Category Archives: Sea Tales

The Dinghy

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The Dinghy

Here is another work of fiction by talented member Gandalpuss.   If you have any stories or articles you would like to write for the Lovesail blog then just email us at admin@lovesail.com.  You don’t need to be a member it just has to be sailing related and around 400-500 words long.

The Dinghy

A neighbour three doors away on our council estate of Wythenshawe in South
Manchester had died. Ron Hepburn had died of a heart attack. My mother learned this
from another neighbour who was collecting for the funeral. We knew Mrs Hepburn
would not be allowed to remain in her Council house. The death triggered a reaction
from the council well known among the tenants. On such occasions, the family would
be re-housed in a smaller home. The council’s policy had in turn over the years
triggered a custom among the tenants of the estate. The custom was for immediate
friends of the family to help themselves from the items left in the front garden. It was a
sort of parting gift, a memento from those who once occupied the house. There were no
charity shops or house clearance companies in the period not long after the Second
World War.

Later, others, also neighbours but not immediate friends of the family leaving,
could help themselves to what remained. Everyone knew the council workmen would
come with a large two wheeled hand cart to empty the house, make repairs and clear
gardens in readiness for a new tenant’s family. It was common knowledge this
represented an ideal opportunity in the days before fly tipping to tip into the garden
whatever items other neighbours found difficult to dispose of for one reason or another.
Ancient cast iron gas cookers, old lawn mowers and washing mangles – even First
World War Lee Enfield rifles, now rusting and dangerous, might mysteriously appear,
then disappear, ghostlike. This was a sort of recycling precursor to today’s community
managed waste management.

My younger brother came running up to me, “Mrs Hepburn’s garden has a
square boat in it,” he shouted.  Over a low privet hedge, I saw what at first looked like a bath upside down. The object, discoloured with green moss and the trace marks of dead plants, lay among sticks of
furniture, old carpets, bits of rusty bicycles and broken backed chairs. Except this bath
was gently curved from back to front, made of wood and had no feet, taps or plughole.
The dark blue paint was for the most part blistered by the weathering of many winters in
the Hepburn’s back garden. A threadbare red coloured patch of the canvas of a sail
attached to a pole flapped in the tame air of the council estate. The pole, once a
varnished surface, was now dirty and scored with haphazard spiders’ webs of cracks.
The object that looked like a bath tub had already been examined and rejected
by all who saw it. Another scavenging neighbour pulled from under it a complete set of
pram wheels with solid white rubber tyres only half worn down from years of usage.
The wheels were still attached to their axles which in turn were attached to the curved
tubular pram supports having been hack sawn off long ago. Tilting the object which
looked like a bathtub, my eyes confirmed my brother’s assertion to be correct. The
shiny varnished underside of ply, though discoloured with plant and insect dirt and
black fungal mould, was unmistakable as the insides of a boat. Yet, oddly, this boat
seemed to lack a proper boat’s pointed bow. Someone had either chopped the bow off
or had not enough wood to construct a bow. Having lifted the vessel to see what was
inside, to my sixteen and a half year old mind, she felt solid. For all the neglect and
detritus covering the hull she felt firm and intact.

I had established, by dragging this object into our garden, my ownership of the boat to all around.
My pulse quickened.  Not having a clue what I was looking for, I returned to the deceased neighbour’s garden
and sifted through piles of bundled newspapers. I searched inside dirty old wooden
orange boxes. I sought anything of the same colour as the boat or made of wood which
might match with something on the boat’s hull. This way I, found a badly rotted rudder
and a tiller and dagger board. I found some pulleys and bits of neatly coiled twine yet
thicker and grey with a red fleck not normally used in a garden.
I knew my Father would not allow me to keep the boat in its sorry-looking state
in our back garden.

