Kelpie is a Wayfarer dinghy: LOA 16’ Beam 6’1” Draught 3’ moored at Lymington, Hants

I arrived at the Lymington marina to find it blowing hard from the south-west and rain was spitting in the air. I unloaded the mini having given Dave and Chris a lift to Keyhaven. I loaded all my cruising gear into Kelpie on the end of the pontoon. The weather is cold and grey, the rigging clangs violently and squalls of wind scud across the river.

By 10.50 I am running out of the marina under working jib, I pick up a mooring buoy in the river and pull down 3 rolls in the main. As I hoist the sails they flog violently and the boom swings to and fro, pulled up with a bang by the sheet. Just before I set off the sailing school rescue boat came alongside — he says it’s too rough for them today!

I check everything, rudder, halliards, sails, sheets, plate, rigging, lifejacket, and lastly for shipping in the river. The line is cast off, the rudder backed, the bows swing off and point towards the sea, the sails fill and suddenly everything is quieter as we surge forward. The wind is over the quarter and for a minute I can relax. I feel relief at being away from the shore and in sole command of my boat at the beginning of another cruise. I have no strict plans of where to go, the tide is flooding eastwards up the Solent so all I know is that at the river mouth I must turn east. We are soon off Pylewell Creek and I turn into the wind as the river bends. Everything changes in an instant. I am fighting the elements. Rain stings my face. The wind screams off the marshes as we thrash to windward through the flying spray. We have too much sail up, the wind is force 5 gusting to 6. I must reach the open sea and bear away and run with the wind instead of battling against it. First I must reach the river mouth. After 20 minutes we are off the entrance. The sea is very rough, the waves high, steep and a dark grey, streaked with long lines of spray driven by the force of the wind.

I am forced to continually ease the sheets and spill wind from the sails to keep her upright. Once in deep water I bear away and lay a course up the northern coast running with the wind directly behind me. As I look around me the scene is a very desolate one. There are no other boats or ships in sight. The seas often break close by and threaten to poop us or make us broach-to in a lethal rolling turn across the seas. I concentrate hard on keeping a steady course. We must not broach. We must not gybe, either would cause a capsize and along with these conditions I would not have long to survive. There was no rescue available, once again I was face to face with the elements — and heavily outnumbered.

I keep as close inshore as possible to avoid the roughest seas. I know I must avoid some shallow shingle banks. Twice I see waves breaking heavily ahead and I have to steer off to seaward to avoid shallows. After 1½ hours of rocking and rolling on a superb rollercoaster ride down the waves we are already past the Beaulieu River mouth and nearing Lepe. We have averaged 7 knots all the way, pushing Kelpie, and me, to the limits at times as we surfed forward on the crest of a wave.

Off Lepe I know I will have to make a decision on where to go; Southampton Water is nearest, safest, but not very pleasant and somehow rather tame! Portsmouth Harbour is well sheltered but means a long haul of perhaps 3 more hours along a lee shore. Cowes is near and sheltered, but busy and means crossing the main tidal stream, now running at 3½ knots, and the shipping lanes. I decide to try for Bembridge or Wootton, these give me a sheltered shore to sail along though I still have to tackle the tidal races of Egypt Point first.

As I come across the wind onto a reach I feel the full force of the wind once again and Kelpie takes off onto a plane with crashing cascades of water flying from the bows and a marvellous ‘v’-shaped wake coming from astern. The wind is still very strong and as I approach the island shore, vicious breaking water appears and the seas become very steep and dangerous. The whole sea surface is suddenly a seething, roaring, hissing, turmoil all around me. I bear away onto a run to make it easier for Kelpie to cope. I feel very small and vulnerable as the waves crash around us and a rain squall moves across us. However Kelpie bounds through it all in fine style with the help of the tide and we are soon in the comparative shelter of Cowes Roads.

It is tempting to stop here but one look at the crowded marinas up river is enough to make me press on for a quieter anchorage. I eat some lunch to restore some lost energy and keep out the cold as we pass Old Castle Point. In the shelter of the high wooded shore of the island Kelpie runs along at a gentle 2 or 3 knots. I don’t bother to take the reefs out or change the jib as we will soon be away from the shore and catching the wind again.

