water against the planking when I felt the boat tip slightly to
what must have been an unexpected gust. This was followed by
an urgent call, “JB’s dragging down on us!”.
Neither John nor I were in good shape for instant action, but
I was relieved to hear him hobbling aft to the companionway as
I struggled with a roll of Andrex’s finest with one hand and my
jeans with the other. He was doubtless equally incapacitated,
but, as so often before, quicker on the uptake. I followed him
out to witness 55 tons of cutter coming at us sideways and
nobody on her deck. No orders were needed. As John dived
below to fire up the diesel, the ladies were already surging
fathom after fathom of cable. I kicked the motor into gear, hove
the helm hard over and gave her the gun. Jolie Brise’s bowsprit
end caught our mainsheet as she swept by and I flicked it clear
just in time, then I saw Paul rowing up like a demon, double-
banked, to save his ship. No harm was done, and Hirta’s
afterguard retired below to pump the heads.
The following winter, pilot Morrice made his final appearance
in secret when the two cutters spent a stormy winter rafted up
fore-and-aft on the piles in the Beaulieu River. By then we no
longer lived aboard so the boats were left to their own devices.
No doubt they found plenty to talk about. The morning after the
great storm of 1987, I drove down to see how things were. To
my horror, I beheld only fresh air where the boats should have
been, but I cheered up when I saw the harbour crew towing
them back upriver, still rafted together.
“What happened?” I asked the harbourmaster as he tossed
me a line.
“They ripped the horses off the piles” he said, “but somebody
must have got on board and let go your anchor. Lying to the tide
they were, snug as a pair of swans...’
Hirta’s windlass was so eccentric that no stranger would have
stood a chance of working it in daylight, let alone in the stormy
darkness. In any case, why would anyone clamber aboard on
such a night, perform unimaginable heroics, then vapourise. Not
human nature, is it? It could only be pilot Morrice again, unless
it was the immortal soul of EG Martin or some long-forgotten
French pilot’s lad.
I still see Jolie Brise when I’m out and about and she isn’t
working halfway across the ocean. Toby, her skipper of many
years now, has kept up the traditions of EG Martin and achieved
the things she was born to do. She is truly a legend, but for
me, she’ll always be an old friend with whom I’ve shared a
few of those experiences that you just can’t make up.Needles that we found what she was really made of. The breeze
settled at west-northwest and went fairly light for a while. We
crammed on all the sail we could find in the lockers, including
topsail and a majestic Yankee that measured up at full hoist
from bowsprit end to topmast head. The wind hardened as night
fell and soon we were running at a straight ten knots through the
water, measured by the Walker log. Unlike GPS speed and
whirling electronic paddle wheels, these traditional instruments
do not lie, so it was no surprise to come on watch at 0200 and
discover my mate, Neil Graham, a professional racing hand, had
logged a quarter-mile under 40 in his four-hour watch. The lad
at the tiller was clinging on like a fly with Neil perched beside
him in a kitchen chair he’d dragged up from the galley. It wasn’t
even tied on, so steadily did she run.
My watch managed a similar distance, marvelling as the old
girl overtook coasters in the dark, her mighty rig nodding
against the wheeling stars, preventer backstays humming as they
held it all together. The wine made it back to Wiltshire – or most
of it did – and we signed off, but it was pilot cutters for me from
then on. I sold my house, went out, and bought one.
That was Hirta, a 1911 Bristol Channel 51-footer (15.5m)
built in Cornwall for pilot Morrice of Barry. Followers of this
column will have met Morrice before, when his shade took a
night off from the great pilot house in the sky to control Hirta’s
crazy mainsail during a nasty session in the Greenland Sea. He
must have gone off watch after this extravaganza because, on
one occasion when we needed him, he carried on filling in his
celestial log book for St Peter rather than risk getting his feet
wet. Maybe he was psyched out by the fact that the other boat
involved in the incident was JB, the one cutter against which
he’d have stood no chance in a head-to-head.
In those days, JB’s skipper was a pal of mine by the name of
Paul. Paul measured up to EG Martin at 6ft 7in (2m) and he was
a fine seaman, but this time things didn’t go his way. Jolie Brise
and Hirta were anchored off Morgat in Brittany. JB lay to
windward of us, but the breeze was light, so Paul hadn’t let out
any extra cable before he rowed ashore for breakfast with most
of his crew. My own team consisted of my wife and daughter
(now aged eight) and John, with whom I have sailed the seas in
fair weather and foul. John and I enjoy a similar metabolism
when it comes to our morning devotions. Hirta had two heads
compartments which suited us perfectly. John was taking a
moment’s calm locked in up forward; I was down aft,
trousers round my ankles, delighting in the lap of