“You're not reading those DCA magazines again, are you?” my wife exclaimed catching me heading for the lavatory with one tucked under my arm.

I thought she was concerned about the overly long time I might be occupying the throne in consequence, but she wasn't. "If you enjoy them that much, you ought to contribute", she said.

And I do enjoy them; old copies stand in a pile beside my bed, and get read and re-read over and over again. "But I haven’t got anything to say that hasn't been said a dozen times over by people with more experience than me!" I replied.

Then, a couple of Sundays ago, I capsized my Mirror. Mind you, we were racing, and it was blowing Force 6-7 according to the wind speed indicator on the Clubhouse, and the wind does do funny things when it bursts from behind a long line of trees up by the windward mark. Anyway, four of us went over in one vicious gust, quicker than you can say "Help". There wasn't even time to let the sheets go. We were bowled over with the speed of a cardboard duct; on a funfair shooting gallery.

Now cruising folk are often proud ** of the fact that they don't capsize, and rightly so; after all it is better to arrive than to travel hopefully, surely, no matter what Robert Louis Stevenson might have said. But suppose it did happen to you? Do you know how your boat handles in such situations?

Take my old Mirror for instance. First, I always sail alone, and so all those diagrams telling you “how to”, which never assume you're alone, are quite useless. Secondly, Mirrors always invert. They float high on their sides, and by the time you've extricated yourself from the tangle of mainsheets and swum round to the stern to where the dagger board is floating almost out of reach, the wind will have blown her right over.

Mirrors do come up easily, however, even from a complete inversion, but every time it's happened to me, the wind has caught the other side somehow, and blown her over again on top of me.

There's only one solution. The mainsail has got to come down, and that means you've got to be able to let it go before you attempt to bring her up. And that in turn means going underneath. It's the last thing you feel like, but you're quite safe as there's a good pocket of air trapped underneath for you to breath.

My Mirror has the usual cam cleats which hold the main halyard tight so that the gaff fits snugly against the mast, racing fashion. But in addition I've a pair of ordinary figure-of-eight cleats that I use whenever I'm off in heavy weather, or when I'm cruising. The bitter end is still run through the cam cleat with a knot at the end so that I never lose it up the mast, but it's made fast round the figure-of-eight cleat. And it's relatively easy to undo when you're under an upturned boat.

Not proud - just that they prefer to stay alive. Editor

Having done this, out you pop and right her in the normal way. The weight of the gaff brings the sail down as she comes up, and hey presto, you're free to get back aboard again. I've found it best to leave the jib set, as it helps her to blow off before the wind, making it easy to pull yourself over the stern.

I have a stirrup permanently attached to the stern - a length of plastic tube with a rope running through it and spliced in an eye. The plastic tries to straighten out, thus keeping the eye always open ready to receive your foot. Before hitting on this idea I found it difficult to get back in until I actually tried pushing myself DOWN into the water. As soon as you stop pushing, you come up with all the force of a champagne cork coming out of a bottle, and Bob's your uncle; you're high enough out of the water for that second or two to enable you to grab the top of the transom and heave yourself over.

It occurred to me one day that if I was building a new Mirror, I'd divide the side tanks in two, keeping the forward part as buoyancy and open the rear part as general stowage, into which the water could flow when capsized. That way, she'd float lower and perhaps not invert. Has anyone experience of that sort of modification? So many ideas have been tried out, surely someone must have tried that one?

I've recently bought myself a Vagabond dinghy, which has fore and aft tank buoyancy like a Mirror, but no side tanks. When I capsized her earlier in the season (racing again I'm afraid), she floated nicely on her side, and didn't invert, but I found my weight wasn't sufficient to bring her up with the sails full of water as they were. I had to swim round and release the main halyard and pull the sail down, after which she came up no trouble. She was full of water though, and the first investment I made was a blooming great bucket. However, full as she was, she floated lower and I had no difficulty in getting back aboard.

I plan to use the Vagabond for my cruising as there's just that little bit more room in her than the Mirror. And she's a little more stable - not just on the water, but when you're trying to live aboard. You can actually walk about a bit if you want! But I think, somehow, I'm going to miss the little Mirror's lightness.