B
y the time I handed over the baton of President of the
Solent Old Gaffers six or seven years ago, some of my
newer responsibilities verged on the comic. The one that
tickled me most was being obliged to file a so-called risk
assessment for the annual race. The OGA committee had been
running this event since its inauguration in the 1960s and, so far as
I knew, it had operated like the Ramsbottom family’s famous day
out in Blackpool – ‘no wrecks and nobody drownded.’
I suppose the assessment serves some purpose beyond my
understanding, but the joke is that the boats are so much safer now
than ever they were back in 1972 when I hit the start line for my
first OGA race. Restorations were rare then, and most of the fleet
crawled out of their mud berths ‘as they were’ for a jolly day out.
While we knew the boats and appreciated them, for most of us,
gaffers were a cheap option to get on the water.
Fleets were extensive in those days and the Solent race was
often swelled by larger vessels that came from far and wide to
take part – and 1972 was no exception. The weather was typical
too. The light northerly breeze that had wafted us to the start line
off Cowes fizzled out completely at the ten-minute gun, leavingTom recalls offering up an inadvertent
nautical sacrifice during a gaffers’ race
ILLUSTRATION CLAUDIA MYATT
‘IS THE BITTER END SECURE?’
TOM CUNLIFFE
the shrewder skippers motoring up-tide to a position from
where they could drift over the line in good order.
The first mark was East Lepe buoy a couple of miles down
the West Solent, and the committee had sensibly sent us away
with a beezer of a west-going tide. For a while it looked as
though my boat was going to miss the outer distance mark until
my mate Norman had a brainwave. Using buckets, he dragged
the 32ft (9.75m) Colin Archer around so she was beam-on to
the stream which was making a good three knots the way we
wanted to go. Next, we scrambled up our huge, featherweight
ghoster and eased a foot off the topsail sheet. The tide was
shoving us through the dead air, making three knots of instant
apparent wind. Beam-on it was just enough to fill the ghoster.
The super-cambered topsail showed some interest too and soon,
while our heavy flax main drooped lifeless from its spars, we
were creeping ahead across the stream on
the tide-wind. This only worked on the
beam reach, so our progress wasn’t bringing
us any closer to the next mark, but it did see
us safely over the start line.