Sailing 17 2 21 (10) 25 1 21
Many moons ago in the month of June 1981 to be
precise I was in Scotland's North West for a hill walking holiday and after
my climb this particular day a super day out I decided to visit the seaside town of
Armadale on the Isle of Skye's eastern shore where the ferries depart for the mainland
across the Sound of Sleet as I figured on getting a bed at the Syha hostel
there, a summer time Scottish hostel I was to learn that in the winter months
reverted to being the Club House belonging to the Armadale Sailing Club.
What I was also to learn was that the Warden of the
hostel was also the Manager of the Sailing Club-House who also doubled as the
Club Sailing Instructor. Now normally I wouldn't have given any of this a second
thought but for the fact that my elder brother J was racing his yacht off
Mombasa at the time in a clinker-built Coot, which got me interested in the
idea of trying my hand on the day following by way of a rest day from climbing
hills. So it came to pass then accompanied by my instructor Tim we took their
club Wayfarer out for an hour-long sail in the Sound of Sleet. His putting me
through my paces as I picked up the rudiments of bringing her about
to change tack gybing, and stuff, though
throughout these operations I can only remember the whole time being at
sixes and sevens as I'm sure you'll understand the gist of the meaning of this
expression?
Then the other crucial development was to up sticks
and move country which my wife and I did some 7 years later when we would start
a new life in our middle ages on the shores of the Baltic Sea. In our second year here a colleague
at work, P and his partner R, in a small 24 ft yacht, invited me to join them after
work one day to go to sea for a couple of hours when the party comprised 2 Peters,
this guy Rolf and me.
Well I enjoyed the sail so much I made all the
necessary noises to ensure so I thought that they would each of them know I was
willing to crew for them on a future occasion at a timing of their choice. Some
weeks later I did get an invitation to sail on a Saturday the 25 sea miles,
about 45 km or 28 statute miles to our next town with a view to returning next
day in a more leisurely fashion the 25 miles return trip. Unfortunately my wife
and I had made other arrangements for the weekend in question and a second invitation it
transpired wasn’t to be forthcoming…
At the time my job took me out and about with the responsibility
of testing our development products in the processes of selected customers so
given I had caught the bug to go to sea again, I began to check out the odd second hand boat that was up for sale during the winter months.
When the following summer of 1990 was coming up I got the idea that I would hire a boat on the Norfolk Broads in England for a week
when she could be crewed by my wife A-E, my son, S who was studying at a
university in UK, together with my brother J and his wife M by way of a thank you for all the weekends he and she had had our son over in our absence, now they were resident once
more in England after returning from their stay of 6 y in Kenya. Everything
went according to plan on the first day which involved picking up the boat and
travelling less than half a mile on one of the rivers to moor up for the night.
Next morning to everyone’s surprise and sorrow brother J chose to have one of
his occasional bouts of Malaria which by mid-day meant I became the de facto
skipper with a two person crew in A-E and son S who were spending only their
second day afloat in a yacht. That we survived the week and by the end of it
had learnt how to rig the main sail by taking it all the way up the mast, plus
mastering the operations of bringing her about despite the restricted space
on the small “broads” or lakes of the water courses in Norfolk, plus other essential operations, meant that
appetites were sustained for future sails to come..?
Comments
Post a Comment