There have been great upheavals on the domestic front. Civil war has raged. For five years I have managed to keep the dining room as a sailing archive and general-purpose computer workstation, but now I have been defeated. The terms of the surrender have been particularly humiliating. Not only have I to remove every item of sailing equipment, literature and memorabilia — and the shelves which accommodate them — but the war reparations have been crippling: no less than paying for a full redecoration and refurnishing.

However, there have been some advantages. The scale of the defeat has meant that I have had to sift through all the material, ostensibly ‘to throw out all that useless rubbish’, but in fact to give myself the chance to reorganise the archives and rediscover long-forgotten old friends, like the first twelve issues of Practical Boat Owner, January - December 1967. In bad weather I now skulk happily in the bunker to which I have been driven — the back bedroom — and thumb through these treasures, occasionally casting an eye westwards through the window to see the squalls rolling in from Wales, while around me no less than twelve shelves and four full-size filing drawers groan under the weight of what may be, one day, very reasonable grounds for divorce.

I recall that a request was once made in these pages for magazine articles which members might have retained from past years, relating to small boats and cruising. I obsessively collected these long before I knew of the DCA (was there really such a time?) and the only reason that I did not respond to this request was that I did not know where to start in selecting an item. I have, in fact, very few complete sailing journals now, as I cut out anything of interest, and throw away the padding as a matter of course. There are some magazine issues that I cannot bring myself to vandalise however. Remember the publication Light Craft, which became Small Boat? Remember Dinghy Sailing, with all its printing errors and eccentric layout of text? Do you recall the time when Yachting World used to publish articles on how to patch a plywood hull, and also carry advertisements for the ‘popular’ Mirror Class Dinghy — more than 400 already sold — at just over £60 for the kit? Ah me…

Instead of reading about the latest carbon-fibre greyhound of the sea, being built at vast expense for such as Dennis Connor — who is to modern sailing what, in days gone by, Captain Kidd was to merchant shipping — we had homely tips on how to prevent your Hunter 19 rolling in the night and interrupting your sleep. (You lashed a bucket to the end of an oar fixed to a thwart, so that its rim was at water level; the bucket being full, resisted the tendency of the hull to lift it out and broke the rhythm of the roll. What, you mean you didn’t know?). The same practical shirt-sleeves approach was evident in the accounts of cruises, which were often pursued in a genuinely pioneering spirit, rather than sailed in slavish imitation of other’s techniques and their latest ‘acceptable’ designer-labelled equipment. It was during this era that I read of Frank Dye’s amazing exploits. His narrative revealed consummate navigation and seamanship, but at the same time the heavy-weather clothing he favoured included ex-pilots’ kapok suits to keep the cold out, which no doubt accumulated 100 lbs of moisture when they became exposed to a light mist! It was, indeed, a time when sailors could be different, and their sport could be pursued economically, without too much criticism from their peers.

I am absolutely all in favour of hi-tech development and I am one of those strange souls who believe that it can exist side by side with tradition and compliment it, but apart from the satisfying growth of non-racing dinghy designs in recent years, what does the modern yachting scene, and especially the magazines which reflect it, really hold for the likes of you and me? The point I have been leading up to is that publications like the DCA Bulletin — are there any other? — are an endangered species in that they continue this practical, independent, do-it-all-yourself view of sailing which was once to be found flourishing healthily in most sailing magazines, even those intended mainly for the expensive end of the market. Bearing this in mind, I feel that there is a place in the Bulletin for an occasional article resurrected from long-forgotten issues, or at least the odd paraphrase of exploits recorded in sailing journals a quarter of a century and more ago; both to remind ourselves that we belong to a long-standing tradition and also to enjoy reading of the exploits of others who accomplished as much as we, if not more, and often with very rudimentary equipment.

I know that our membership includes a number of sailors who have an abiding affection for the West Wight Potter, so I would like to set the ball rolling with this anecdote about it and its designer, from Yachting Monthly December 1965. I apologise for the quality of the illustration; the standard of photography in magazines has definitely improved over the last two or three decades.

NORTH SEA RESCUE

Determined to show the seaworthiness of his latest production, the West Wight Potter, boatbuilder Stanley Smith, FRGS, of Yarmouth, Isle of Wight (known for his two Atlantic crossings in Nova Espero, a 20ft sloop) set out to deliver the one illustrated here to her owner in Askloster, Sweden.

Equipped for the voyage with a bipod mizzen mast carrying a riding sail, the 14ft plywood centreboarder left Dover on 22nd October and covered nearly 500 miles in eight days, spending four of them lying-to in gales.

Force 8 and 9 winds and 18-20ft breaking seas, Smith said later from a hospital in Ringkjobing, drove the little boat ashore on the Danish coast. He was unconscious, he said, when carried ashore, and doubtless owed his life to the buoyancy of the Potter, which apparently survived the stranding without damage.

Library Note – Stanley Smith’s book relating the story of his trip is available from the DCA Library.