As we near the omnivorously dark, rough water offshore, I stow my lunch and prepare for some difficult sailing as the wind will now be on our beam and will be more gusty as it blows off the land. In an instant the wind is upon us. We heel violently and I have to spill the wind from the sails. Kelpie is knocked hard over on her side and water cascades aboard. Then she is upright again and picking up speed. The bow wave thunders up into the jib and is flung off as fine spray. We are planing hard across the choppy seas. The hull is slamming over the waves. The mast twitches this way and that as the sail flogs when we are overpowered by the wind. The speed at which the conditions change is frightening after a minute or two I find I can handle her all right without reefing further but it is a continual fight to stay upright and on course.

I find myself very nervous of the wind increasing, to get shelter means beating straight into the wind. There are still no other boats in sight, a capsize here would put me in a grave position. I begin to wish I’d stayed at home, here everything seems out to get me. However, we survive 15 minutes, 30 minutes, 1 hour and I am still coping. We are making fast progress in spite of the tide now ebbing against us. Kings Quay is to windward of us, if I go there I must wait 4 hours until the tide is high enough to get in, but it’s a beautiful place and completely deserted. I head towards the shore. We are now close hauled and moving very slowly edge her forward through the seas, fighting for every inch. At last we are grounding. I sail in as far as possible raising the plate and rudder until I can jump out and pull her on the sand. I hurriedly drop the sails and stow them loosely. The tide is rising so I dig the anchor in far up the beach on the full length of its line.

Everything is peaceful once more. It is still raining a bit and the wind howls in the rigging and whips grains of sand across the wide expanse of freshly uncovered beach. I stand by my boat and feel relief flowing through me; we have made our first port of call. The time seems to go past very quickly as I wait for the tide, I listen to the shipping forecast — very bad news — gale 8 during the night, this sends a shiver through me. I explore the beach, wash down the hull of Kelpie, walk up the dry river bed and find a small deep water lagoon to anchor for the night. Kings Quay is just a marshy inlet in the coast with a small river running up it. There is the remains of an old stone bridge long since disused. Everything around seems natural and beautiful. I make a mental note of mud banks in the river and then go back to heat up some stew for supper. I eat it lying in Kelpie out of the wind as inquisitive seagulls wade around and wait for some bread. By the time I have got the tent out and moved her nearer the entrance the river is filling up so I try pulling Kelpie over the sand bar at the entrance with an oar to lever her. The oar is very old and it breaks in two. By the time I have spliced it together again the tide has risen further and we float in easily. I am alone and there is nobody to shout at so I laugh at my mistake and row on up the river.

It is nearly dark by the time I reach the lagoon and the wind feels fess. I drop anchor in about 1½ fathoms of water and let out all the line, we will need it if it blows force 8… I wait on deck for a while to see that the anchor is holding. It is so I put the tent up and am soon in my warm sleeping bag with a cup of coffee. I write up the log and then listen to the sounds of the water against the hull, the wind in the rigging and the trees. Everything sounds OK and I feel safe, secure and satisfied in my boat as I doze off to sleep.

The noise is deafening, Kelpie rolls and pitches, she pulls one way and another, pulled up with a terrifying thud by the anchor. The tent seems to be trying to tear itself to pieces, the rain cuts across in torrents and the wind literally screams in the rigging. It is pitch dark and very frightening. I open the leeward flaps of the tent and peer out. The beam of the torch shows white, tormented water but nothing else except blackness. The gale has hit us and the tide is at its highest. If the anchor drags we could float right over the marshes and out into the sea. I tell myself that if it drags it will catch on the marshes. What if the line parts? I tell myself it won’t! What if we turn broadside on to the wind and are capsized? I tell myself we won’t be. All I can do is wait for the gale to abate or for dawn to come. I have taken every possible precaution. If I have left something to chance then I may never know what it was! I try to joke, but laughter doesn’t come easily.

