Adrian Morgan
CRAFTSMANSHIP
H
ave you ever suffered from storm-envy? What
a psychologist might describe as a wish to
have encountered seriously bad weather
or faced a life-threatening near-disaster in a small
yacht, and survived?
A sense of inadequacy as well as admiration descends
whenever I read one of Tom Cunliffe’s tales, the most
modest of which makes my hairiest seem like a voyage
across the Round Pond in London, where I learned
to sail model boats.
Yet there’s surely no shame in never having streamed
a sea anchor, set the deepest reef, or had to bale for your
life as bilge water lapped your ankles. Those who set out
to climb high mountains do not seek bad weather. It
makes for a gripping tale – how we survived the savage
sea – but I have no desire to have cowered in a liferaft
circled by sharks, and no one in their right minds sets out
to chase a storm, unless they are Breton-born and in
pursuit of a round the world record.
I am drawn again and again to Humphrey Barton’s
advice about bad weather, which is to avoid it, a sensible
view from an extremely experienced yachtsman who
knew how unpleasant things can become when caught
out in a hurricane mid-Atlantic, with a dislodged
coachroof and a bilge knee deep in cold water.In the hands of a Tusitala, what
the South Sea islanders called
RL Stevenson, a Teller of Tales, a
wordsmith like the late Des
Sleightholme, long time editor of
Yachting Monthly and Classic Boat
columnist, a modest tale becomes
epic and an epic tale, well...those
with a full set of Mariners’ Library
on their bookshelves will confirm
how tedious some accounts of epic
voyages can be.
I would rather read Tom on
crossing the Solent or Des up a
Walton backwater, Dick Durham
dodging sandbanks in the Thames
Estuary, Sam Llewellyn around
Mull, than one particular author’s
plodding, tack by tack, sail change
by sail change, position by position,
course alteration by course
alteration, wind shift by wind shift,
meal by meal... you get the drift...
solo transatlantic.
Mind you, a Solent crossing that
involves a near miss with a bulk
carrier, grounding on the Bramble
Bank and engine failure can be made
to sound excruciatingly dull, unless
the audience is still awake for its
conclusion with a close encounter
with a sperm whale.
Some can write about pretty much nothing and make
it a page turner. Roger Taylor for instance, who sailed a
little junk rig, well, nowhere unless you count Greenland,
Jan Mayen and the Arctic as nowhere. Thing is, he
doesn’t appear to consider going ashore as any part of
long-distance cruising. That he can fill page after page
with descriptions of wildlife, sea state, clouds and
natural wonder, is astonishing.
Perhaps Classic Boat should offer a literary award
for the most riveting story of the most modest voyage:
Round Bembridge Harbour; A Voyage West to East
(Cowes, that is); anything involving the Norfolk
Broads; perhaps Oxford Canal. Or in my case: A
Circumnavigation of Isle Martin (a modest lump
north of Ullapool).
Don’t expect literary fireworks here – my scariest
voyage in the last few years was not crossing the
Minch in a gale, but bringing Sally from her mooring
in Loggie to the shelter of the harbour, with a gale
brewing, a distance of perhaps two miles, under
engine. Safely tied up, the engine died and I caught a
whiff of diesel. The tank had emptied itself into the
bilge; not a drop remained. Five minutes earlier,
without that last drop of fuel, Sally would have been
driven against the sea wall and smashed to pieces.And those who bring their offshore adventures to life
“No one sets
out to chase
a storm,
unless they
are in pursuit
of a sailing
record”CHARLOTTE WATTERSHere’s to modest sailing!