9 minute read
Tom Cunli e
Tom Cunliffe
Sailing the same stretch of water year after year could appear monotonous to the uninitated. Yet the ever changing waters ensure it is anything but
Before my defection to the Baltic Sea, my home mooring for 30 years was up the Beaulieu River on the West Solent. There’s a useful waterside pub a couple of miles in, handy both for the marina and the scramble-ashore dinghy pontoon favoured by those unwilling to empty their wallets for a South-coast walk-ashore berth. Back then, I could often be found at the bar taking a breather after a tough beat from Dover, or just enjoying a warm-up by the fire. One time, I was halfway down a pint with an old pal who’d been on the river since before I was born, when a young man in a smart Musto jacket offered to buy us both a drink. Neither of us was ever known to refuse refreshment, so we shuffled our stools to one side and he settled in to join us.
After confirming that we were indeed locals, his opening gambit was to ask if we got fed up with having to motor all that way to the river mouth before we could make sail and do what we’d paid our money for. I responded to that one. It was easy. The answer was, “No” - for two good reasons. The first was that because I had a reasonably athletic yacht (a 22-ton gaff cutter, in fact), I could often sail straight off my mooring and proceed in silence down the waterway, disturbing nobody, least of all the
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international migrant bird life which proliferates along the banks. Much of this is rarely seen and seldom even suspected by those condemned to the inevitable wash and noise attendant with the motor. If I did choose to start the diesel to save time or to beat a total headwind, it only took half an hour or so, the river was still lovely, and I continued to benefit from the second half of my answer.
My wife Roz and I have spent far in excess of a thousand nights lying to our anchors. We choose our anchorages carefully, and the best are undoubtedly those from which the horizon is obscured by land. If we can see the sea, the Great Law of Sod states unequivocally that it will blow in from that direction around midnight, relieving us of our shelter and creating stress. Once round the second bend in the Beaulieu River, there isn’t a lot to see but oak trees, the occasional cottage and the aforesaid wildlife. Anchoring is no longer an option up here because of the well-laid and well-spaced moorings, but the principle remains. For a quiet night, the further you are from open water, the better, so half an hour spent travelling up and back seems a small price to pay.
Our benefactor’s second query was an interesting one. “Don’t you get bored,” he enquired, “always sailing from the same patch of water for decade after decade?” I knew that I didn’t, but I’d never really thought to ask myself why. Any answer was clearly going to involve more in the way of philosophy and less direct common-sense seamanship, so I took a sip of my fresh pint and left the matter to my elders and betters.
My friend’s reply opened my eyes to something I now realised I’d known for ever, but hadn’t put into words. It also showed the question to be profoundly inappropriate.
“How could I be bored?” he said. “The landscape might not change much, but the water’s what it’s about. Every day is different.”
How right he was. I found myself recalling a time in the Hebrides in my old pilot cutter Hirta. We were bound on a pilgrimage towards the remote islands of St Kilda, half a day westward from the Sound of Harris. The main island of the group bears the same name as the one given to the boat in the 1930s by the man who owned them both. We’d been driven back into the sound by a gale ripping down from Iceland and had limped off into Loch Portain on North Uist where we found perfect shelter below a small post office. The chart showed a flattish area with widely spaced soundings, so I anchored in 12 feet at low water, giving my 8-foot draught 4 feet of clearance, laid out a hefty length of cable and kissed my troubles goodbye.
After three days of damp, freezing weather, we were running low on coal for our bogey stove, so I rowed ashore to strike a deal with the postmistress, whose neat
ABOVE
The upper reaches of the Beaulieu River from the masthead
stack of turf had caught my eye.
“Any chance of buying some peat for my fire?” I dripped shamelessly on her clean boards.
“None whatsoever.”
Sadly, I opened the door onto the driving drizzle, but she called me back with a smile.
