Holiday time at last! A whole week snatched out of a wet year to cruise on the NE coast. What a lovely prospect!

The best way to do it, I thought, was to spend a weekend before the cruise pottering up the coast from Hartlepool to Seaham, or Sunderland, and back, just to get the new cooker and spinnaker worked-in and give my crew some practice.

On Friday night we launched Fay and took her to a borrowed mooring, where we put the tent up, made a meal and turned in.

The next morning we slipped the mooring at 7.55 and rowed out of the harbour, into one of the best mornings I’ve seen. We put up the genoa, main and tea towel, and watched the wavelets sparkling in the sun while a f1 let us fine-reach to the headland and helped us digest breakfast.

By 8.30 we had cleared the Heugh and turned north, raised the spinnaker and were looking at Blyth, 30 miles away. The compass read 225° and all was beautiful, except that we were heading NNW! 08.50 Wind NW f3 Down chute. 09.00 Wind NW f2 Abeam pipe jetty. 09.24 Wind NW f4 Steep chop. Down genny, up jib.

So we hammer through the waves, making lots of spray, say “Goodbye,” to the sun and “Hello, mist.” Soon be there at this rate. Maybe a drink at lunchtime in Sunderland Yacht Club bar.

10.33 Wind f2 Crew exercise time. Change to genoa. 10.54 Recover radio from under compass. Stupid crew!

Then calm for an hour, wind for ¾ hr. Then lunch, wind, calm, beer, wind, calm, smoke, mutiny, tea and “Oh hell — let’s row!”

Two hours later we rowed into Sunderland and picked up a nice breeze to sail the last cable to the North Basin! We tied up at 7 o’clock. Eleven hours for fifteen miles!

On Sunday we had to sail back because the NE Coast Rally was to be held at Hartlepool in a fortnight’s time, and I just had to be there. So, on Sunday night, we lifted Fay out with the club crane, because we were not going to row fifteen miles back! We left her on the jetty and told her to look after herself for two weeks, and went home.

A Fortnight Later — crew gone to guard a rare(?) flower for a week.

My wife kindly volunteered to drive me to Sunderland and then take the car home, so I could sail all week without worrying about it. She needs it for work.

So we reached Fay at 8.30 on Friday evening, and while I got her ready, Carol went to bring the car a bit closer. Carol then rejoined me to announce that the clutch had packed in, and please could I tell her how to drive back through a town and do 50 miles on a motorway without a clutch?

Fay was eventually provisioned by simply tipping all the stores into her, and I saw Carol happily(?) on her way. A pint of beer persuaded a very helpful club member to crane Fay in for me, and I rowed round to the basin sitting on a pile of stores. Carol is very good with duff machinery — I hoped. I also hoped that the squidgy thing in the bottom of the boat wouldn’t be damaged by my feet, and what the hell was it anyway? The night was dark and the tent didn’t want to go up. I couldn’t find the milk or sugar.

I went ashore at 11.00 pm and phoned home, but Carol was still not back. Once more on the boat I made some black coffee and, feeling a bit miserable, decided to turn in. While doing so, the squidgy thing attacked me and I fell onto the stores which still hadn’t found a home. At 12.30 I crawled into my pit and passed out.

The fishermen in Sunderland start work early and warm up their engines for a long time.

At 4.30 am I crawled out of the pit and was attacked by Squidgy again. I tidied Fay and prepared breakfast, eating Squidgy in revenge with a fried egg and dipped bread.

By 7.30 we were ready and I was off, rowing out of the harbour with the sails neatly furled. 10.30 came and we rowed back in, because Fay insisted on drifting round in circles and I hadn’t the incentive to stop her.

Lunch was the highlight of the day: lamb chops, Smash, butter beans, and a Squidgy remnant discovered lurking in the bottom of the boat. Then at 17.00, with a weather forecast of SE3 behind us, we sailed out of harbour and turned NW in a light drizzle. The wind was NW f2; then SW3, 1, W1 and finally nothing. I had Chicken Supreme in Sunderland Harbour at 8.20 pm.

Sunday

A good night’s sleep with rain bouncing off the tent, and a good breakfast, and I felt great. There was a bit of wind too. At 11.15 we slipped, cleared harbour at 11.30 and set off south for Hartlepool on a broad reach. We lurched into Seaham at 12.45, thoroughly unnerved by horrible seas and three 5,000 ton coasters trying to squeeze in all at once. We had had a nice f4 to start with, and I reefed early because the sea started to get up. The wind soon increased to… f4, then went up again to… f4, by which time I was down to foresail only! The wind machine was working correctly, so I can only think that the air must have increased its moisture content and become rapidly denser, producing this weird effect. The seas were very short and steep and were doing their best to broach Fay; some hope with a Shetland Skiff!

Fay and I spent the afternoon chatting to a coble called Ambler with a fisherman inside her. He was going to take her up the coast to the Caledonian Canal and then on to the Shetlands Islands so that he could do some fishing — when he wasn’t fishing for a living that is, on deep sea stuff. Hope they made it.

We had a relatively peaceful night. Fay decided to scratch an itch at 2.30 on the harbour wall and woke me up, but otherwise all was quiet.

The fishermen in Seaham start work early and warm their engines for a long time…

At 5.45 it was another lovely day. Ready to go, without breakfast, at 6.45; so I made lunch instead, then had a coffee and smoke, and at 8 o’clock we slipped and rowed out of the harbour. Fairly calm seas and a real f4 from the NW. Course SE. The wind soon increased so I reefed and did some real sailing at last. Soon I saw a coble with a set of yellow oilskins and a pair of seaboots sunbathing across it! This fascinated me so much that I sailed right over his nets before I remembered why he was there. “Another advantage of a long keel,” I thought. We tacked around the next coble.

By 10.30 the wind was SE5. I really enjoyed the hard beat round the Heugh, and turned towards Hartlepool looking forward to a lovely reach in. Unfortunately… the unspeakable, unprintable, fatherless wind turned with me and continued to blow on the nose. This was the last straw, and I let the sheets fly. Fay coasted to a halt and I started to shout invective at the top of my voice at the wind and all the gods that had anything to do with it. It worked! The wind dropped two forces and swung south again, so we covered the last mile and entered harbour just as you would expect any dinghy to do after a normal cruise in the Med, or somewhere.

We tied up to a friendly Silhouette and shared coffee and cake with the owner, then went to visit Vic Felgate on his Rebell. Finally, at the top of the tide, Fay was hauled out and my holiday was declared void. Neither of us felt like tempting the gods any further.