Anne, my wife, and I decided to join the Eastern contingent for their Blackwater Rally over the August Bank Holiday 2000, as there was not one in our own area. Accordingly we loaded up our Roamer with enough stores for a month and left home after work on the Friday.

We had booked B&B at the Red Lion in Latchingdon, a friendly pub with live music, and got there just in time for last food orders. Saturday morning saw us at Bradwell Marina where we launched after meeting Chris and Lesley (Mirror), John Adye (Lugger) and George (Cruz).

Peter Small arrived and it was decided by consensus to sail over to West Mersea for lunch at the yacht club. In the end Chris and Lesley went with John, we followed and George came behind. As we left the Marina a horrible graunching sound came from somewhere down near my propeller, but I ignored it and carried on. Oh foolish man!

The wind was blowing more or less westerly, i.e. straight down the estuary, and after we got out of the marina entrance creek we hoisted sail and had a nice broad reach across, reaching the enormous speed of 4 knots over the ground according to my GPS!

The yacht club was eventually reached with us playing follow the leader, and after signing in as guests of Mr. Squiggle, we had a very nice lunch and a glass or two of ale. This was to prove our undoing!

After lunch, the others decided to get going, George to Goldhanger Creek and John, Chris and Lesley back to Bradwell to recover in time for the evening’s libations at The Green Man. I still felt tired after driving 160 miles the previous evening and thought that forty winks would not go amiss. So an hour later, when I woke up, it was to a brooding sky as the promised thunderstorms hovered in the distance. Anyway, we gamely buckled on our lifejackets and set off back across the estuary. Regular sailors in this area will be aware that the southern shore of the Blackwater estuary is a lot shorter than the northern one.

Now anyone who knows what I did to the design of the Roamer would say what happened was mostly my own fault, Lord knows. the technical advisor gave me some stick at the time when I built it in 1990! Red Lady does not have a centreboard! This gives a lot of room inside but very little grip on the water!

At the time we were going across the estuary, the tide was ebbing strongly and the wind was still blowing out to sea. This meant that in order to avoid blowing with it we had to motor sail, to stem the ebb and edge into the wind. Not usually a problem. However our Suzuki 4HP decided it was time to give us a little scare and so promptly cut out. Petrol was flooding the engine to the extent of leaving quite a slick on the water. I nearly pulled my arm out of its socket in pulling the starter rope, but to no avail. Although it was not exactly rough at the time, there was a bit of a swell on, far too much to get out my toolkit and work on the engine.

I tried to sail as close to the wind as I could, which is not very, and was soon acutely aware that we were not going to make the other shore but were heading straight for Holland! The only sensible course was to turn back through 180 degrees and head back for Mersea. It was then that fate decided to really drive home the point about sailing boats that would not sail properly and the pin fell out of the top pintle on the rudder! When we heard the graunching sound earlier the rudder must have caught the propeller and loosened the pin. In nearly ten years of sailing Red Lady this was the first time it had happened.

We were now in the position of being, almost literally, ‘Up the creek without a paddle’, or in our case ‘Halfway out of the creek without a rudder or engine!’ Memories of Ransome’s ‘We didn’t mean to go to sea’ flashed before my eyes. I had broken another of the DCA’s golden rules and come out without any flares: the ones we had were hopelessly out of date and I had not got around to replacing them. Oh how the Fates find us out!

The only thing left to do was to shout and wave, but there were not too many boats nearer than about a mile. Anyhow, we were in luck; a large RIB suddenly decided to come out of the estuary, and passed within a cable or so of us. I pulled the ensign (staff and all) out of its socket and waved it vigorously above my head — and half a dozen kids in the RIB waved back! In desperation I yelled ‘HELP!’ at the top of my voice, and whether they heard me or whether the Fates had started to feel sorry for this sad old chap, I shall never know, but just then one of the two adults in the RIB turned his head, saw us, and turned their boat in our direction. After explaining our predicament they offered us a tow, so we passed them a rope (no flares, but loads of rope!) and they towed us back in to West Mersea. They turned out to be a couple of local chaps who were giving up their own time to take out parties of handicapped children, to give them an experience they had never had before. Well, these kids certainly had one: they were so excited when they stepped back on the pontoon at West Mersea and were able to tell their folks that they had taken part in a real life rescue!

Well, our luck was changing at last, as they had just taken their last contingent of children out for the day and very kindly offered to run us back across the water to Bradwell (we must have touched 50 knots in that speed machine!) to pick up our car and trailer. I keep a very comprehensive toolkit in my car, and we thought that we might need the trailer to bring the boat back round the estuary to Bradwell where we had paid for two nights on the Marina. Needless to say we gave a generous donation to help towards the petrol for the children.

That’s about it, except to say that it is 38 miles around by land from Bradwell to West Mersea, although it is only 2.77 miles by sea as the crow flies. So by the time we got there it was almost dark, and repairs had to wait until Sunday. The tiller was fairly easy to fix with a stainless steel bolt, but the engine defied all my efforts and turned out to need a new carburettor: apparently the float chamber needle valve arrangement is very poorly designed.

So that was the end of our sailing weekend. We spent some time ashore at West Mersea, including going to their enjoyable annual town fiesta/carnival on the Bank Holiday Monday.

All in all, a rally to remember. Our best wishes to those we met there for the first time, and thanks for the hospitality. Now where did I put the plans for the centreboard case...?