Looking back over some years of “exploring” by sailing dinghy, I am glad that the most memorable occasions are not all of the kind enjoyed only in retrospect.

Nevertheless, there were some tragi-comic moments. Years ago, when I was learning to sail on the Blackwater in a very dilapidated 14ft. half-decker with heavy canvas sails as conspicuously patched as the knees of a carnival pirate’s trousers, the helmsmen, a heavyweight, insisted on sitting out and “sailing her hard”. A strong gust hit us while the boat was reaching near Osea Island. The sail split cleanly in half with a sound like a pistol shot and my recollection of the next few minutes is quite chaotic. I shall never know exactly what happened except that we did not capsize. After stowing away the remnants of the sail we thought of rowing, only to find that one oar had fallen overboard in the confusion. The flood tide and the wind took us into a narrow channel off the main-stream and thus we found ourselves literally up the creek without a paddle. The heavy helmsman promptly stripped off his jacket, dived in and rescued the oar, enabling us to row back into the main river and get a tow home from another sailing dinghy.

Another year, sailing single-handed at Falmouth, I had to beat down the main estuary into a brisk on-shore breeze. The boat showed a reluctance to go about unless a jib was set; so I would grab the jib-sheet when the mainsail had begun to fill after each turn. The jib-sheets would therefore thrash about for some seconds before being pulled taut and on going about for the fifth or sixth time the rope suddenly tied an intricate knot in itself so tightly that I could not undo it with bare hands. The knot was on my side of the fairlead and in such a position that the jib could not be released in the event of a strong gust during a starboard tack. Fortunately no gust came and I was able to round the headland towards flushing with a feeling of great relief.

Later undoing the knot with a spike I reflected that if I had tried to make the rope knot itself by thrashing it about, I would never have succeeded. Such things are, I understand, part of a natural phenomenon known as “malignitas rerum”.

On the other hand, some occasions are memorable because the elements were kind, as when during a day-sail on the Medway in a Norvall “Nabob” there was a good westerly breeze throughout the trip from Rochester to Queenborough so that I arrived earlier than expected and had time to explore the Swale for a mile or so. The tide was still ebbing as I returned to Queenborough and then decided to start on the homeward “voyage” to Rochester as the tide would very soon turn. Off Queenborough the boat was becalmed and with visions of a long, long row back I prepared to unclip the oars. The breeze sprang up again but this time from the east and blew steadily to give a delightful homeward sail.

I have also experienced this excellent arrangement of a following wind on both the outward and the homeward trips during the same day when sailing from Gosport to Wootton Creek, Isle of Wight, and back. This was for me a particularly memorable trip as the owner of the G.P.14 I sailed on this occasion had decorated the sail with a huge skull-and-crossbones, much to the delight of small boys on a motor-boat excursion who passed close by me in Wootton Creek. On returning I found myself obliged to display the Jolly Roger when sailing into that great British naval base, Portsmouth Harbour. If this had been tried three hundred years ago, the boat would doubtless have been blown out of the water by the cannon of shore forts at the entrance!

My favourite Broads incident occurred while tacking along the River Bure in a twenty-foot sloop. It seems that nowadays Broads cruising yachts sail if the wind is aft or on the beam; with the wind against them, they use the motor. The “driver” of a motor-cruiser slowed his craft as he approached from the opposite direction and stared in apparent amazement as I repeatedly tacked first toward one bank then toward the other. Finally, when he came within hailing distance he shouted indignantly, “Well, make up your mind!”