Eolet had two new toys to help her cruise this year — an outboard engine and a transistor radio, to improve on our former aids, a sweep and a barometer. But for the misbehaviour of the engine and too much reliance on the shipping forecasts we should probably have reached the Menai Straits.

We had a crew of three — Edna Mayo, Pauline Harrison (both experienced dinghy sailors) and myself. The boat is a beamy, shallow, 18 footer, gunter rigged, with plenty of freeboard (now that we have had the topsides built up), and a roomy cabin. She has no ballast, but with a crew of three can be sailed like a large dinghy.

On Friday 24th July the tide floated her at the moorings at Heswall as the full moon rose. We were away under power at 11.15 p.m. in a light SW wind and a flat sea. It seemed a perfect night to get the long coastal haul behind us on our way to Anglesey. At 11.25 we were well clear of the moorings, set full sail, and stopped the engine. There was a reaching breeze, but it rapidly freshened and veered. The sea began to get up as we came to the deeper water clear of the bank, and it was obvious that this would be no easy trip for a first night. We made for an anchorage off Thurstaston, judging the position of the channel by our distance from “Sally’s”, the white cottage on the shore there. As we anchored we were passed by a Hilbre making down river under jib alone — we later heard that she found it impossible to get outside the estuary against the fresh westerly which blew up a rough sea near the Dee Buoy. We had hit on a most uncomfortable anchorage, as unluckily we were near to where an outer channel, close by the Thurstaston gutter, had recently worn a steep wall for itself. The surf which broke over this wall was quite frightening — but for the horrible effort of getting in 15 fathoms of chain we should probably have gone back to the moorings, and been better off for it.

At 2.30 on Saturday 25th July the boat grounded. At 6.45 SW-W winds force 4-5 were forecast for the Irish Sea. A day of recuperation for a sea-sick crew seemed indicated. At 10.30 we ran back to the moorings under double-reefed main. We spent the afternoon and evening ashore, and came back on board to find a calm evening. We should have sailed that night — but one bad night, and that the first, seemed enough.

On Sunday 26th July the boat floated at midday. We hoped to be away at once, to use the full six hours of ebb along the coast to the Orme — but the wind was north, and light, and the engine refused to start. Edna cleaned the plug, but without immediate success, so we hoisted sail.

It is always a dreary business beating out from Heswall against a light wind, and it is impossible to progress much until nearly high water. We used only a few inches of centreboard, and crossed the banks as soon as we could, in two feet of water at times. By 2 p.m. we were making for Mostyn, and by 3 we were tacking from Mostyn to the Point of Ayr, the tide now in our favour. At 4 we made tea under way off Talacre, and at 6 we were off Rhyl. The weather looked settled and we thought we should be able to anchor in Abergele Roads while the flood ran against us and carry on along the coast on the morning tide. We have done this before, but the anchorage is a fair weather one only, with no shelter except the open beach to the south. Then we heard the shipping forecast — wind, force 6-7 in some parts of N. Irish Sea! It would have been foolish to stay out if there were really such weather about, so, flat calm though it was, we ran in for Rhyl before the gentle northerly air. As we waited on the bar for water Edna made the engine go, but when there was water in the Clwyd entrance it failed to start again. The wind died completely as soon as the anchor was up, and when we dropped it again the easterly set of the flood had already carried us nearly past the entrance. At this moment a fishing boat was making for the bar. She towed us in, put us alongside another boat for the night, and gave us a pile of fresh plaice for breakfast — all payment refused. The mooring was welcome, as Rhyl is very crowded these days and we would have had difficulty in finding a place to anchor. The hospitable fishermen of Rhyl helped us on the following morning also — Welsh Lady, alongside which we had moored, towed us out against a gentle northerly air. We could not possibly have left under sail until the tide turned. Then her owner, John Paul, came aboard and tackled our engine — perhaps it had had a chance to dry out overnight, or perhaps we haven’t got the knack of it. It went for him, and he left us heading for the Orme, trying to round it in the light variable winds which were forecast and which were to be followed by force 3-4 westerlies later. We made good progress against the tide, and by 2 pm were off the Little Orme. Here the engine suddenly stopped — we suspected dirty petrol. The wind was now SW and freshening, however, and the sea was becoming considerable. We put up the double reefed main and jib, and soon took the jib in again. The tide was now in our favour, but we could only make good a NW course. The off-shore wind was too much for us to make much progress against the big seas, and although we crept past Llandudno Bay and the Great Orme itself, we were much more rapidly being blown out to sea. The boat kept very dry and if only there had been a port within reach down-wind we could have carried on happily, but I began to realise that with the wind funnelling out of the Straits we should be at sea all night before we could get in, and it was doubtful if we should make it on the next flood.

