Sailing From Chatham to Portscatho via Estartit

At the time (the late fifties) I was a relief manager for a London firm of outfitters and this job was 2 weeks at the Chatham branch. The idea of sailing a small boat had been in my mind for some time; where it had come from I don’t know, there was not much scope for sailing in Brixton, south London. One Saturday a lady came into the store for some item of clothing, I’ve long forgotten what it was but when she said it was for sailing I was all attention and said I had always wanted to go sailing. She said her husband was sailing at his club on Canvey Island the next day and if I came along a crewing job would be arranged. At the club I was introduced to this old bloke who must have been 35 at least. I was told to keep down low out of the wind and move fast when changing jib sheets (I probably called them ropes). Being keen to do well I didn’t take much notice of what was going on apart from the fact that they were catamarans. After a very exciting sail we came in and blokes came up to congratulate my helm, so I asked him what was going on and he said, ‘Don’t you know that was a race and we won!’

Obviously knowledge had to be acquired and at that time the Central Council for Physical Recreation ran sports courses at various centres. Sailing was at Bowness on Windermere Staying at Storrs Hall hotel. It was a great holiday and the basics of dinghy sailing were taken on board. (Some 4 years or so later I went again and met a lady I couldn’t let go and married her.) One way to get a crew.

More know-how was needed and a course was taken on the beautiful river Dart where I learnt about tides and found that single handed an Enterprise could easily dump one.

Among the would be sailors at the CCPR course at Windermere were some Londoners (there always are) I went skiing in Switzerland with a couple of them and at a party I was told that The Ramblers offered a sailing holiday on the Costa Brava at Estartit. Surely it’s every dinghy sailors dream to sail in warm water where it’s a pleasure to fall in the sea. We were accommodated in a small family run hotel Rambla on the front facing the beach with the 12 Vaurion sailing dinghies lined up on the sand 50 yards away; these were more stable than an Enterprise but not as heavy as a GP14. It was a magic holiday with a very pleasant hotel, showers and dinner after a good day’s sailing. Holiday it certainly was but more than that it was a steep learning curve. It was run by an early retired ICI man called Phillip Carpenter who wanted us to go home knowing more than when we arrived; we had blackboard style lectures in the hotel; theory, points of sail, man overboard, capsize drill and downwind technique particularly the steadying dumb-bell effect of helm and crew well aft on either side of the boat, never on the same side. Phillip used to go down the fleet after a day’s sail calling out ‘any defects’ he had 2 young assistants to repair any found. No safety launch in those days, Phillip and his 2 aides came with us in dinghies; a small outboard was used once to tow some ‘bods’ as we were called when the wind disappeared one day. We sailed to islands in the bay and down to the RioTer where we were shown how to get in over the sand bar with rudder and board up at the last moment. Here we could visit a small farm for lunch. Once we came back under bare poles covering the 5 miles in quick time and this was where the dumb-bell lesson was used. Here was my only ‘shunt’ in boats, I had 2 crew which is a lot worse than 1 as they chat and don’t keep a look out; they were on holiday after all. I ‘T boned’ another dinghy at a fair lick and the problem of explaining myself loomed. As it happened my boat had hit the hull where the thwart is and amazingly there was no damage.

Married and anchored after moving around for some years I bought an Enterprise and joined a local sailing club; this was on a flooded gravel pit and general sailing was on Saturday when I was working with racing on Sunday. Racing tightens up boat handling and sharpens skills like nothing else but it did not interest me for long. A member of the club demonstrated the difference in stability of similar looking boats by stepping from his GP14 on to my Enterprise and finding himself in the water. By now we had the first of two daughters and a more stable craft was needed and I wanted to sail on the sea so the Enterprise had to go. I had been to St Mawes in Cornwall some years before and we had a family holiday with the now 2 daughters in Maenporth discovering the Helford river in best possible way, walking along the foot-path and having it suddenly appear; so long as I could find a suitable boat there were lots of exploring to be done.

The right vessel was seen at the London Boat Show; a lovely varnished clinker 12ft Walker Tideway. Finding a 2 month old Yachts and Yachting I phoned the owners of the 3 boats advertised to get an assessment of the boats they may have had for some time and had now sold; but they hadn’t sold so I bought a nice one with Bramber trailer and a Tomas outboard made in Yugoslavia; very good looking and smooth and quiet but oft times it would not start and I sold it and bought an old Seagull. It’s still going in 2001.

We explored the St Mawes/Falmouth area for a future base and one day went down the St. Mawes peninsula and turned down the hill from Gerrans to Portscatho; the wonderful view of the sea and the little port was just what we wanted and a short drive away was the Percuil river where a boat could be kept on the ‘trot lines’. For some 28 years we have been sailing with our 2 girls; in the early days anxiously getting weather forecasts before setting off for The Helford, River Fal, Mylor, even Truro was made on at least 2 occasions. The boat was/is nice and stable and just the job for day sailing with places for sandwiches and water. Over the time we have been sailing in the Carrick Roads we have seen fewer dinghies and certainly not many families sailing together in them. The pull of the area and small boat sailing is still strong, both of our daughters joining us for 3 days this year.