Sandpiper had decided to attend the DCA’s winter rally, held this year in Norfolk at the Easter weekend.

Sandpiper, incidentally, is a Wayfarer dinghy, and had invited Jo and me with her to tend to her needs.

We drove to the meeting place, Potter Heigham, on the Friday morning in dry sunny weather, with only modest trepidation in our hearts, arriving about lunch time.

Just over the famous (notorious) bridge we saw the first of the other boats attending the rally. Roosting on her trailer was a Gull and behind her a National 12, both awaiting launching. Well-wrapped up figures told us that Ralph would be there by 2 o’clock, and recommended the fish and chip shop. This establishment needed no recommendation to me as I have visited it on many occasions, so out of the strong wind and skate and chips to the fore. The wind deserves further mention, as it appeared to be the product of an interesting metrological phenomenon. This wind started, it is rumoured, over the Urals, circled Siberia, the Artic wastes, then, building up speed, cut low and fast across the open country of Norfolk.

Returning to the boat and trailer, Jo donned her protective clothing. This suit was indeed comprehensive and effective, and when fully enrobed, all of Jo left to the observer were two eyes and her finger tips. The suit was obtained, I was informed, from sources military, about which I did not enquire too closely, but whenever Jo walked by with her Cape Canaveral gait, I had mental pictures of some shivering marine, left clad only in his long-johns, on the edge of a Norwegian fiord.

As the slip was blocked by cars, there was some delay in launching, and two o’clock passed with no Ralph. The Gull and National were manhandled into the water over the bank, but Sandpiper is a lady of more matronly proportions and would not suffer the indignity of sliding over the bank on her bottom. But, finally launched, we stowed the endless list of equipment hurriedly as the other boats passed through the bridge to join Ralph’s Challenger, now just beyond the modern road bridge a few hundred yards upstream. When we had paddled through this second bridge, the mast was raised, the genoa unfurled, and on a comfortable broad reach we chuckled gently upstream, expecting every minute to see a cloud of cream canvas set on the rest of the boats now left behind on the windward bank. Eventually they passed out of sight, and we had begun to suspect: was it a trick? Had they now slipped downstream? We stopped at Martham Boatyard for water and waited.

The Gull was first to arrive, then the rest, now joined by a hardy soul in a canoe. Setting sail, we made our way to the river’s head at West Somerton for the night’s stop, passing on the way Martham Broad, now a bird sanctuary, and largely overgrown. Now I, in addition to a persistent sore throat, had developed a migraine, and Jo insisted that I sought a ‘bed and breakfast’, pointing out that as I looked like death then I should not die on the boat and spoil the cruise for the other folk.

In the morning, with the head under attack from my pills and fortified by a generous breakfast of two eggs, bacon and all the trimmings, I strolled down the bank as grey featured figures stiffly folded their tents and with numbed fingers set to rigging the boats. Sandpiper in Jo’s capable hands was clear of tent and all clutter stowed away and ready to rig as I casually stepped aboard.

Horsey Windmill, Hickling and finishing at Potter Heigham was the day’s intention, and the outlook was bright and breezy. The leg back down the river passed through the open swing bridge at Martham Ferry (I have never seen it closed) to Candle Dyke. It was a sharp beat as we turned into Candle Dyke, through Heigham Sound until the turn off to Meadow Dyke. It was in this dyke that Sandpiper waited until Jo’s attention wandered, then, using a sudden gust across the reed beds, she charged into the reeds and went firmly aground — just to show her independence, you understand.

In the open water of Horsey Mere, Sandpiper was getting something of a handful, and the first reef went into the main. We thrashed wildly to and fro in glorious reaches across the mere waiting for the rest of the fleet. When the sails of our companions appeared over the reeds, we beat upwind, dropped the main, then under genoa we reached down the short dyke to the mill. At the dog leg, we furled the genoa, turned downwind, and with just the windage in the rigging we coasted at a nice walking pace until a gap in the moored boats permitted a turn head to wind and Jo stepped ashore. One by one the dinghies and canoe arrived, and, as my pills were losing the battle, Jo — bless her heart — dragged out the cooker and, with the others, brewed up for lunch while I lay in the boat to recover.

It was then that the day’s moment of drama occurred as, with loud cries and twanging of boom on my shroud, Ralph arrived — impressively, under full sail on the run, but with nowhere to go but the front door of the mill. Fortunately, quick work with fenders and lines saved the day, and after a quick climb of the mill with her camera, Jo did the washing up. “Oh, there’s hardly any to do — its no bother.”

We recruited the canoeist, as the wind was a problem to him, as extra crew, whilst Ralph piggy-backed the canoe itself on his tender. Also, as the wind seemed stronger, the genoa was changed for the jib.

Once through Meadow Dyke, the thresh all the way up Hickling Broad to the Pleasure Boat Inn was exhilarating. Hickling is the largest broad in the broads system, being over a mile wide, surrounded by wild reed beds forming much of Hickling Nature Reserve. Unfortunately, much of this broad is too shallow for navigation, and the channel is marked by a line of posts. Eventually, with our fore deck running with water and John, our ex-canoeist, also soaked by the driving spray (who was that sitting nicely protected between John and Jo? you may ask) we tacked into the protected and surprisingly almost empty dyke by the inn. There was no sign of the rest of the fleet, and it was brought home to me the problems of cruising with a mixed fleet, in that a sensible cruising programme varies so much from boat to boat. On previous cruises with the Wayfarer Association, other boats had never been far away, but here at Hickling there was not a familiar sail in sight.

Once ashore, we found a small cottage and sat in the sun with a pot of tea awaiting the arrival of the fleet. Whilst we sat, Roy and Shirley Phillips were joining the rally with their Wayfarer in the dyke behind the inn. Finally the rest of the fleet appeared briefly at the head of the broad, then bore away without landing, leaving us last and tied up awaiting Jo’s return from ‘local civilisation’. Impatiently, we set off in pursuit on the last leg of the day to the overnight stop at Potter Heigham. It was an easy sail — a run down the broad until turning from Candle Dyke into the river Thurne turned it into fine reach. As for me, the pills were losing again, and although the day had been dry and bright, that northerly wind was cold. Catching up with the rest of the fleet, we moored and rigged our tent alongside the Phillips’ Wayfarer, just upstream of the Potter bridges. It was here that we learned that our canoeist had to leave us, and that the National had already done so. In addition, the Gull had holed herself sometime that day and decided to withdraw.

Jo and I elected to pay a quick trip into Yarmouth as we had the car handy. The heavy striding astronaut began to struggle and commence a metamorphosis in which the heavy orange epidermis was shed revealing the petite fair companion I had almost forgotten. (One must admit that an astronaut with a handbag did have a slight air of incongruity).

Really, this for us was the end of the rally, for my throat and head did not improve overnight, and when hail and sleet commenced next morning we decided that this was a sign and returned home, determined however to return again later in the season.

Many thanks to Ralph for the event which enticed us from slipper and hearth.

Note: On reading the draft of this text, Jo pointed out with some feeling that if I was to reveal all concerning her sailing Sandpiper up the bank, I should include a mention of a brief touch on a mud bank I made coming out of Horsey Dyke. Well, I would, but it was such a trifling incident of little consequence.