Some years ago, Whitsun 1962, in fact, I had been unfortunate in having been working in the Midlands, away from my home town and my dinghy in Gravesend, Kent. Not having my own transport I had been left with no alternative but to instruct a local to carry out the external painting and minor repairs to the hull after a spell of gales the previous autumn, when the boat had been left for a suitable tide alongside the entrance to the canal basin.

Having arrived home on the Friday night, I was left with Saturday to fit out and generally get shipshape for the proposed trip down the Thames to Margate on the Sunday, leaving Monday for a rest day or alternative day if the weather proved unsuitable. Having already lost a part of the summer (Whitsun was late that year) I was anxious not to lose any further periods by not having my boat at my next area of work and new home.

Saturday turned out to be a scorcher and made a group of friends, relatives and myself sweat the proverbial in trailing the boat the quarter of a mile length of Gravesend prom to the public slip. I am convinced that the wheels of this abomination had once done better service with British Railways. After this I was left to my own resources to collect the various items of gear from their place of deposit the previous autumn. The hull had spent the winter in the yard of the Canal Tavern, and been used as a general dumping place for car spares, rotting timber, bottles — empty, unfortunately — and anything else that was not wanted seemed to be discarded in this one corner. As can be imagined, a vigorous cleaning operation was necessary. After this I collected the spars from a friend’s shed, along with the sails and rigging from storage with the sailmaker.

Saturday evening arrived with a beautiful sunset, the boat completed and waiting on the slip for the last of the flood. But when she floated, how she leaked! It was worse than last autumn, and it was supposed to have been repaired; how I, or should I say my wife, was to curse those wood butchers that had been paid for carrying out all necessary repairs to the hull. Rather daunted but still determined, I laid Gannet alongside the G.Y.C. ready for the morning.

Sunday arrived with a fair NW wind f4-5 decreasing to f3 about midday as the weatherman had said it would. I must add at this point that I had owned Gannet, my first and still my only love, exactly a year, which had been spent pottering, mostly with my then proposed wife, on the Medway with a sail round to Gravesend at the end of the season. This pottering consisted of my crew’s sole sailing experience. My own had consisted of several weeks over a period of two years spent sailing the east coast in the converted Spritty Dipper, whilst theoretically and as far as my boat was concerned I felt confidently happy. In retrospect, I feel I should have been prepared to take longer over this proposed trip.

At 0730 Sunday, my wife and I arrived to find Gannet a third full of water; once this was bailed out we hurriedly stored the remaining provisions and spare clothes. One pair of trousers was required immediately: Deanne’s effort at climbing the council prom railings was accompanied by a rending which was not befitting a Sunday morning, or any other morning for that matter!

The top of the tide found us leaving the club quay under jib and a four-rolled main at 0830. Once away from the high factories Gannet felt the full force of the wind, and romped down Gravesend Reach. Once round the Ovens’s mournful bell, Lower Hope reach turned into a beat to windward with plenty of spray and occasionally a green one over the lea bow, making it necessary to ease the main to put the sea back where it belonged. The situation was not helped by the persistent leak. I had by now located the cause to an eighteen inch split garboard plank, and, later in the day, attempts to caulk with paper aided with a knife did ease the bailing that Deanne was doing every twenty minutes.

At about this time the day was showing a promise of repeating Saturday’s fine spell, and brightened the somewhat damp circumstances.

At 1015 we were able to ease the sheets again and set a course south of the main channel buoys close to the Blyth Sands. Sand… huh-huh! It wasn’t possible on passing each buoy to pick out the next, but time passed quickly to reveal the next as a dot on the horizon, and a look astern still revealed the last one on course. With now bright sunshine, a good strong tide, a long easy swell and wind still steady f4 or 5, Gannet was simply romping along under all plain sail on her favourite point of sailing. Between East Blyth and West Nore Sand buoys we passed a group of shrimpers, south west through the Nore Sand swatchway to pick up the Groin Edge Buoy before crossing the entrance to the Medway. This saved crossing at a wider point and placed us on course to pass well south of the explosive wreck on the edge of the Cant, north of Sheerness. The next ten miles or so across the Cant would be un-buoyed, as I intended keeping away from the main channel to pick up the Whitstable Start buoy after passing the Lisseden steps, a timber-filled groin jutting out to sea approximately a mile from the Sheppey shore.

