As a keen open-boat sailor who has spent the last four years in various parts of Brazil, I have much enjoyed reading the D.C.A. Bulletin, which has brought back the memory of happy times cruising in the Chichester/Poole area, and I hope on return to the UK to meet fellow members. Meanwhile, for those who are interested, the following gives some idea of small boat conditions over here.

There are sailing clubs in most coastal towns, but these exist chiefly for racing and the Snipe class is the most popular; other hard chine craft such as Lightnings and 12 sq. metre Sharpies are also sailed. Professional small boat-builders outside Rio de Janeiro hardly exist, and in the North most craft are amateur constructed.

Real cruising apart from day-sailing is not popular, probably on account of the climate, as even after a short sail a fair complexion is likely to turn to the colour of a boiled lobster. Distances between coastal towns and villages are considerable and it is difficult to carry sufficient food in a small boat and fresh food will not keep. There is also the question of sharks!

In the North there are still a fair number of trading schooners to be seen, and the fishermen use 'jangadas', which consist of four or five rough-hewn logs of a special wood, joined together to form a raft about eighteen feet long, with slots between the logs for wooden dagger boards. The sail, which is triangular and has a long boom and fairly short curved mast, is permanently lashed to the latter. These primitive looking craft are steered by oar and the crew lean out to windward standing up holding on to a rope. They are surprisingly seaworthy in skilful hands and quite fast.

At Maceio where I live at present boats have to be launched off an open beach and moorings are not practicable. The first boat I acquired here was a heavy 17 ft. half-decker and it was necessary to borrow a jeep after each sail to haul it out of the water to the club. I am now building a light 10 ft. dinghy which it will be possible to launch single-handed.

Two years ago I had the opportunity to make an inland voyage on the river Jacui when living in the south of Brazil not very far from the Argentine border at Porto Alegre, which lies at the head of a wide fiord about 20 miles long bordered by preen hills and dotted with small islands, which was my usual weekend cruising area. This fiord opens out into the great inland sea known as the 'Lagoe dos Patos' which joins the Atlantic Ocean at the port of Rio Grande. Porto Alegre is about 150 miles from the sea, but is reached by seagoing vessels up to about 3000 tons. Above the port the river Jacui appears as a maze of channels and islands in low-lying country and averages about a mile in width up to Sao Jeronimo, a distance of about forty miles. Here the river Tacquari enters, but the Jacui itself is navigable by commercial traffic with shallow draught up to Cachoeira, a further one hundred and sixty miles. In my two weeks holiday I hoped to get as far up the Jacui as possible.

The boat was a 20 ft. C.B. gaff sloop of hard-chine construction, and fitted with a very small cabin in which two could sleep on mattresses on the floor as head-room was almost nonexistent. She was unballasted, light, fast and rather tender, needing to be sailed with care in a squall. One interesting feature was the forestay which consisted of a solid wooden spar with a groove for the luff-rope of the large jib. The idea was to ensure a tight luff for windward work but stability was not enhanced.

None of my friends seemed to relish the idea of two weeks 'hard living' away from the ice and other little comforts which make their lives bearable, and so one very hot day in March the boat and I drifted under sail into the riddle of the river. There were 20 bottles of mineral water under the after deck and another 20 of beer under the floorboards. There was also a quantity of tinned food, fishing tackle and petrol for the outboard and a primus. For three hours we drifted waiting for the wind, and the deck canvas became too hot to touch. However at four o'clock a breeze came up from astern and we ran gently up the river until the sun went down, when I tied up to the bank. Twilight is short here and before the sails were stowed darkness had fallen and ominous whirring noises in the air warned me of the approach of company. Quickly the primus was started, the candles lit and crawling below like a dog into its kennel; I closed the portholes and cabin doors to keep off the invasion. Unfortunately a number of mosquitoes and 'mariposas' had already entered to be reinforced by others coming through the ventilating slits in the doors. 'Mariposas' are like small white moths. They are attracted by light and every night several hundred would commit suicide on the deck lit up by the port lights, and. have to be washed overboard the following morning. The temperature in the cabin was soon above hothouse level and I ate my rice and beans naked. There followed two hours of sharp engagement with various forms of insect life before falling asleep.

In the middle of the night I was awakened by a series of soft thuds on the deck and in the cockpit. Nervously gripping a sheath knife, I cautiously opened the cabin door to find myself looking straight into the eyes of three plump frogs, who appeared less disconcerted than I as they sat blinking at the light of my torch for several moments before disappearing.

