I bought my Lark (my first boat) from someone who offered to teach me to sail her as part of the deal. After several outings, two solo, one of which was a placid day out on the tide, I felt confident enough to test my new found skills in stronger conditions...

On the sea front, the breeze felt rather intimidating. The lifeguard on duty hailed me, having seen me with my boat the previous week. “Going out today?”

I confided my reservations to him, but he replied, presumably intending to encourage me, “Only way to learn, by experience!” This was a challenge I felt bound to accept.

Having rigged and launched, all there was to do was push off and hop in. It was that moment of hesitation that reminded me of the feeling I had as a novice skier on the lip of my first black run: the point of no return. Hesitation over, the first few seconds I spent struggling to lower the rudder, which for some reason would not go down (because, I found out later, I’d hitched the uphaul too tight), while keeping an eye on other boats at their moorings skimming past me at an alarming rate even before I’d trimmed the sails. In the excitement, I forgot to lower the centreboard, which meant that having covered about half a mile in what seemed like about ten seconds I tried to come about into the wind but couldn’t. Hemmed in by a sand bank on one side and an approaching groyne on the other, there seemed to be little room to manoeuvre and all I could do was gybe, but this didn’t work properly either and I capsized. I realised the centreboard wasn’t down when I tried to stand on it to pull the boat back upright; it then took me a few moments to lower it because first I had to untangle the anchor warp from the centreboard uphaul, the two having become intertwined. The boat then righted quite easily and I tacked back against the wind with the water gurgling reassuringly out through the self-bailers; I was determined not to be defeated.

Eventually though, the jib became wrapped around the forestay and I capsized again trying to unwind it. At this point I felt I was doing everything wrong and it was time to come in so I limped back to the slip still half full of water where by now a small group of spectators had gathered to watch me, including the lifeguard and two old sea-dogs who’d obviously been passing comment. Later, the lifeguard told me that the old sea-dogs were ‘impressed’ that I’d got back without assistance. But really I don’t suppose I impressed anyone much. Lessons? I’ve never since learnt so much in so short a lapse of time.