Sheerness was abeam at 1230 with the steps appearing on the horizon as a pencil-thin line. Several cruisers emerged from the Medway estuary, some heading NE down swim, some taking the deep water channel to the north of myself, eastwards, and a few heading across the main channel, possibly for a pint and pickles at Leigh.

By the time Warden Point was abeam at 1330 I was so pleased with progress that I decided to relax this determined drive of mine and have some very much needed sandwiches and drinks. This was followed by attempts at the leak and contemplation on my part of a possible retreat should the wind get stronger, and decision that if this was to prove the case I would beat into the East Swale on what would then be a favourable tide. Driving on, and now off, the Ham Gut at 1400 I was calculating my E.T.A. This folly seemed to be my undoing in-as-much that shortly the wind died away, leaving a swell that shook the dying breeze out of the main, and thus began a frustrating afternoon with Herne Bay Pier in sight. With a foul tide, I was being pushed shorewards towards West Swalecliff, so that in the next two and a half hours my wife spent drying out and sunbathing on the bench seats whilst the Whitsun holidaymakers gradually came within earshot: in fact we almost joined them. Suddenly a strong south-west gust sent us seawards just as the beach groins were becoming an approaching danger, only to meet an easterly wind with which to round Herne Bay pier. A look at my watch revealed that it was now 2000, and still some 12 sea miles plus an hour’s foul tide to reach Margate, and yet again the wind was falling off. If only it would settle in the south-west. The sun by now disappeared, rather than set, behind Reculver Cliff, leaving a cold, metallic appearance on the sea.

At 2030, still making a rather sedate progress of some two knots over the ground, the wind died to be followed by a breeze from the south-west at 2100.

Now that the Black Rock was passed I was concerned with the approaching darkness, but decided that as I knew every mile of the beaches from here to Margate for the purpose of beaching, I would press on over the last of the Kentish flats into the southern extreme of the Gore channel. These beaches had during the day been filled almost to capacity, the only indication of this now was the tempting lights of Dreamland to the south-east.

Time was getting late, 2200, and Deanne was being overcome by a cold exhaustion: we had been under way thirteen and a half hours and covered forty-five miles of coastline, of which the first 30 sea miles had been covered in five hours. I therefore decided the only proper thing to do, if I wanted my crew to join me again, was to make for the shore.

Beaching the boat, selecting a convenient beach in the dark with hotel and street lights in my eyes, proved more difficult than at first anticipated. Stepping from Gannet into knee-deep water onto terra firma proved to be pleasantly warm.

Whilst I was straightening up I discovered the anchor had been left behind at Gravesend; still, the tide was ebbing and Gannet was safe for a few hours. Meanwhile Deanne was fruitlessly trying to secure a taxi, but ended up being taken, rather wet, tearfully exhausted, into a rather posh hotel by a very respectably dressed gentleman who I am sure believed that young ladies should not “do” this sort of thing, because when I arrived there was no coffee for me.

A telephone call and we were soon home to coffee and bed for Deanne. For my part, a return walk along the beach with my alarm clock, to wrap myself in the mainsail and sleep!

At 0315 Monday I was woken up with the sea lapping the transom of Gannet. Set the main and at 0420 broad reached across St. Mildred’s Bay and into Margate Harbour to tie up to the launching ramp at 0502. A quick check with the harbour coastguard proved that my progress had been watched and noted the length of the Kent coast, his only missing information was my actual point of departure.

Joining the army of “beach cleaners” I made tracks for home and breakfast followed by more sleep.

On reflection, then and now, I learned a tremendous amount in what was one day. My boat has carried me many miles since that day, cruising sometimes a week at a time, but unfortunately never more, partly because of my occupation and now family commitments; never racing, and never using an engine either on Gannet or the barge.

I do not want readers to think that this was any kind of feat; it was done through necessity. I had at the time neither trailer nor transport and my time was limited.

For my own part, the most important lesson learned was preparation. I have since developed a duplicate list of everything needed for a week’s cruise, and use this even if it’s only for a weekend rally. A food survival kit will not cure a situation but it will at least help to keep the crew fit if rations or conditions get bad.

The arts of heaving-to, lying a-hull, and running under jib to the extent of adopting the correct plan instantaneously as circumstances permit with every situation should be practised and imprinted before attempting even the shortest of open sea passages.