no good – lee oh!’
Sir Herbert Alker Tripp CBE was born
in 1883 and spent his working life with
the Metropolitan Police as a specialist
in traffi c management. He was also a
fi ne artist who exhibited at the Royal
Academy and a keen yachtsman.About the author
He both raced and cruised, writing
regularly for the yachting press. It is
mainly for his books about sailing that
he is remembered. They are charming
narratives of ‘the casual explorations
of a sailing man’, as is declared in
Shoal Water & Fairway, which covers
the Thames Estuary.There’s always a good read hidden on a sailor’s shelves. Tell us your favourite. EMAIL [email protected]
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