Two Nights in a Firefly

by B H Crawshaw

Foreword: The Committee would like to point out to members that they strongly disapprove of cruising in a racing dinghy under any circumstances. The low stability of a racing dinghy necessary for a little extra speed, is always dangerous. When on passage the crew are in serious danger of exhausting themselves to control the boat and so having no energy reserve if the weather deteriorates. These boats cannot look after their crews. Mr Crawshaw mentions many discomforts which are liable to be trying even in good weather. We hope his enthusiasm will guide members to cruise only in suitable boats.

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In August of 1954 four of us, all boys of sixteen or seventeen from Hill Head Sailing Club across the Solent from Cowes, set out on our first dinghy cruise. It lasted for four days, nights being spent at Seaview, Wootton Creek, Cowes and King’s Quay. Of the two dinghies one was a 14ft Hamble Star and the other a weighty 12ft Bermudian rigged dinghy. In those four days we learned much about sleeping in dinghies and last year with experience behind us we were able to fit in another cruise of three nights.

By August of 1955 I had bought myself a Firefly having sailed for over ten years in various dinghies with other people. Being unable to make up a four I sailed Fairey by myself while Peter Byerley, sailing his Hamble Star, Altair, had John Churchill as crew. Peter was landed with most of the gear but, sailing single-handed, I could scarcely sacrifice the bow buoyancy bag to make stowage space.

As a shelter to sleep under Peter took a deep boat cover to be rigged over the boom and laced under the bottom of the boat. Having had no time to organise anything seaworthy I took a groundsheet-cape which was to be hung over the boom at one edge and over the gunwale at the other. This served to keep off the worst of the dew and fortunately the weather was kind.

We left Hill Head after an early lunch and went across to Cowes on a close reach. I started with full sail but though there was not too much wind I was far outsailing Peter and was in fact reduced to sailing circles round Altair in order to keep contact. When we got into Cowes at three o’clock I lowered the jib. This was the only time on the whole cruise when I used the jib the rest of the time it remained stowed under the foredeck. After a quick look at the boats we went out through the crowded Roads to make for Beaulieu but we were badly organised for tides and there was a very steep sea off Egypt Point. Altair began to take in enough water to wet the gear so we put back into Cowes and tied up to a mooring buoy near East Cowes S.C. to have tea aiming to have just a little something after mooring for the night. We tried again at six o’clock and crept along the Gurnard shore and struck out into the tide from Gurnard Ledge. The tide lashed us to leeward, but we ended up near N.E. Gurnard and beat up past Stone Point with its reef to the mouth of Beaulieu river. Then followed a long and tedious beat up behind the spit which took an hour or more and at a quarter past nine we passed Buckler’s Hard. The wind had dropped off so much that we were scarcely ghosting up with the tide. We stopped two bends further up, now in semi-darkness, and flung our anchors on to the saltings on top of the East bank.

By the time we were unrigged the tide had more or less made at that point of the river. A stern to stern line was made fast — and this piece of rope took many weeks to lose its slime! We drank all our supply of milk and then began to settle down. Then hell began for me. First the inside of the boat had to be dried out carefully with a sponge while continuously getting wet with dew. All the boat’s gear and odds and ends had to be put on one side of the plate box, the port side, and my sleeping bag threaded into position under the starboard thwart. The main halliard was shackled on to the end of the boom and the cape draped as previously described. Both boats were by now lying upstream held on to the bank by the flood and the water level was up to the top of the bank. At last I got myself reeved into the bag, but could not turn over without extracting my arms from the bag and getting my hips clear of the thwart. I was woken by the change of tide, the flood had ceased but although the real ebb had not set in the stream had pushed me down on to Altair and there was a periodic bump in the stillness of the night. This meant getting nearly out of bed to haul in on the anchor warp which was made fast round the mast. I hauled in until I was opposite my hook, having at first been some way along the bank. This, I found, made Altair lie partly stern on to me and across the stream, but sleep is everything and I wedged myself in again. Only once again was I violently woken and that was when the tide dropped leaving Fairey’s bows in the mud of the bank and the stern in the stream. She stayed upright fairly well but slid stern first a little way down the slope.

Despite the noise of the birds next morning, most of them Curlew, I woke and dozed until a little after dawn. Consciousness then returned to both crews. When we were up I had to think about getting across to Altair for breakfast. However, I was lucky. At the foot of the three foot mud bank there was a gently sloping sandy floor which was reasonably firm. Breakfast was as usual leisurely but with no milk we could have no favourite cereal.

Our plan was to go on to Newtown or somewhere in that direction but since we had never seen the top of the Beaulieu river we did not hurry out to sea but packed up and sailed gently up the river. This proved to be no short process as there are miles of heavily wooded banks and such bends as to make a beat inevitable whatever the direction of the wind. We reached the top at twelve o’clock Fairey some way in front of Altair as, with the fluky wind, it paid well to point high. With the rudder and plate partly up I could creep in over the water-covered grass at the edges. It is without doubt a very beautiful river to sail up and was well worth the time spent. There is a grass-covered hard at the top and a small sluice with a big expanse of river beyond. Together with the old stone buildings the spot is typical of the lovely New Forest. I tied Fairey up to the quay for a short time to take up the main halliard which, having got wet overnight, was drying out. The light air had increased to a breeze which, puffing through the trees, had both boats easing mainsheets now and again on the way downstream.