For the rest of the night I sleep intermittently, waking every hour to look outside but there is still nothing I can do. Then suddenly I wake to find it light in the tent, the boat is no longer moving, there is no sound of water against the hull and yet the wind screams still in the rigging. We must be aground; that means the anchor has dragged out of the lagoon but we are safe on the mud and for the first time in 6 hours I can relax.

It is 6.20 — time for the shipping forecast. As I lean across the boat she moves slowly and then rolls violently to about 30 degrees. I am flung across, together with all my other gear. I can’t see out of the tent. Are we on the edge of the lagoon and about to topple into it, or are we on the edge of a small creek and about to break the mast as we slide off the edge. I sit perfectly still trying to work out what the safest thing to do is. One wrong or hasty move could smash a hole in my boat or even sink her in the lagoon. Slowly I climb out and find myself on the marsh. I try to keep pulling her up as I get out but it is no more than a gesture, if she decides to slide off the edge there is nothing I can do.

I leap into the river and find mud up to my knees and water to my waist. The cold should have been paralysing but at this moment I feel nothing except horror to see my boat, the most prized possession in my life (to say nothing of costing £900), poised on the edge of death with only a slim ridge of mud holding her up. My mind races as to what to do, just pulling at her by hand would only dislodge her and send her off the edge. I must use brains and not brawn. Action must be taken fast and if it goes wrong I won’t get a second chance. I pull the broken oar out and tear off the lashings. I ram this hard into the mud some distance away and then pull in the anchor and take the rope off it. I attach this to the main halliard so that I can use the full leverage of the mast to pull her upright. Within 3 minutes the line is tight and she can slip no further. I check that the hull is supported adequately and then pull her upright with a turn around the oar. For safety I put 2 more stakes into the mud and tie the jib halliard to them. Now Kelpie is reasonably secure and I breath again. For the first time I look about me and see that the sky is dark and grey and the weather looks foul. I will be stuck on the mud until high tide at about 11.00 so I have breakfast and then explore the surrounding woods.

As a result of the near disaster I missed the shipping forecast but by 10.00 the wind has settled down to force 5 — still strong but not enough to keep me gale bound. I set off out of Kings Quay at 11.00 as the tide floated me off the marshes. The wind had veered to north-west and was still blowing pretty strong but Kelpie bounded along happily with the wind on the beam. I had only the mainsail up for safety and that had 3 reefs in it. I had decided to cross Spithead and head for Chichester harbour.

We roared across the shipping lanes to find very big seas to the north of them left over from the gale. Kelpie rolls violently sometimes dipping her boom in the waves. Off Guilkicker point I turn down wind and we roll on down the coast. We pass the Forts, Southsea Pier, the submarine barrier, Langstone Harbour, Hayling Island and finally cross the west Pole Bank and enter Chichester after a long but interesting sail. I look for free mooring by the entrance but find none so I decide to go up to Bosham for the night. By this time the winds have dropped to force 4 so I heave to and hoist the jib for the run up Chichester channel, past the rapidly uncovering mud and sand banks and long low, grassy seawalls protecting the land from the sea. Finally I pick up a mooring in Bosham Creek near a tiny slipway. The river is busy with pleasure boats and a sailing school whose boats continually rush past me as I put up the tent and prepare supper. The sky clears as the evening draws on and I am treated to a marvellous sunset over the low lying Sussex farmland.

After supper the wind dies completely and the river is deserted once more and the moored boats lie silently with their reflection hanging perfectly still below them. I row to the slipway and go for a short walk along the sea wall — it is covered with rabbits, who scurry away as I stroll along. By 9.00 I am in my bunk as I plan an early start in the morning.

At 3.30am I get up feeling cold and stiff. I brew some tea and have some bread and marmalade that I made last night. I take the tent down and prepare Kelpie for sea. The forecast promises force 5 to 6 but at the moment there is not a breath of wind. I cast off and start gently rowing down Bosham Creek in the pitch dark at about 4 o’clock. The rowlocks squeak so I dip them in the water then everything is silent as we ghost slowly down the river.

