(1) After having spent ten months putting new timbers and a small cabin on my 14ft winkle brig, our first weekend away was rather a letdown through my own fault.

We left West Mersea at about 4.15 p.m. bound for Bradwell. Sailing out through Mersea Quarters we went past some of the local oyster smacks and one of the fishermen told us we would have a nice weekend. We sailed on out and round the Nass Beacon and headed up river between the laid-up tankers towards the entrance to the creek leading to Bradwell. We got there about 5 p.m. and dropped the hook about 400yds past the quay. We then had tea (out of tins) and put the kettle on a little meths stove. After tea we got the cabin ready for bed, then sat in the cockpit reading and soaking in the sun. At about 9.30 p.m. we had a cool drink and then turned in, after pumping the boat dry and TIGHTENING THE SCREW BUNG. After turning in we listened to Radio Luxemburg.

We were awakened at 3 a.m. when I turned over and put my hand into some water, then we both sat up and switched on the light. We saw that the sleeping bags were in about 1½” water, so we dived into the cockpit and started pumping and bailing like mad. Then we went back into the cabin but could not get back to sleep so we left for home at 5.30 a.m. We put the boat straight on to the hard and put a copper tingle over the bung hole.

This is what had happened. The screws that held the outer ring of the bung had, over the years, corroded away, and due to my over tightening the inner bung the screws were drawn out of the wood and so broke the joint, so allowing the water to creep in. Moral of this story is to either not have a bung or to check the screws every fitting-out time.

A. J. Tucker

(2) It is amazing that anybody who leaves their boat in a yard over the winter manages to fit-out in time to sail during the height of the summer. The weather is, of course, the biggest enemy but one’s “friends” run it a close second. Having been lured to an early start by a flaming dawn, you sprinkle gear around the boat and hurriedly start slapping top coat on the hull. It’s as though the starting gun has been fired, other owners appear all around. A reel of flex unwinds its way to the next hull and the quiet is shattered by a whirr as the owner determinedly tackles five years of paint with power driven sandpaper. The puddle which is spreading round your feet grows unnoticed because you are too busy gnashing your teeth over the blue haze which is adhering to your virgin white topsides. As your feet send a message saying they are getting wet you realize that useful boat just astern which has provided bucketsful of water from the two foot of rainwater it contained has found an owner who has quietly started a siphon system which threatens to emulate the Nile delta. Hastily you scrape new channels in the hard ground to divert the floodwaters but it’s impossible to remove the lake which has formed just where you had planned to lie and paint the bottom.

Oh well, perhaps it will be dry next weekend. As you look round wondering what you can do in spite of your “friends” your eye spies a woollen fungus which has grown on the gunwale since you left it newly painted yesterday. Well, your “friend” had to satisfy her curiosity about what you’d been doing and it’s your own fault because you didn’t leave a “Keep off’ notice.

In desperation you start varnishing the spars on a dry piece of land when your suspicion is aroused by small-boy-and-dog combination. Upon investigation you find dog has nosed in gear found nothing edible and left his visiting card on the stern while small boy has circumnavigated hull leaving trail of muddy footprints on canvas cover. This had been left on high ground for purposes of sitting on. As the “friends” gather to commiserate a foot homes in on the full tin of antifouling and you can be sure that patch of ground will be barnacle free this summer.

As the rain patters gently on the newly varnished spars you sit in the car trying to work out how to leave the road leading to the yard when one way is blocked by three cars abreast and the other by a van broadside on. Some people say they prefer fitting-out to sailing! Perhaps they haven’t any “friends”! M. Coleman