by S. Penoyre

Friday September 20th 1963. An anticyclone giving fine weather and light to moderate N.E. winds in the Channel. Cherbourg off but ideal for Fecamp. High water Portsmouth 1350. A mountain of gear loaded into the Mayfly :- sleeping bags, tent, lilos, clothes, two gallons water, cooking gear, tinned foods and soups, biscuits, cheese, sweets, fruit, thermoses, tools, boat rollers, spare stay and centreboard (a nuisance, but ply can break and one may be helpless without it), radar reflector, white and red flares, P.11 compass and cheaper standby, lantern, torch, transistor portable, charts, passports, francs. What’s left behind may not be able to go wrong but it can’t get you out of trouble either. The boat floating well down as she drifts away from Bosham quay at 5.30 p.m. with the ebb and a force 2 N.E., a perfect autumn evening. Chichester buoy 6.30, out past the Nab, sea like a mill pond, course 144º, 75 miles on the chart. Two hours on, two off, life lines fastened, the luminous compass markings too dim to see in the twilight without a torch, tide pushing her east towards the Owers light but it disappeared over the port quarter. Force 2-3 N.E., skipper at the helm, Derek dozing in the boat rollers, propping up the foredeck. Marvellous phosphorescence, stars hidden by thin cloud, compass showing up well now, very dark. Estimate 4 knots, visualise floating baulks of timber, quarter ply hull, hope a patch would hold and there are always the lilos and rollers to keep her up with. Steamers pretty thick in the lanes, alter course to avoid crossing their bows where possible and the Pifco lantern does the trick otherwise in plenty of time. 12” radar reflector between stay and gooseneck but the lantern is needed to produce avoiding action - too small, too low, or don’t they keep a radar watch on such a clear night?

11 p.m., wind up to force 4 N.E., watch change, decide to reef. P.V.C. suits and spray lit by the torch look very dramatic, and the reef to the bottom batten goes in without a hitch. Thank heavens for an efficient crew. Jib down in case the wind rises further. Skipper gets down, feels sick, is sick, feels better. Wind promptly drops again, jib up, reef out, estimate 3 knots. Biscuits and chocolate at the changes of watch, bale out the water which has leaked through the self bailer. Blast the thing, why didn’t he find out before fitting it that the type is well known to seep? Anyway, with the cruising gear in she hardly ever goes fast enough to use it.

Dawn, nothing in sight and from the steamer lanes we hope to be about 25 miles off the French coast. Soup from thermos, drift gently on, wind NE force 2, making 2-3 knots. Mist where the coast would be, estimate visibility a few miles. Wish for more wind, one night out is enough although there’s any amount of food and water and in the quiet conditions we’re doing pretty well for sleep. Forecasts not hopeful, only force 1 - 3.

Wind falls steadily after lunch, start paddling gently to help her along about 3 p.m. Steamer sightings at 2 p.m. put us about 10 miles off the coast, if they are on the Havre-Dover tracks. 4.30 wind drops altogether, flat calm. Paddle, but she’s very heavy with the gear and progress is slow. Cliffs come and go in mist, but a headland definitely sighted ahead around 5.30, perhaps four miles off. The hill behind Faquet Point at Fecamp or Cap d’Antibes 10 miles west? If the latter, which seems more likely, we should anchor to stop the tide carrying us still further west. Decide it’s not worth it, as it means adding an extra length to the cable and there’s always the risk of snagging the anchor. Heat up soup on Woolworths meths. stove. Very light NE wind gets up, allowing us to close the coast. 7 p.m. dusk falling, lights must be turned on soon and we’ll know if we’ve got a 10 mile drive to windward ahead of us or not. There it is, 2 every 10 seconds — Fecamp! Luckier than we deserve, the tidal allowances having got confused in the calm. Paddle in, realise it’s quite a long way and we are not going very fast. Near low water, so we should not be carried past, but one wishes for oars. The lights creep closer and tie up with the inset on the chart. And then we’ve passed the entrance lighthouses and are going up between the breakwaters. Little figures visible on top, 40 ft above us, their presence explained when a stream of French sounds off and the torch shows a fishing line leading up from our centreboard. Up plate, up rudder, line vanishes, probably broken. Silly place to go to sleep while fishing. But O-level vocabulary doesn’t seem adequate to explain this so we drift on. Find a few small boats moored near the left hand wall at the “Norvel Avant Port”, and a pontoon. Tie up to this, climb the ladder to the top, 9.30 p.m. France! A small wooden hut and a few dinghies, evidently the local sailing club. Throw our gear out on to the pontoon and turn in there. Strong fishy smell and hardly an ideal site, but we haven’t the energy to barge round the harbour looking for a better.