By the time I reach Chichester channel, dawn is beginning to break over the eastern horizon and with it comes a slight breath from the west. I hoist the main but continue to row down river. By 05.00 it is light and the morning is cold and grey with very low cloud. The wind has increased to about force 3 and we are sailing along nicely over the East Winner Bank. I am cutting over the banks to avoid the main tide in the entrance but it is very shallow and I am continually having to tack to avoid shingle banks. By 06.00 we are out in the English Channel and punching into a heavy sea from the west. The wind is force 4 gusting 5 and Kelpie is fairly comfortable to handle pointing close to the wind under full main only.

However, I am worried that we are not making enough headway over the ground as the tide is running strongly against us. She feels undercanvassed and yet I am very wary of putting more sail up in this very exposed and dangerous position — if something goes wrong I have only two places to run to. If I miss Chichester I only have Littlehampton which is not a nice prospect single-handed. At 6.20 I switch on the radio for the shipping forecast. I also decide that I must have more sail up. I put Kelpie on self steering and lash the sheet well eased off.

The genoa is already hanked onto the forestay, as is the working jib. I decide to chance the genoa as it is a very powerful sail. After a few minutes the ties are off and the sheets are connected. Twice I have to hurry aft to ease the mainsheet as she is knocked off the wind by the lumpy sea. When I am on the foredeck she is very low in the bows and as we pitch the waves crash green across the deck and cascade over the washboard. The wind whines in the rigging and the boat wallows in the troughs. This scene combined with the radio being on and loud makes it a very strange feeling, being completely alone, 2 miles off the English coast just after dawn. Finally the sail goes up. The halliard is tensioned I go aft and disengage the self steering and sheet in the jib. The difference is incredible. Kelpie rockets forward into, through, and occasionally over the seas. The hull slams down in the troughs and the mast bangs backwards and forwards with the shock loads. I am having to sit right out to keep her up but the sailing is marvellous with spray blowing over the deck and the bow wave shooting up into the foot of the genoa.

I look ahead to windward and start to think about how long I can keep this up, I have already been sailing for 2½ hours. It still takes a long while to reach Longstone Entrance and I tack in close to avoid the tide. Crossing the West Winner we are suddenly in very shallow water and the swell begins to break around us in an alarming manner. However, we battle on and head for the outer dolphins of the submarine barrier.

The first signs of fatigue show when I make a mess of tacking between the piles and nearly hit one. Progress slows down as we cross Portsmouth Harbour entrance. In the shelter of the Guilkicker Point I heave to for a second breakfast. It is 09.00 and we have been sailing for 5 hours already. As I munch a few more marmalade sandwiches two small cabin cruisers come past close to leeward. When I set off again Kelpie foams off after them and soon pulls clear which leaves me feeling very pleased with myself. Ahead of me lies Stokes Bay and the wind is now beginning to rise steadily. I consider reefing but decide to leave it for a while.

For over an hour I plug on to windward across Stokes Bay past the long low coast of Lee on Solent. Cowes Roads slowly opens up to leeward and when I am north of the Bramble Bank I tack towards Beaulieu. By now it is nearly eleven o’clock, the sun has broken through and the sea is blue and sparkling. In the final dash for Beaulieu we are heavily over‑canvassed but I ease sheets and sail her virtually under genoa only. The water starts to cavitate around the rudder sending a judder through the boat and leaving a beautiful trail of white bubbly water in our wake.

In the Solent off Lepe, the water is choppy and confused and I let the tide take me westwards until we are off Beaulieu river entrance and then I tack in and finally at 12.00 I pick up a buoy off the lifeboat house and bundle the sails down and flop in an exhausted heap in the bottom of the boat. After 8 hours non-stop single handed sailing I am extremely tired. The mooring is very choppy however, so after a rest I tack up to sheltered water near Gine’s farm in the lee of thick woods. I had lunch here and cleaned up the boat after its long passage. I also managed to spill a carton of cream into the bilges which should smell interesting in the future!