I was not disappointed. I was given three days to get rid of it. The only person I knew
who might know what it was that lay in our back garden was my Uncle Tom. My Uncle
had been an Able Seaman in the Royal Navy during the war. Uncle Tom had regaled
me with tales of his time in the Navy and encouraged my interest in boats, yet was
adamant in his opposition to my joining the Navy. My uncle agreed to having the boat
in his garden for he was well aware of my Father’s views. This was the real reason for
my visit – I hoped my relative might show me how to restore the boat. Not daring to ask
my Father for help transporting the dirty old hull, I removed what dirt I could with a
bucket of water and a stiff scrubbing brush. I persuaded my best friend, David Copsey,
to help hand carry the dinghy three quarters of a mile across the council estate to my
Uncle’s house. Uncle Tom was unable to tell me anything about my boat except that it
appeared to be a plywood sailing dinghy which lacking a pointed bow. He thought it
might be called a ‘pram dinghy’.

True to my expectations, Uncle Tom rolled up his sleeves after returning from
work and we spent hours cleaning, sanding, painting and varnishing the hull. He
showed me how to replace rotten parts, providing materials from his capacious shed. I
learned a lot during those precious evenings at my Uncle’s. Not the least of which he
taught me how to use hand tools. More than this, in my Uncle’s company, his
infectious enthusiasm, his ’can do’ spirit and his unstinting generosity – in later years I
found common to many in the sailing community. The time flew by. The day of the
launch of the ‘mirror dinghy’ approached.

The nearest stretch of open water was the River Bolin. This river was several
miles away accessed down a wooded track from a bend in a lane not far from
Manchester Airport. It was too far to carry the dinghy by hand. My uncle called in a
favour of a friend who drove a small flat bed lorry for a greengrocery supplies
warehouse in Manchester.

In those days, shops were not allowed, for religious reasons, to open on Sundays, so the
lorry was available for the launch. Life jackets only existed at that time on ships so, as
a precaution, a half inflated scooter tyre’s inner tube of black rubber was positioned and
held by string across my chest below my arms.

The day of the launch was raining and windy. The dinghy now had a
rudimentary sail cut and shaped and stitched on my Auntie Irene’s cast iron foot treadle
operated sewing machine from a template of the original ragged red canvas. This sail,  as with the jib sail, was made from dark red marquee tent canvass which, with a wink of
his eye, my Uncle told me had fallen off the back of a lorry.
Knowing nothing about sailing I had come to assume Uncle Tom would instruct
me once afloat. With the confidence of youth, I soaked up my Uncle’s instructions full
in the knowledge of the all shining certainty that what this man said would come to
pass. Both my Uncle and I were relieved to get out of his friend’s chain smoking,
cigarette fog, of a smoke filled cab. Using his friend’s sack barrow we all three eased
the dinghy down the track to the river.

I was instructed to row to the middle of the river where I would lower a thirty
pound greengrocer’s scales weight borrowed from the lorry now reborn as my anchor.
The anchor was attached to a length of clothes line secured to the bow of the boat. I was
thrilled to heave on the oars as the dinghy ploughed forward under the power of my
arms toward the centre of the river. I was told to lower the dagger board within its’
central housing and attach the rudder on its pintles. I was oblivious to the rain and wind
of that day. Once at anchor, my uncle shouted instructions over the noise of the swelling
surge of water. I raised the main sail and its Gunter boom, cleating off the main halyard.
The sail flapped like a frightened beast in the rain, its lower boom banging against my
leg. Next, the jib sail was hoisted as instructed. I was only just able to catch my
Uncle’s instructions above the combined din of the flapping sails and rush of river
water.

I hauled up the grocer’s weight anchor. By the time I reached the stern my
companions were racing along the bank. This was how fast the current had swept my
craft. Caught in the surging water the boat rocked. The main sail filled and jammed,
forcing the boat sideways on to the river’s flow. Unaware, I was standing on the jib’s
controlling rope called the jib sheet. The jib sail filled and bellied. Unable to flap, it
caused the dinghy to tilt at a crazy angle.