“You can help yourself to all you can carry, though…”
I loaded up a canvas sack, bought a pair of hairy socks knitted before my very eyes by this generous lady’s blind old mum, then pulled home to stoke up. The following day the wind was still howling, but overnight the moon had been waxing big above the driving wrack. As the tide came in towards teatime, far more land was disappearing than previously, and instead of high water bringing a depth of 18 feet, we were finding twenty-two. I went forward to check the cable at sunset and saw the halfinch chain standing out bar-taut in front of the boat. Dragging her 120lb Fisherman was not one of the boat’s bad habits, but to sleep more easily I surged out another 10 fathoms, giving her a scope of nine to one. The holding ground had proved itself already and we could now have ridden out a hurricane except that the changing scene was not confined to the top of the tide. When
ABOVE
The author’s daughter inspects the peat; Hirta in the background
TOM CUNLIFFE
Tom has been mate on a merchant ship, run yachts for gentlemen, operated charter boats, delivered, raced and taught. He writes the pilot for the English Channel, a complete set of cruising text books and runs his own internet club for sailors worldwide at tomcunliffe.com I roused out at 0800 to brew up it was blowing harder than ever. By coffee time the beach was showing more dry land than I wanted to see. Transits confirmed that Hirta hadn’t budged, but by the bottom of the tide we had only a foot under our keel and the tides were still building.
At midnight we bumped. Not severely, but the thud left no doubt we’d have to shift berth at first light, come storm or tempest. I turned in with a heavy heart, but the issue never arose because The Clerk of the Weather switched off the westerly gale. Instead of the spell of helpful northwesterlies we’d every right to expect, however, he substituted a stiff east wind which would be blowing straight into St Kilda’s only roadstead with a 40-mile fetch. The trip wasn’t going to happen, so we built up the fire and beat back across a confused Minch to Skye, contemplating lessons learned.
The first message was the benefit of a real stove. If we’d had blownair heating, I’d never have met the postmistress and her matchless mother and my feet would have been freezing for the remainder of the so-called summer. Furthermore, I’d have burned valuable diesel and the batteries would taken a needless hit. The second, perhaps more important point, was that examining charted depths in detail would not have made any difference to the fact that my chosen spot to anchor ultimately turned dodgy. After studying the chart for potential hazards, I’d selected it by the safest method of sounder alone, reckoning that all I needed was enough water to float me. Had it been half-tide instead of low tide, I’d only have needed to check my tidal curve to see how much it would fall between anchoring time and low water, add that to my draught plus a clearance figure and let go. Easy. In my examining days, I always suspected a Yachtmaster candidate who scrutinised the chart then added the soundings into the equation of his depth calculation for anchoring overnight. After all, there’s no certainty that the sounding to which you are nailing your colours is exactly where you’d like to think it is, especially when defined by an over-zoomed chart plotter. Only a carefully calibrated echo sounder tells the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
My plan had worked well. The mistake was to reckon without a long wait and to forget that in a tidal anchorage, just as in the Beaulieu River, no two days are ever quite the same.
Fox’s Marina & Boatyard at 95 years
From humble beginnings almost a century ago, Fox’s Marina and Boatyard has established itself as one of the UK’s leading yacht refit and repair facilities. Based on the East
Coast, the 15-acre boatyard offers complete in-house services, with teams of skilled engineers and craftsmen, boat handlers, riggers, electricians and fabricators.
Fox’s is well known and respected in the marine industry, largely due to years of experience and highly knowledgeable staff, offering bespoke refit projects for sailing and motor yachts up to 25m LOA.
Skills range from composite repair and modification, through to detailed classic yacht restoration, supported by related services: l Secure deep water marina berthing and ashore storage l Extensive undercover heated workshops l Yacht repair and modification in GRP, timber, steel or alloy l Teak decking and joinery l Spray shop and hull finishing l Marine electronics and engineering l Spars, rigging, ropes and splicing l Stainless fabrication l Pre-purchase, cruising and race preparation support l Large on-site chandlery
With two travel lifts, rated to 70T and the latest production and workshop facilities, recent projects have ranged from The Queen’s Rowbarge Gloriana and classic MV Havengore, to state-of-the-art carbon racing machines. Fox’s deliver bespoke solutions to all customers.
Alongside individual projects, Fox’s is a long-standing partner of Oyster Yachts, providing commissioning, rigging and refit of new and preowned Oysters. Commissioning and sail trials can be performed safely in all weathers thanks to Fox’s location enabling 24hr access to the Stour and Orwell estuaries.
So, what does the future hold for Fox’s? Their forward order book is healthy and with demand for marine leisure vessels at an all-time high, clients are eager to refit their yachts and protect their investment. The marina and boatyard maintains a continuous programme of improvement and re-investment, but rest assured the core values of service, quality and traditional shipwrighting remain as prevalent at Fox’s today as they were 95 years ago.
If you are considering a refit or repair project, the Fox’s team would be delighted to hear from you.
Contact foxs@foxsmarina. com, call +44 (0)1473 689111 or visit www.foxsmarina.com