The next morning we were under way in perfect conditions with a fresh steady breeze on the beam. Later it hardened and the boat fairly foamed along with the lee gunwale at times awash. The countryside was very flat with many cattle to be seen and occasional Gauchos, Brazilian cowboys. The low reed-fringed banks and islands appeared like those of the Norfolk Broads with only an odd palm tree to spoil the illusion. The riverside dwellers live in simple huts without windows raised on wooden supports as a protection against the floods.

After the previous night's experience I made camp early and ate supper before sundown. I hoped that the wind would hold, but was rewarded by two blazing hot days and very light following airs; but this gave plenty of time to observe the life of the river. Occasionally one of the brightly painted trading boats would pass, or a paddle steamer that might have come straight from the Mississippi of a hundred years ago. The river boats are generally about forty feet long with a small house in the stern to accommodate the owner's family and the engine. Coming down-river they mostly carried cargoes of timber, rice or grain. In the fruit season they make a colourful picture piled high with oranges.

Drifting along close inshore the 'Jangada' (name of the boat - not to be confused with ‘Jangadas’ described earlier) silently passed waterfowl sunning themselves in the reeds, while gaudy butterflies darted in and out of the rigging. Towards evening the fish would begin to jump and a great 'peixe dourado' would show its slim silver body. A member of the salmon family, it is considered one of the best fighting fish for its size in the world, and forms a large part of the diet of the river-side dwellers. There are alligators in the Jacui but they rarely show themselves by day. The best time to see them is at dawn, not a good hour.

On the fourth day we came to the coaling village near to Sao Jeronimo, and the sudden change to a Tyneside setting was rather startling. Strings of lighters lay out in the stream waiting to be loaded and towed by tugs down to Porto Alegre. In the evening I tied up at the landing stage of a small settlement, but my stay was short as two men with rifles hurriedly approached and informed me that the settlement was a penal colony.

After Sao Jeronimo the river requires great care in navigation. The wind, now strong, had turned ahead, and for the first time the engine was started. The river soon began to change its character entering a beautiful wooded country of low hills. There were sandbanks in the middle of the river and patches of disturbed water indicated the presence of rocks below the surface. However the motor made us a steady 2 knots over the light current, but I had overestimated the fuel consumption, and at midday the motor stopped a mile short of the settlement where I'd hoped to refuel. Hardly had I anchored when a fisherman in a canoe came up. He assured me that there was no petrol in the village, but paddled me ashore with my cans and led me two miles inland to a. farmer who kept his own supply. Such friendliness is typical of Brazilians in the interior.

Next day the engine began to lose power and kept stopping due to water in the petrol, while the current grew stronger with every mile, as there had been heavy rain in the hills. There was no other settlement before Rio Pardo, another sixty miles. All that day nothing had passed going upstream, but at about four o' clock a large cargo boat of eighty tons approached. As she came up I waved a piece of rope, and five minutes later my boat was snugly secured alongside, and the mate was pouring me a drink in his cabin. Later we sat on deck drinking 'chimarao' the traditional Gaucho drink and watched the sun go down. 'Chimarao' is a form of herb tea drunk from a wooden pot through a pipe. We travelled at reduced speed through the night, and early on Sunday morning arrived at Rio Pardo, where the 'Zara' left me as she was continuing up to Cachoeira.

At Rio Pardo the yacht caused quite a sensation, as many of its eight thousand inhabitants had never seen a sailing boat larger than a canoe before, and such was the welcome that I stayed there four days. I was given the use of a houseboat and a canoe for the duration of my stay, and one day visited Santa Cruz to see the British American Tobacco Company's factory, the largest in South America.

Rio Pardo is very interesting historically, as several buildings and cobbled streets remain from the eighteenth century, when Rio Pardo featured prominently in the frontier wars of the period, at a time when the Spanish colonists from the South were attempting to extend their dominion to the line of the Jacui. Notices in the town announced a forthcoming commemoration of the famous dragoons of Rio Pardo who fought in those wars. In the nineteenth century the first waves of German emigrants, who have played such an important part in the development of South Brazil, settled along the Jacui, and today German is still widely spoken in the district.

Space forbids a description of the return voyage which was uneventful apart from my pouring a kettle of boiling water over one foot. Though perhaps not so exciting as sea-cruising there is still a lot to be said for 'ditch-crawling'. One thing at any rate was learnt. A small cabin with inadequate headroom provides little comfort. A well-designed tent can provide full head-room and the absence of a cabin makes it easier to handle the boat, as I later discovered.