John arrived on Friday evening and, finding the club area deserted, slept aboard Jady Lane on her trailer in the dinghy park. The original intention was to cruise to Piel Island in company with one of the G.S.C. boats — either Howard Gordon’s Yachting World 14ft Day Boat Decimus, or Alvan Eames’s Oyster Class 16ft. Morag. Since John had a business appointment on Monday morning in Newcastle, he could not risk being stuck at Piel in the event of rough weather, so we decided to go to Fleetwood instead and return on the next tide.

The ebb was running well when we set off at about 15.30 with Joan and her son Jan sailing with John Deacon, and Howard with Alvan in Morag. We were on a dead run out of the Lune estuary heading west, and John Deacon was under a slight handicap in the nice force 2/3 breeze as he had neglected to bring his mainsail, so he had to set his genoa as a main and looked very snug with such a low sail plan. On the run out of the Lune, the Oyster sailed with jib furled, but even so sailed too fast for Jady Lane to keep up. Morag had on board a spare cotton jib, so we offered it to John if he could find somewhere to hang it. He accepted the offer, so we passed the jib over and to our surprise he hanked it to a shroud and it set beautifully, pulling Jady Lane along at a speed to match Morag.

When we reached Lune Number One Buoy we turned on to a SW course to follow Lune Deeps. This is the drain for all Morecambe Bay so there is a terrific push if you keep in the middle of it on the ebb. We were by this time on a broad reach so Morag’s jib was unfurled and we had a glorious sail.

Too soon we reached the Wyre Lighthouse and turned south on the close-hauled course with the Wyre ebb to get over. We were keeping close to the port windward side when the Fleetwood hovercraft came over, and for some unknown reason it insisted on keeping to the right-hand side of the channel, which was about one hundred and fifty yards wide at this point. We therefore had to move to the starboard leeward side of the channel until it got past. Fortunately it was only travelling at about five knots and all the passengers aboard were obviously enjoying the sight of Jady Lane with her four-barrelled jib-headed rig.

We sailed past the lifeboat shed and beached on the Knott End mud just upstream of the ferry slip. It was about a half hour before low water so we had a meal and a brew. John Deacon erected his Cape Cart hood and prepared and ate his food, while Joan did the honours for the rest of us. John produced a bottle of dry sherry with the expressed hope that nobody would like it — we all did, unfortunately so.

For the return trip, Howard sailed with John, and Joan and Jan with Alvan. When the tide made sufficiently we pushed off and had a grand reach north out of the Wyre Channel while darkness fell. Past Wyre Light (the tower slightly battered since a trawler ran into it last year), we turned on to a NE course, close hauled to take us up the Lune Deeps, well marked by the Heysham Channel Buoys. A large oil tanker, in ballast, coming from the oil jetty at Heysham, bore down on a collision course, so we in Morag hove to on the opposite tack until she passed about two hundred yards away. Jady Lane still seemed to be headed on a dangerous course, so we flashed at them. We couldn’t see any response, but there was no collision, so we let the jib draw, went about and sailed on.

We lost contact with Jady Lane for a while until we found the Lune No. 1 Buoy with its distinctive flash, and started the long beat back to the mooring. We went on to the port tack first to make sure that we did not get into the false channel just to the north of the Lune entrance. When the plate touched on the edge of Pilling Sands, we went about, feeling sure we were up the right creek. As we sailed off the starboard tack, we caught a glimpse of Jady Lane’s silhouette on the port tack. We gave them a quick flash and got an answer, so sailed on. We didn’t tack right across to the northern side because of the presence of the false channel (which incidentally is full of succulent fat shrimps). We tacked to and fro for hours making for what we thought was Abbey Light, but eventually sailed right past it and it turned out to be a flashing light on a buoy (Lune Number 5). This light was installed only this year (1968). After passing this we could not see anything resembling Abbey Light and Alvan was feeling slightly at a loss, while Jan slept soundly on the bottom in the stern sheets (on what I call the poop deck) and Joan calmly said that we must close the coast if we kept on tacking. The only identifiable light or object ashore was the Forton motorway cafe on the M6. Later John Deacon said that he had thought that this was a damn big steamer heading right for him.

After what seemed an age we saw the shape of Abbey Lighthouse on our starboard hand about fifty yards away, but couldn’t see the light itself, until after spotting the tower! It was just like a fag end glowing feebly.

Henceforth it was quite an easy course following the river buoys up to the dock itself. We put the bow on to the club slip, collected the dinghy from the park and towed it to the mooring. We made fast, furled sails and rowed ashore to put Joan’s tent up and bed Jan down. About fifty minutes later Jady Lane picked up a mooring and, fetching Howard in our dinghy, we went into the club for an illegal but well-earned bottle of supper. John Deacon turned in afloat, Joan retired to her tent and Howard and Alvan swathed in tablecloths, etc. settled down on a settee each in the club house.

A great day.