Through my grip of the tiller, I felt the raw power of these sails pull the dinghy towards
an overhang of trees as the river approached a bend.
The speed of movement made the dinghy all but leap sideways, taking the boat under
the lower branches of the canopy of trees.
The wind here became light, the mast shot up vertical taking me off balance.
The main sail’s upper Gunter boom struck the lower branches of the canopy, shaking a
deluge of water which soaked me inside the boat.
I slipped ….. SPLASH! In I went.

I surfaced with the inner tube partially covering my face, spitting out the brown
river water. My companions ceased running – falling about in paroxysms of laughter as
the now tangled jib formed, to them, what looked like a nun’s wimple against the black
of the inner tube. My feet found the river’s bottom as I stood up, presenting an even
more comical sight, for I had become the anchor for my boat.
It occurred to me – a boat owner I might be, but I was far from being a sailor.

THE END

Copyright “Gandalpuss” member of Lovesail.com

 

the dinghy

sailing dating

 

The Folk Boat

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The Folk Boat

One of the Lovesail members, Gandalpuss, has written this lovely story.   We always welcome articles from Lovesail members, so if you are a budding writer of fact or fiction and have a short piece to submit, contact us through the usual email address and we can arrange to publish it on the Lovesail Blog.

 

At twenty years of age, a friend gave me access to a fibreglass sloop built in the 1950’s.  Tired as the boat was – and of late neglected – her owner had not the time to enjoy the sailing of her due to the pressures of work.  The deal was that I should repair and restore the boat as much as possible in return for the free use of ‘Maggie May’.  The boat was moored in the Trieux River near the town of Lezardrieux in Brittany, France.  My friend had set sail on a round the world voyage single-handed from Portsmouth Harbour.  Arriving in France he had met a lady who was to become the love of his life, a much younger French woman from Lezardrieux. Except the lady was already on her way to Britain having secured a job as a teacher!   Balancing the desire to continue his dreams of circumnavigation with what he saw as the dream girl, the latter tipped the scales.  He settled into the routine of job, mortgage and family.

I began to stop the decline in the yacht’s condition by throwing out much of what would have been useful to a ‘live aboard’.   The only equipment of use from inside the yacht, apart from the tools, were six cartons of John Smiths ‘Extra Smooth’ beer.

With eight cans per carton, I began gradually working my way through this obviously vital source of energy.  Nodding relations soon changed to a wave of the arm as other users of the river became familiar with the improvement of the boat.  I considered it my boat, though in reality it was not.  These fellow sailors also assumed I was ‘Maggie May’s’ new owner. What really mattered to the French sailing community was that the sloop was being loved and was now beginning to look less like a skip and more like a yacht.

One day, I decided to go for a sail. It was high water on a spring tide.  Following some good sailing off the coast, I returned home under engine, sails stowed.  We traversed beyond the head land of a small peninsular, topped with a stone cross – known locally as Point de Trouquetet.  The light was failing and evening fog settled as night drew on. With Binic astern, ‘Maggie May’ headed towards St Quay Potreux on the way back to the mooring.  I heard the engines of another vessel, but could see nothing in the mist of the evening light.  I strained to see ahead.  Suddenly there it was, a large old rusty steel coasting vessel headed straight for my boat only yards away.  I slammed the tiller hard over to starboard. Inexplicably, he altered course to port.  Within seconds we collided.  My yacht bounced along a steel rubbing strake down the ship’s starboard side.  I cut my engine and waited.  I could hear the noise of his propellers disappearing into the gloom.

He was gone.

Having way on, I peered into the mist over the stern, refusing to believe he had hit and run.  I turned to face the way ‘Maggie May’ was going.  There, right in my path, was a steel pole atop a concrete pillar, jutting out of the sea. Instinctively, my hand threw the tiller over to port.  Too late, the sloop scraped down the side of the navigation marker (which was for isolated danger and was topped by two black balls called L’Ours Seur) with a sickening crunching sound from the portside as my boat slowed with the impact.

The following day, I inspected both sides of the boat.  A gauge mark had been left at the widest part of the tumble home on the port side stained by bits of old concrete.   A shallow groove had been left after the collision with the ship for about a length of three feet.

