Sternpost
B
eer, beer, everywhere nor any drop to drink. If
Coleridge thought the Ancient Mariner had it
tough, he should have tried going afloat with 265
gallons of real ale but none to slake a thirst.
I’ve come to Devon to help transport a cargo of beer
to Douarnenez, Brittany, aboard Grayhound, a 108ft
replica of a 1776 Cornish lugger – the three-masted
Transit van of the 18th century. Grayhound was
hand-built in 2012 as a labour of love by her liveaboard
owners, Marcus and Freya Pomeroy-Rowden. They
felled and hauled her oak, lathed every fastening and cast
the 12-ton keel for her construction.
Last year they began to sail freight. I’m here as
cargo-crew on the only sailing trip of its kind in the UK,
a booze cruise like no other. As I step aboard in Brixham
Marina, Marcus warns me that nobody comes as a guest
on cargo trips. I’m soon put to work. That’s fine by me.
I’m normally a sailor of modern yachts, but I’m keen to
get a taste of the classic. Reality bites, however, when I
discover the vocab accrued over 20 years of cruising a
GRP sloop is limited aboard a historic ship. What are
gaskets, bits, brails and peaks? Where do you fly a tops’l
gallant? And where are the winches? (This one got a
laugh from my hosts.)
Just as unsettling is the cats-cradle of identical brown
ropes made fast around belay pins (no cleats, either,
then). Untie the wrong one and a crewmate will be
poleaxed by a half-ton spar. Luggers are brilliantly
simple to sail, Marcus assures me.
First, though, as an on-board fiddler plays us sea
shanties, we manhandle the four tons of beer aboard.
Back-breaking work, but there’s a strong feeling of
goodwill, nostalgia and pride that keeps us at work.
We cast off but outside the harbour, a light easterly
breeze – an untrustworthy wind, Marcus grumbles –
leaves Grayhound wallowing in sloppy seas. With the
lug slamming against the mast, we retreat back to
Cornwall. No bother – isn’t this the point of sail-cargo,
to live by the wind’s whim? A dance with the elements,Freya calls it. It’s a ridiculously lovely existence as we sit
out the next two days. On a modern yacht you’d just
whack on the engine. Instead, odd jobs fill the hours.
Windlasses are stripped and greased, mainsheet blocks
are rereeved. Time slows.
When the forecast finally sets fair we’re up at dawn:
gaskets (sail-ties – I’m learning) come off, the jib and
mizzen sails are hoisted fore and aft, then the vast main
and fore sails are sweated up on their heavy yards before
the highest topsails and t’gallants. As three tiers of stiff
sail canvas fill, we ghost from Cawsand Bay on a sea
gilded by the sunrise.
By 0800 Eddystone lighthouse is on the beam and
Grayhound is rolling south in blue-black waves that slap
her bows and hiss from her leeside. Cornwall smudges...
fades... slips below the horizon. Now we really are all
alone on a wide sea. Marcus beams from the helm.
Our five crew have split into four-hour watches until
landfall. Standing at Grayhound’s massive tiller with 11
knots’ boatspeed thrumming through my arm, nothing
matters except the best wind angle and course to deliver
our cargo. Aside from one frantic sail change in a squall- the only change all passage – it’s not hard work.
Grayhound shoulders aside the lumpier Channel
conditions with a seakindly roll.
Too soon Brittany approaches. In darkness, Marcus
and I sail down a trail of moonlight, drinking tea,
snacking on toast, weaving a safe passage through rocks.
It feels fantastically intrepid, although I’m not the one
navigating. Twenty-eight hours since Cornwall, the chain
rattles down before Douarnenez. By late afternoon the
beer is on the wharf. That’s when real life ambushes. My
palms still tingling from the ropes, I bolt for a ferry.
Nor any drop to drink...
James Stewart helps transport a shipful of beer to France on a replica 1776 lugger
“As the
canvas
fills, we
ghost
from
Cawsand
on a sea
gilded by
sunrise”James Stewart was a guest of Grayhound (grayhound-
luggersailing.co.uk). Sail cargo trips booked through
Another World Adventures (anotherworldadventures.
com) cost from £1,050 per person for 14 days or from
£525 for seven nights one way.