In the last bulletin I described my winter visit to Newtown River and my delight in the freedom that we dinghy cruisers enjoy to poke about such attractive parts of our coastline. No sooner had the bulletin been published, when I began to receive alarming reports about this year's DCA rally in the Newtown River. The assembled boats were dried out on the beach at the traditional rally site, their crews making ready to repair to the nearby pub, when suddenly the harbour master appeared and ordered them off. They could not move until high water the next morning, when the weather was bad and the forecast was worse.

Accordingly many members decided to leave their boats where they were, and crossed back to the mainland on the ferry. A few people felt that they should remove their boats however, and so they set out to sail back. Of the three boats that attempted the Solent crossing, two arrived safely, but the third vessel, Don Alexander's Mirror 16, capsized off the Beaulieu River. Don and his crew were unable to right her, and had to be picked up out of the water by the local inshore rescue boat. The lifeboat crew could not recover the dinghy, which was eventually wrecked on the Island shore, and was a total loss.

I telephoned the Southern Regional Officer of the National Trust, to ask for clarification of the Trust's policy about boats in the Newtown River. I also discussed the case with the coordinator of the Trust's properties on the Isle of Wight, as well as the harbour master himself.

First though, a bit of background. You can generally assume that there is a right of navigation in tidal water, so trespassing only becomes an issue if you wish to land. Luckily however, private land ownership usually ends at the high water mark, and the foreshore is Crown land. As the Crown could not care a fig if you land on its foreshore, you can normally beach your boat almost anywhere around the British coast.

Sometimes however the foreshore is owned by a private land owner or certain powers have been granted to a harbour authority to control the use of an area of tidal water, and both these apply in the Newtown River. The whole of the little estuary, including the bed of the river, is owned by the National Trust, who are also the harbour authority. To further complicate the situation, recently the estuary has been designated a National Nature Reserve, so the Trust now has the unenviable job of reconciling the conflicting demands of naturalists, boat owners and other visitors.

Bylaws have been put in place that restrict boats to certain specific anchorages, and require notice to be given in advance if a group of boats is planning to visit. Although the harbour master is required to enforce these rules, I was assured that the Trust tries to be accommodating to boats, and an individual cruising dinghy that turned up unannounced would be unlikely to be disturbed, unless she happened to anchor in the middle of a nesting site.

A little dinghy tucked up a secluded creek is such an insignificant intrusion into the landscape, (compared to nuclear power stations, stranded oil tankers or buzzing jet skis), that we are usually left in peace. But if you are ordered to move, do not assume that you have a right to be where you are. In British Law the rights of property owners are many, and the rights of dubious vagrant types like us, are few. So apologise for your presence, and ask where it would be permissible to moor or anchor instead. I find that an offer to pay any harbour dues usually disarms any criticism. They are rarely more than a few pounds, and payment of them establishes that you are a boat and not a tent. Hopefully you will be transformed from just another disreputable fly-camper to an honest mariner dried out on the beach, and you will be allowed to stay.

The Newtown River incident is also a sharp reminder never to be pressurised into sailing if the conditions are not suitable. Losses of cruising dinghies are extremely rare, but Don Alexander's experience reminds us that the sea can be a merciless place.