I felt entirely at fault, regardless of the other vessel’s failure to stop.  I felt I had to repair and make good the damage which stood out for everyone to see. It did not take me long to fill, fair and sand the gauge marks. On a warm day, I painted over the repaired strips in a band from stem to stern on both sides of the yacht in an off-white colour which nearly matched the original.

Then the idea occurred to me.  Why not put a rubbing strake centrally down each side of the yacht to protect the boat from future mishap.  Less than a month later, I returned from England with a heavy-duty brown plastic ‘D’ sectioned purpose-built rubbing strake.  After a day of effort, I was no further forward with the installation, having made a pig’s ear of every attempt to begin screwing the strake to the hull.  I went to my berth that night dispirited, dreading a repeat of the day’s failure.

The next day an ancient looking wooden gaff rigged vessel, sporting the flag of France, the Tricolour, sailed by.  It was not unlike a Bristol Pilot Cutter.  This old wooden craft towed what looked like an archaic flat-bottomed, double ended, wooden skiff with a blue painted hull.  At the helm of the vessel stood a grizzled looking old man with a dirty old woollen hat reminiscent of fishermen from those parts.

An hour later, as I struggled with the writhing brown plastic snake-like rubbing strake, the blue coloured skiff appeared.  The skiff’s approach took me by surprise as I normally expect to hear the noise of an outboard engine accompany a tender.  The skiff came upon me in silence.  It was powered by the old man, who stood facing the skiff’s stern.  He used a single wooden oar to scull the craft with the oar lodged over the skiff’s stern between two wooden pegs.  The skiff’s course made for my boat.  I attempted to secure the rubbing strake down my yacht’s side.  He came closer and I realised he had come to assist.  He stood barefoot, ankle-deep in water in the skiff.

The old man’s mouth uttered strange words, heavy with dialect in a slow French accent.  I understood nothing of what he said, attempting to politely introduce myself in my broken school boy French.  There was a glint in the old man’s eyes.  Looking past me, he manoeuvred the skiff between my inflatable dinghy and ‘Maggie May’. Gently but firmly he pushed me out-of-the-way. Taken aback, attempting to greet him politely, I gave ground allowing him full access to the rubbing strake.  Pulling fine twine from a bag the old man-made several loops hanging them from ‘Maggie May’s’ guard rails.  Next, he pointed to a choice of positions as his eyes caught mine in a miming sort of manner, awaiting my approval as to how high above the water the strake should go.  I nodded approval.  He threaded the entire length of the rubbing strake through the loops after adjusting them to the height I had indicated.  In this way the lengths of strake to be attached simply lay at repose, hanging down the side of the boat, while he progressively screwed the strake to the hull, removing the twine hangers as he secured it.

Unfamiliar though he clearly was with the sloop’s fibreglass sides, the old man soon got the measure of this, to him, unusual material.  Pulling an old well-worn hand brace and bit from a sack resting on the skiff’s thwart he drilled into the hull of my yacht.  Without the aid of any measuring device he would scan from time to time, by eye, along the boat’s length as, foot by foot, the rubbing strake was secured into position.  The only contribution I made, apart from handing him tools, was to run two lines of white Sykaflex mastic along the upper and lower bearing surfaces – and around each hole about to be secured – of the rubbing strake. Indeed, under the sunshine of those three days spent assisting my benefactor a casual observer would be forgiven for thinking I was the apprentice assisting a skilled master.  One day, in my haste not to hamper the old man’s progress, I put the mastic gun down without releasing the spring-loaded piston.  Mastic oozed out onto his skiff’s thwart near his tool bag leaving what looked like a white ‘tick’ where someone might sit. The mastic had set in the warmth of the sunshine before I became aware of my mistake, leaving the tick visible even after my efforts to remove it.