As we cleared the Orme itself the wind freshened and the sea grew much less regular, with wave tops heaping all round. We must have been about six miles north of Great Orme’s head when I put about, wondering if the tide might possibly help us to make Llandudno Bay on the starboard tack. It was not possible to point anywhere near it, and in any case Llandudno Bay would be no place to anchor if the wind were really to blow force 7 from the NW. It seemed to be 5-6 when we put about, possibly 6. The seas made it worse, and the only sensible course was to run back for the Dee. It was quite hard work at the helm, but the boat behaved well and took only very occasional seas aboard. Edna and Pauline had never been out in such seas before, and were glad to be making downwind for a port. I was disappointed to have had to turn back when we were so nearly there, but it was some compensation to have had the boat at sea and seen how comfortably she took as bad a combination of wind and sea as she had ever sailed in. We made a fast passage back to the Dee, although the first three hours of it were against the tide, and as the seas became more regular we were practically planing at times. Yet we managed to brew tea under way without difficulty.

By low tide we were past Rhyl — a hopeless port in these circumstances, as there is no water until half-tide, and the bar has surf on it even in light winds. With the flood we watched the Prestatyn shore racing past, and at ten o’clock we anchored at Cawdy, where there is a pool of deep water at low tide. This is the furthest point upstream on the Wirral shore where a boat can lie afloat.

On the morning of Tuesday 28th July the wind seemed to be force 6 at least, and the barometer had fallen from 30.2 to 30 in twelve hours. The forecast was SW 5, but this time we thought it seemed on the optimistic side. We grounded at the bottom of the tide, but were afloat and ready to sail by 10 o’clock. There was no point in starting before the water had reached the channel which runs up past Thurstaston to Heswall, so we shortened in the anchor and made coffee while we waited. As the tide rose we dragged the anchor and moved in just the right direction up the channel. This was a good method of progress, until we approached moored boats, when we put up the reefed jib for better control, and got the anchor aboard until we reached shallow water again near our wild anchorage of Friday night. We were able to run up to the mooring under reefed jib at 1 p.m., and to get the mooring easily we dropped the centreboard as a brake just as we reached it,

That evening we called in the ship’s engineer, my husband Tony, who discovered a loose nut in the outboard’s carburettor, which had caused the petrol leak and the flooding of the engine. On Wednesday the engine surprised us — it went as soon as Edna tried to start it, and carried us nicely down against wind and tide while we got the tiers off and made sail. There was a very light NW wind and we made no progress under sail against the tide, so we decided to go upstream for a change. With the jib goose-winged we ran up to Gayton. The marshes lie green on either side of the gutter here even on a spring tide now — they are spreading rapidly. A new sewage outfall is being built across the gutter below Gayton, and above this we were surprised to find that the ebb did not take us home as quickly as we had hoped it would. For a while I towed us along, in bathing costume and chest deep, until the engine suddenly agreed to start again, and took us back to the mooring.

That was the end of the cruise for Edna and Pauline, and in their place Tony came aboard with Judith and Jan, aged six and four. On Thursday they played with the dinghy at low tide — it barely floated, but they practised rowing. As the tide came in I took them up the gutter in the dinghy. Judith rowed, pleased to find that she could, and I was interested to see how the gutter runs at the end of the new sewer pipe. It is quite deep, though very narrow. Then Tony, who can make the engine work, brought Eolet up to meet us, and we all went aboard for a last sail. We had a reaching breeze down to Thurstaston and back, and Judith steered the boat in more of a breeze than she has sailed in before. We went back to the moorings rather than test the children in a rough anchorage down at Cawdy, and next morning we were glad we had been cautious, as we packed up our gear in a fresh westerly breeze with plenty of rain.

This would have been a more extensive cruise if we had pressed on in the early stages, before the weather returned to the usual pattern of westerlies, and if we had risked our luck for a few hours in spite of a bad shipping forecast. I was anxious not to keep a crew new to coastal sailing to too ruthless a timetable — and perhaps in the long run it’s as well I didn’t, since I hope they’ll come again!