Practical Boat Owner - June 2018

the depressing housing estates, there was
a small oasis: a muddy creek where I
moored my yacht. Here, the skiff was
moored alongside and when I came home
from work, if the tide was up, I went for
long rows, lit up by the lights of the ferry
terminal. In the summer, friends visited
and we would sail upstream and bathe in
the river. After sitting in front of a computer
all week, the skiff provided true solace.
After eight years living on my own up a
muddy creek, I decided to sell my beloved
Gauntlet and buy a flat in trendy Brighton.
For a while, I kept the skiff on the beach,
with a plywood lid to keep intruders out,
and launched her for the occasional row
or sail.
But Brighton is a better place for
partying than boating, and I have to admit
the skiff entered into a period of neglect as
I made the most of being a bachelor again.
When I discovered part of the lid had
been ripped off and used for a beach fire,
I decided to put her back on her trailer
and keep her, for want of anywhere better,
in a friend’s garden. Over the next few
years I parked her wherever I could and,
as her cover deteriorated, the neglect
deepened – and so did my guilt.
Then I met Anna and two years later we
had a lovely daughter (Betty, now aged 8)
and then a lovely son (Sol now aged 6),
and the skiff fell further down my list of
priorities. Soon after meeting, in the first
flush of optimism, we made one half-
hearted attempt at cutting out some of the
rot and repainting her, but sailing from
Brighton was just too much effort for too
little return.
As the bills piled up, I thought about
selling the skiff but I always had a feeling
that our circumstances might change, and
that somehow she might become the
ideal boat once again. Or, to put it another
way, I always knew that, if the skiff didn’t
have a place in my life, that probably
meant I was probably not leading the right
life, and it was only a matter of time before
the balance was redressed and she would
regain her rightful place.
Not everyone shared my despair,
however. I couldn’t help feeling a glimmer
of pride when our neighbours told us that,
far from finding the sodden hulk parked
opposite their front door a nuisance, they
enjoyed having her there and thought she
added character to the neighbourhood.
Another friend expressed the same
sentiment when I parked the boat in her
front drive and she became an object of
curiosity for visitors, who could always be
sure of finding ‘the house with the boat
outside’ in a row of identikit modern
houses. Even in her deteriorated state, it
seemed, the skiff could still inspire pleasure.
Eventually we could take city life no

Paintwork rubbed down and minor

repairs to the gunwale under way

Resplendent in a fresh coat of paint

more, and in July 2015 we upped sticks

and moved to a beautiful village on the

River Dart, in Devon.

A return to the water

Straightaway, we launched the skiff into

the tidal estuary which flowed within sight

(just) of our bedroom. She proved an ideal

boat for exploring our new environment,

and for the first six months we went out

most weeks, either rowing to nearby pubs

or collecting driftwood off the nearby

beaches to chop up into firewood.

The only limitation was that, while most

of the other families we met had boats

with outboards and could happily nip up

and down the river at almost any state of

the tide, we were limited by how far we

could row – which, with two adults, two

children and (eventually) a dog on board,

wasn’t all that far!

I left the skiff on the jetty that autumn

and by winter’s end she looked in a very

sorry state. The rot at either end of the fore

and aft thwarts (due to a drainage channel

which had a tendency to get blocked up)

had spread, and when I turned her over I

found there was even some gribble

(worm) on the keel!

To my eyes she was still the exciting

lightweight rowing dinghy, designed by

the legendary Nigel Irens, which I had built

with my own hands all those years before

and which had stood by me in good times

and bad, and I still got a thrill riding the

little wave that built up on the stern quarter

when the prevailing south-westerly

clashed with the outgoing tide. But to

most other people she must have just

looked like a sad old wreck.

I decided to take her out for a major

overhaul, and began to think the

unthinkable. What if we fitted an outboard

on her? The very idea had always been an

anathema to me, but I began to see that, if

we put a well through the aft buoyancy

tank, it needn’t be intrusive or detract from

PRACTICAL

‘The skiff proved ideal for exploring our new

environment and we went out most weeks’

Zennor Compton