Often, I would bail the skiff like fury when the water level reached the middle of our calves.  Many times, perhaps because of the lack of spoken communication between us, the aged skilled artisan would stop to top up his pipe with tobacco.  The tobacco resembled browny black stringy bladder wrack seaweed with a distinct nauseas smell.  The few teeth he had were revealed when he smiled or exhaled smoke.  These teeth resembled brown stained pegs set in black gums.  I learned not to inhale too close to his face as his breath was even more foul than the evil exhalations from his pipe.  Aware of the state of his teeth, I prepared a stew from tinned ‘Irish Stew’ adding diced broccoli and haricot verts, green beans which I happened to have aboard.  I added more stew to the pan as each day passed.  He liked my offering very much as he washed it down with beer.  In this way, the third day saw the completion of the installation. I rowed a little distance from the yacht in my dinghy expecting to see the line of the rubbing strake wander unevenly down the vessel’s hull.  Yet it was as straight as if lined up with a modern laser level light!

A strange comb like object was taken from his tool bag, resembling the metal toothed curry comb used in grooming horses. This device had a handle of wood with a patina of sweat well-worn from years of use.  Unlike a curry comb this tool had many rust encrusted needles of steel bent at ninety degrees.  Each needle was razor sharp and stiff and twanged as it snagged the surface of the plastic.  The man dug it into the curved surface of the rubbing strake pulling the tool along under steady pressure.  With what looked like ease, he scratched each rubbing strake down its entire length with this tool.  The ease of his efforts belied the skill and experience and the power and control the old man brought to bear.  Not long after, the rubbing strakes’ plastic outer surfaces could not be distinguished from wood as these scratchings resembled the grain of wood.  I had over the previous days attempted to offer payment for this old man’s labours, but the look in his eyes and the set of his flabby chin made it clear that he would not accept any payment. Having washed down his stew with a glass of beer at the end of the third day he waved goodbye as he sculled the skiff away to his craft, anchored just out of sight around a bend in the river.

That was the last I saw of him.

A week later, I enquired of the old man and his traditional old wooden sail boat.  Later still, I visited boat yards, marinas and jetties and even private islands near to the river’s mouth.  Over several weeks, I cast my search further afield to fishing boats and even to the stone jetties of Le Legue.  No one had heard of, or seen, such a man or his craft. One day, months later, in Le Legue, I was browsing along the old stone jettied boulevard, adjacent to the lock gated section of the river, where many types of sailing boats nestled below the viaduct of the overhead motor road.  I came across a model boat workshop displaying in its dusty window models of traditional Breton sailing craft.  There in the window sat an exact replica of the blue skiff. The model was not for sale.  The label beside the model read, ‘Model of work boat as used in Napoleonic times’.  Beneath the dust could clearly be seen a small white tick in mastic on the model’s thwart!!

THE END

the folk boat

Copyright “Gandalpuss” (Member of Lovesail.com)

Related Articles: Bristol Pilot Cutters

sailing dating

 

Love in the Middle of the Ocean

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A story about love

Welcome to the first of what I hope will be many Guest Blog Spots for the Lovesail Blog.  This week we have truly romantic tale “Love in the Middle of the Ocean” about a serendipitous voyage from one of our Lovesail members Tor:

I was sailing east on 26 North, then south on 65 west,

Taking a delivery to the islands I like best…

A tale of love in the middle of the ocean

Thus begins a tune and a tale of love in the middle of the ocean. The song is upbeat West Indian in the old scratch band calypso style. The year is 1978…

I was young, adventurous and armed with a new captain’s license when I scored my first paid yacht delivery. The boat was bound for the Virgin Islands charter trade, and so was I – the beginning of my years as a Caribbean charter & delivery skipper. I was well prepared for the offshore passage, and equally unprepared for what the ocean held in store for me on that serendipitous voyage.

With a crew of two I set sail from Fort Lauderdale and followed the classic delivery skippers’ route;  across the Gulf Stream, through the Bahamas via Tongue of the Ocean, and then due east into the Atlantic, keeping to the Horse Latitudes north of the trade winds to avoid fighting those relentless easterlies. And avoid them we did, motoring for days in light airs and calms, burning up nearly all our fuel reserves to reach the 65th meridian where we would at last turn south to pick up the trade winds on the beam. After that we wouldn’t need fuel, having earned with our easting a final, sweet reach south to the islands.

