Classic Boat — January 2018

Adrian Morgan

CRAFTSMANSHIP

CLASSIC BOAT JANUARY 2018^41

‘O

h I don’t like the wild raging sea...’ goes

the song, with a refrain that ends in ‘It’s

the Crinan Canal for me-e!’ – and who, in

all honesty, can blame the sentiment? Who among us

has not, waking on a blustery morning, with the rain

hammering on the coachroof and the halyards slapping,

hoped that a walk to the sea wall at midday would

conclusively prove that the very idea of setting off was

folly – and repaired instead to the pub?

Humphrey Barton, a legendary figure in post-war

yachting, partner in the design firm headed by Jack Giles,

veteran of innumerable transatlantic crossings, including

the epic voyage of Vertue XXXV, on being asked what

he did when confronted with bad weather, replied: “I

avoid it!” Very sensible. It’s only mad Gallic record-

chasers who scrutinise the forecast for a healthy gale to

catapult them into the Southern Ocean, prior to setting

sail from Ushant in ever more extreme multihulls. The

rest of us, call us wimps if you like, prefer to emulate

Humphrey and where better to wait out a spell of horrid

weather than berthed in a canal, of which the Crinan is

possibly the finest for sea-going yachts in the British Isles?

Sally has traversed two of the three Scottish canals,

from Edinburgh via the Forth & Clyde to Glasgow, and

the Crinan, a short cut through Kintyre avoiding the

Mull. The most dangerous part of the former might have

been negotiating the outskirts of Glasgow on a Saturday

morning, but setting off early as

advised meant those who might

have been throwing bricks were all

a-bed after a night on the bottle. A

cheery wave from a bleary-eyed

bloke (with a bottle) was all the

evidence of human activity we saw

that morning as we chugged slowly

through the outskirts of the city.

The Crinan enveloped us at the

entrance at Ardrishaig on Loch

Fyne after what the yachting writers

call a “boisterous” run up from the

Clyde some years ago. It was like

entering the shelter of an estuary,

only more instant. One minute the

wild rolling sea, next a sea of

tranquillity as the lock gates closed

behind us and we faced the first of

the lifts that would take us up and

over the top and down again to

where the sun would be setting over

Jura and the tide beginning to

sweep through the gateway to the

Hebrides, the Dorus Mhor.

Half a day and the opening of

many sluices later, we emerged into

the little basin at Crinan, to the gentle

aroma of coal from the funnel of the

Clyde puffer whose home it is, and

which greets yachts heading west. Along the way we had

passed yachts whose owners had the right attitude

towards anything wet and bumpy: sails furled and a little

mildewed, cockpits enlivened with potted plants, all

slipping gently into houseboaty-ness. And why not?

Sometimes we are made to, or more likely make

ourselves, feel guilty. The beauty of a sailing boat, indeed

anything that floats, has a cabin and the wherewithal to

make a bacon sandwich, is that it is akin to a gypsy

caravan. Hole up in some field and put the kettle on, until

you feel like harnessing the horse and clip clopping to

pastures new. Sometimes we forget that it’s meant to be

fun and even when it isn’t, it’s fun pretending it’s, er, fun.

Mike Peyton drew a cartoon, which hangs in the

family loo, showing a couple of bedraggled yachtsmen,

one holding a cardboard box of provisions, rowing

sullenly out to a yacht, bouncing about in a fairway, with

the caption ‘British yachtsmen take their pleasures

seriously’, or it could have been ‘miserably’.

Which makes the idea of a nice quiet canal all the

more attractive; so attractive in fact that this winter we

have booked a week on the Grand Union where, a long

time ago, I travelled faster than I have ever travelled

before. On the blackest of nights under a starlit sky, in

the depths of rural England, after a long spell at

the tiller, the steady 4mph of our 40ft spaceship

felt like the speed of light.

Let’s never forget that sailing is meant to be fun

“Entering a

canal is like

entering a

sheltered

estuary,

only more

instant”

CHARLOTTE WATTERS

Taking it all seriously