of channel to navigate. We got out with no problem at all, but
it was an incredible contrast to coming in at high water when
all we could see was sea.”
Another two-day trip took them to the Thames. “We launched
at Greenwich Yacht Club, assisted by hugely helpful, lovely people.”
Sue and Matt spent the night aboard and tied up to the yacht club
pier being buffeted by the wash of the Thames Clipper high-speed
passenger catamarans that travel the river at up to 28 knots from
6am till midnight. After a disturbed night, the couple headed
upriver, cruising under the iconic Tower Bridge and taking in
views of the London Eye, Houses of Parliament and the Shard.
After updating her Facebook page with their latest adventures
en route, a friend of Sue’s who works in the city dashed out
of his offi ce and grabbed a photo of them with the Shard in
the background. After recovering the boat at Greenwich, a quick
lap of the M25 saw Dilligaf back on the Thames at Penton Hook
Marina and after a quieter night on board, a gentler exploration
of the upper reaches of the Thames ensued.
A trip on the Kennet and Avon canal followed, the racy 30-knot
sportsboat an incongruous sight among the barges and narrowboats.
Launching at Bradford-on-Avon, they followed the canal
to Bath, crossing aqueducts and arriving
surprisingly quickly before discovering
they needed to pass through six locks
to pass back down to the River Avon.
“You don’t realise how mucky those
locks are until you go through them,”
says Matt. “We got the boat fi lthy, and
Sue’s previously pristine blue fender
socks did a great job of absorbing all
the slime off the walls.”
It’s not been all about inland waterways
though. Two trips to the Solent launching
at Hythe Village included the rather
unnerving experience of being shepherded away from a closer
look at the warships in the naval dockyards at Portsmouth
by burly men with big guns and loudhailers on police boats.
“There’s a 100m exclusion zone apparently...” A night at Cowes
on the Isle of Wight saw Dilligaf rafted fi ve deep among the
Round the Island racing yachts, and the Solent Forts proved
worthy of closer inspection.
HOME FROM HOME
A common thread for locations is MDL Marinas. With her
home berth being the MDL-run Brixham Marina, the company’s
Freedom Berthing policy gives Sue free berthing and slipway
launching at other MDL-run sites, hence trips often starting from
Hythe Marina or Penton Hook Marina. Another MDL Marina
pressed into action has been Queen Anne’s Battery in Plymouth
for an exploration of the River Tamar to Saltash and under the
Tamar Bridge, and a cruise past the Plymouth-based Princess
Yachts manufacturing facility. Plymouth also puts Polperro and
Looe within reach. “Polperro is gorgeous,” says Sue. “It’s a tiny
little fi shing village. We anchored outside and rowed in by dinghy.”
Their latest adventure was to launch at Saul Junction and travel
the length of the Gloucester and Sharpness canal, spending the
night in Gloucester Docks before travelling to Sharpness the
following day. “We found the Kennet and Avon worryingly shallow
in places but the Gloucester canal is reassuringly wide and 3.5m
deep everywhere, with no locks either. There’s also a huge lifting
bridge as you go into Gloucester Docks, which they stopped the
traffi c and lifted just for us. In fact, all the way along that canal
there are swing bridges with operators. It cost us £27 for two
days’ licence, which seems extraordinary value considering all the
bridges.” A particularly spooky sight
was the Purton Hulks. Also known as
the Purton Ships’ Graveyard, it’s made
up of about 22 ships and barges that
were deliberately beached before being fi lled with silt or concrete
to reinforce the narrow river bank between the canal and the River
Severn back in the 1950s. Most of the timber has rotted, leaving
a ghostly outline in concrete and twisted metal. “It’s quite a weird
sensation and they gave me goosebumps,” says Matt, who climbed
on to one fi lled with solid concrete.
“We’ve got to get it all in before we snuff it,” laughs Sue, when
describing their adventures, which are far from over. In fact, she’s
just had a Webasto diesel-fi red central-heating system fi tted
to the boat, with two ankle-level cockpit outlets and a third
into the cabin, designed to extend their season even further.
“One of the trips I want to do is the
Union Canal in Scotland. I’d love to
put my boat on the Falkirk Wheel.”
Meanwhile, Matt has designs on France.
“We could cross to Le Havre on the
ferry, launch on the Seine and head
into Paris. And a Channel crossing
from Dover to Calais looks entirely
doable, allowing us to go up and down
the French coast for a couple of days.”
But he’s quick to remind me that
Sue is the driver in both planning and
execution. “She’s the skipper, and I’m
fi rst mate, and not a very good one at
that,” he laughs. “Whenever we come
out of a harbour, she always seems
to point out something I’ve not done,
whether it’s getting fenders in or coiling
ropes – I always forget something.”Sue and Matt
even spent a
night on board
in LondonCardiff Harbour
and (above) St
Michael’s MountTRAVEL