We were soon out of the river but had again missed the tide and decided that it would be far too wet to slog down to Newtown. Once again we sailed for Cowes and were soon across, this time with the tide helping, and went into the harbour to have a good look round. The wind died away to a few faint puffs coming out of the Medina River so Wootton was made our next destination. However, we spent the first half of the afternoon becalmed over the shrape mud with the tide dropping so fast that Fairey’s plate hit the bottom. We moved out to anchor and wait. The sun was very hot so we went for a swim putting on plenty of Skol when we came out for protection against the burning heat. At three o’clock we had a scanty snack and, picking up a faint easterly breeze, got under way again. The wind soon freshened from the east-south-east making a beat along the coast. It being low water springs the shoreward tack needed care, as there are several rocky reefs nearly exposed at this state of the tide.

On one tack in towards King’s Quay with the plate half up so as to be able to go fairly close inshore I realised how well the helm was balanced. This prompted me to try sailing without using the rudder as I had seen it done before. The experiment was highly successful, for I could do a whole log without touching the tiller, and even go about. It needed careful mainsheet adjustment as there was quite a chop. The boat sailed itself very dry but for the occasional awkward sea while Altair was getting wet from the ‘wind against tide’ conditions.

Arriving at Wootton, an old haunt, we learned something new about the underwater contours. On the way in I aimed to meet the channel just inside No 2 dolphin but only just scraped over the bottom by pulling both plate and rudder right up. We anchored for the night just upstream of a shingle bank some ten foot high at the inner end of the anchorage. Fairey was to be used as a shore ferry so while Altair was being rigged for the night I amused myself by sailing backwards out of the creek and then tacking backwards up to our mooring. We all piled into the Firefly and paddled across to the ferry slip where there was a good sandy beach at which to land and put out the anchor. The chief aim was to get some milk and we ended up by going to the house in whose shed Peter and some others had spent a night the year before when they were out with a Solent Seagull.

Back in Altair again we had a real feed — the second meal of the day — and got through a great quantity of food. Two improvements on the Beaulieu night were put into operation: Peter was on a mooring just off the bank and I hooked in well up the bank itself lying upstream of and well away from Altair. The other idea was to let most of the air out of the stern buoyancy bag and so save having to wedge myself in so tightly under the thwart. It also meant that I would be on a flatter part of the floor. The same careful drying process as before was carried out, my bag laid out and the ‘awning’ put up. Life was certainly more comfortable like this and all that prevented sleep was the swell coming in which gave a roll of something like sixty degrees calibrated against the stars. Having gone to sleep I only woke once before dawn.

At dawn I was awakened by a bumping accompanied by a slight scrunch. A scrutiny of the surroundings revealed that the ebb had laid Fairey along the shingle bank, and when I put my head up to discover this it was to the great surprise of an Oyster Catcher which had been pottering about a few feet from the boat. After wondering for a while whether that really meant getting up to re-anchor — the hook was lying on the ground beside me — I decided not and as it was very calm pushed off with a paddle into deeper water and dropped my plate just into the mud. I settled down for a little more rest.

The sounds of life from the river and from Fishbourne were too interesting for me to stay stuffed down in the bottom of the boat with the side as a horizon. So at seven o’clock I started to extract myself. Everything in the boat that had been exposed overnight was damp with a very heavy dew so when I was dressed I put the cape on the foredeck and hung the sleeping bag along the length of the boom. Pyjamas and a few clothes were hung from the cross trees. The boat must have looked quite like a cruiser!

The silence on the water was shattered by the starting of an outboard motor. Soon a pram dinghy spluttered across to the slip from a keelboat which had come in the night before. After a while Altair came to life and when John and Peter emerged they were surprised to see me up and about. While they dressed I — in Fairey — did all the storing I could short of taking in the drying. We decided not to go off in search of milk so I took up anchor and tied on astern of Altair and clambered aboard her to cook breakfast.

Like any of our meals at sea breakfast had nothing to make it more like breakfast than any other meal. We just ate from our varied store whatever we felt like at the time. The selection at the start was something like this. Tinned fruit (acceptable at any time, anywhere, having its own juice it does for drink as well if needs be), tinned meat of several varieties both natural and synthetic — these first two items are unfortunately expensive. Fish was less popular than might be expected for although sardines and the like are easy to handle their greasiness is unwelcome. Large quantities of bread were consumed — mostly cut loaves — and consequently of butter as well. Biscuits are good food and easily handled. Tea and milk drinks were made. The worst problem is the inevitable carrying of water and milk. A thermos was used for milk and we hope this year to have something better than screw-top bottles for water.

Breakfast, then, was like every meal apart from lack of drink, though unusually hurried because Peter had to be back to play cricket in the afternoon. As it was the last packing-up things had only to be stowed well enough for the crossing which looked like being a gentle one in view of the present flat calm. So all hands to making sail! During which I came near to going over the side, remarkably enough the only time during the cruise. This was while trying to get something down from the cross trees where it had been drying in the spreaders.

We were away about nine, an unusually early time for us but as if to offset such an effort there was practically no wind at all. Ghosting out of the creek I could do two or three times Altair’s speed but Peter rowed for a bit until a faint air came from the east. He had then a lead of about a quarter of a mile. I decided not to hoist the jib but see if I could catch up at all. It freshened to a breeze and with a flat sea we got going nicely once half way across. For the last bit of the crossing under the land the wind fell light again. At the three-quarter mile mark we were just about level but did not converge as Peter bore off for the Haven and since the tide was not right up to the beach I followed him in. Altair was unloaded and I then made my way round to where we take the boats out of the water. The next thing was a bath and something hot to eat.