The shipping forecast at 2pm gave gales and a generally windy outlook for the next few days so I was a bit worried about whether I would be able to get back or not. However, when the 6 o’clock forecast gave force 4 for Dover, Wight, Portland and the Solent radio talked about the wind dropping at dusk I decided to take my chance and make it a night passage home.

At 7pm I sail down river under genoa only and pick up the last buoy before the Bull Run. I put the tent up and turn in for a couple of hours listening to the wind howling in the rigging and the water slopping along the side of the hull.

They say the hardest decision in sailing is whether to go or stay and I had not a reason to doubt it. At about 8pm I had decided not to go as the wind was strong for a daylight passage and much too strong for a night passage. However, by 9 o’clock it had dropped considerably as dusk came; I decided as I only needed a 3 hour lull I would set off immediately. I packed up the tent and stowed everything very carefully and checked the tank tops. Then I went over my navigational equipment and worked out a course parallel to the coast. I also measured distances and approximate times that I would reach certain points on the route to give me a better chance of knowing my position in the dark. I checked torches, lifejacket, flares, rigging and finally hoisted the main, heavily reefed and as darkness set in I let of the mooring and headed for the open sea.

I slip silently through the Bull Run with a strong tide pushing me along. As I turn into the wind I find its down to about force 3 but the sea is still rough from the day’s blow. We slowly thump to windward past the long shingle beach with the little row of coastguard cottages, just dark shapes, to windward. Progress is slow and she is obviously undercanvassed so for the second time that day I crawl up onto the pitching and heaving foredeck which is running with cold salt water and unlash the genoa. As this morning, the difference is incredible and we surge off to windward. All past Thorness Beach there is a reddish glow in the sky to the west where the sun went down and over the pine forests along the coast it looks unbelievably beautiful and I wish Beverley was with me to enjoy it too.

But as I approach the dangerous Sowley Boom the darkness becomes complete and the dark line of the coast merges with the black sea and the black sky. I get the compass out to help me and start sailing by the tiny dots of luminous paint. According to the chart there is a light on the end of the boom but I see no light. All I can see is the quick flashing lights of Hampstead ledge and Sconce Buoys, the lights of Yarmouth and Hurst Castle. None of these are any use to me unless I heave to and take a fix on them. I consider this but it would mean using a torch on the chart and losing my night sight. I would also be drifting with the tide, possibly onto the dangerous boom. Instead I decide to feel my way along the shore so I tack and head in towards what the compass tells me, is the coast.

There are a number of bright lights further in which I take to be a fishing fleet so they must be clear of the boom so it is safe to sail close by them. Suddenly I realise that they usually fish down-tide of the boom and as I approach with the tide, the boom is between them and me. I have been sailing into a deadly trap. I tack immediately and at the same moment I see the boom silhouetted by the fishermen’s lights. It looks menacing and huge with the surging tide gurgling past it. I ease sheets and slide thankfully past it. Ten seconds later and I would have hit it.

Once past the fishing fleet I roar on through the night with the wind slowly increasing and the bow wave regularly thundering into the eased genoa. After a certain time, that I had worked out before, leaving and adjusting for our increased speed, I tack in towards the coast again in the hope of finding the entrance to Pylewell lake. The problem with sailing in the dark is that you appear to be going much faster than you actually are. I had overestimated our speed and we reach the coast east of the entrance so I tack and head along parallel with the marshes which show as a slightly darker line than the sea, as there is a slight lightening of the sky as the moon comes up behind a thin layer of cloud.

At last we reach the entrance and I tack in. Our position is confirmed as we hit the shingle bar with a heavy crash. I pull the plate up and the tide takes us over it and into the river. There follows a series of hasty tacks as the muddy bank appears out of the blackness ahead and I slowly tack up the river. There are numerous groundings and backing of the jib to pull her off and much swearing and cursing from the crew/helmsman/skipper/ navigator. However, I eventually find a mooring and pick it up with the help of the torch. The sails are quickly stowed and the tent erected and I turn in for the second time that night feeling very contented after a successful and exciting night passage.

By dawn it is blowing half a gale, and it is a very heavily reefed Wayfarer that battles her way into the marina after a very good, though tiring cruise.