by Eric Knot

Everyone appears to be concerned about the danger of capsizing, and the difficulty, perhaps of re-surfacing, but in 42 years, on the Nile, Lake Timsah, the Clyde, Western Scotland, North Wales, Llyn Tegid, Winsford Flash, and Sale Water Park, I've capsized once - oh no, twice!

We were idling round Llyn Tegid, Lake Bala, one holiday. I was solo in our Graduate, Stoic, when a young boy asked to go sailing. His father and several sturdy uncles, also insisted, so perforce, I had to set off. It was a race and the boy was keen to win, nothing else; but he hadn't the skills and we capsized at the first acute tack. The uncles came screaming out; one jumped on the centreboard which snapped in two - it's now a useful coffee table in the sitting room. But the uncles got us upright and towed us ashore. We hauled Stoic on to the road trailer which promptly collapsed. Someone found the village gof du (blacksmith), who welded the trailer together with the help of two staves from the vicar's iron railings. (It was Sunday!)

Come to think of it there was a lesson to be learned on the other occasion when I capsized on a solo jaunt round Winsford Flash.

When I was upright again I was exhausted; I sent out distress signals. Nothing happened, until my wife thought there must be something wrong and persuaded a local to motor out and tow me in. He did so at a rate of knots that nearly submerged the stern of Stoic in the wash.

I climbed ashore and took the cap off the Thermos and wondered if anyone had recognised my urgent signal of distress. I had hauled the jib up and down like a maniac.