2.30 a.m. Sunday, woken by three figures on the top by the hut coughing tactfully. Turn out to be lads belonging to the sailing club, who suggest we should sleep in their hut, gratefully accepted. Then it is found to be locked, and no key. But there’s no stopping them, mad pulling, door bursts open. They eject a bicycle, even spread out an odd sail, we move in, many thanks, retire again, morale boosted by such hospitality. Hope they’ll find the same over here and think they probably would.

7.30 dress, walk round harbour with washing gear, find municipal camping site on hill behind casino. Toilet facilities clean if foreign, why don’t we have camp sites like this over here? Shaven, got coffee and bread in a cafe on front, should have asked for croissants. Becomes lovely sunny morning. Stroll round town, send postcards. Restaurant prices steep on front. Ask English yacht in the Basin Berigny where they eat, directed up towards church. Very satisfactory meal at Martin Fils, 18 Place St. Etienne, total for two 14.60 (about 22/-) including a bottle of ordinaire. Return to boat 1.30 p.m. cheerful. One friend of last night comes to the club as we prepare to leave and offers to refill our water container. Accepted with thanks, recall afterwards stories of French water and feel silly as we’d plenty left. No ill effects though.

Leave about 2.30, force 2-3 N.E. wind misty. Harbour vanishes when we are a mile off, very pleasant sailing in sunshine. Cross the first steamer lanes.

6 p.m., fog bank, not very thick but cold and damp. Reflector up, continental railway shunter’s horn (Thos. Foulkes) out, test, sounds pretty feeble. A few steamer hoots but no engine noises, probably Havre-Newhaven. Mist clears before midnight when we approach the next steamer lanes. Fine starry night, not very cold, wind still ideal, force 3 NE, delightful. Several steamers but they’re easily avoided in these conditions. The Owers comes up on the port bow, should have been five miles to starboard. Hm. Alter course to port, pass the light ship at dawn, heating soup. Tide carrying us west, but it’ll turn soon and if we aren’t well past Selsey Bill by then it may mean six hours sitting and then a foul tide for getting into Chichester. However the force 2-3 NE keeps up and we enter the harbour at 9.30. Land at Itchenor to find the Customs man. He’s out in his launch. Fill in forms for his wife, nothing to declare. Bosham noon, difficult to believe it’s less than three days since we left.

Lessons? One’s planning should allow for calms as well as bad weather - you must either be prepared to sit it out or have useful auxiliary propulsion. DF radio could be valuable, since with a small dinghy you won’t want to hang about at sea waiting for bad visibility to improve, especially if it’s due to a storm. Sea sickness can obviously be dangerous as it may reduce the crew’s efficiency drastically. Test anti-sickness remedies ashore first, some people are laid out more effectively by the pill than by the sickness. If inexperienced be prepared to alter plans to suit the weather – it’s much easier to sail 75 miles across the Channel with force 2-3 abeam than three miles down the harbour to windward in force 6-7. Forecasts are often wrong by at least one force, and haunting the forecaster may be poor compensation for 30 years lost sailing. Don’t waste your 4d. on a recorded weather forecast where for the same money you can ring up a met office and speak to the man yourself - see front of telephone directory. His advice will be valuable, but don’t forget that in the end it’s your neck which is involved, think twice before sticking it out blindly on the opinion of a chairborne stranger in a warm office who may change his mind when you are forty miles from land.

The Mayfly? Too small to sleep aboard with any comfort owing to the rolled decks, and so not too good either for letting the off watch crew sleep. But if one wants a small plywood dinghy for safe sea cruising I haven’t found a design to compare with it.