We were nearing longitude 65° West, 800 nautical miles east of Miami in a flat calm when we spotted another sailboat, the first we’d seen in a week. She was several miles ahead, seemingly hove-to under a flat-sheeted mainsail. As the song recounts,

Well, I picked up the VHF and I called on Channel 16,
You there off our starboard bow, this is the yacht, “Tortola Queen.”
How are you and where you from…

The skipper answered, saying they were a 57-foot Swan out of Annapolis, bound for the BVI. They had stopped for a swim in the flat sea and invited us to come by for a cold beer. Having no refrigeration aboard our bareboat and it being a hot, windless day, we were glad to accept the friendly offer. We caught up to them and laid to half a boat length off, close enough for them to toss over several ice cold cans of Heineken. Oh, nirvana on the high seas!

The girl in the middle of the sea

But as I was about to discover, that wasn’t the only gift that sweet Swan had in store for me.

Half a dozen men were crowded around the cockpit when we arrived. Up on the foredeck sitting all alone was a woman. Not just any woman, but a beautiful young Eurasian woman, and as I stood gaping at her I could’ve sworn she smiled at me.

All at once and just ahead in the middle of the sea
I saw a girl on another boat and she was smiling back at me.

Fair complexion, almond eyes, auburn hair tinged gold by the sun… Friends, it was love at first sight!

And I found love in the middle of the ocean
Filled my body with emotion
As the two boats passed
I found love in the middle of the ocean
And I got a funny notion
That this one is gonna’ last.

But surely, I thought, she must be with one of the men aboard that boat.

Both vessels resumed motoring, heading south to find the trade winds. The big Swan soon vanished over the horizon ahead of us, taking the mysterious lady with it. We found our wind, relished a few days of perfect sailing and before we knew or wished it, made landfall in the British Virgin Islands. The song laments,

Funny how these things occur
For three more days I thought of her
As I sailed into Jost Van Dyke
With her nowhere in sight…

I brought the boat around to the charter company in Road Town, Tortola and there in a marina slip sat the Swan. My delivery completed, I stopped by to say hello and thank them again for the beers, and (oh, by the way) inquire about their beautiful shipmate. It turned out none of those guys that we’d seen aboard were hooked up with her. She was the owner’s hired boat-sitter, nothing more, and when he decided to bring the boat to the Virgins she had agreed to come along with it. The owner and all his buddies were now flying home to wives and work, leaving lovely Debbie Liu to care-take the boat. At the moment, they said, she was “ashore somewhere.” Hmmm, it seemed like a good time for me to go ashore, too.

Then it was in old Road Town
I finally tracked that woman down
And held her in my arms all through the niiiiight!

YES! Find her I did, and the very next day I wrote the song, played it for her, and won the fair lady’s heart as surely as she had won mine. And we lived happily ever after for many years, at first moving aboard a retired St. John’s ferry turned houseboat in Compass Point, St. Thomas.

Whenever I was off skippering charter boats Debbie worked as a waitress at an upscale restaurant in the marina. In between we explored the islands and each other, and sailed many offshore deliveries together. Later we lived for a while on a deserted tropical island, and eventually ran a big charter sailboat as captain and mate. We were young and in love and life was grand, and hardly a day went by that we didn’t thank Mother Ocean for bringing us together.

Well, now we sail in company, my new first mate and I
Sailing for Antigua from Tortola, BVI
Making love every night and sailing everyday
Making me so happy when she turns to me and says

I found love in the middle of the ocean
Filled my body with emotion
As the two boats passed
I found love in the middle of the ocean
And I got a funny notion
That this one is gonna’ last
Filled my body with emotion
As the two boats passed
And I got a funny notion
That this one is gonna’ last.

love

© 2011 Tor Pinney – All Rights Reserved

The article, song and lyrics were written by Tor Pinney, and along with the images, have been reproduced here by his kind permission.  If you would like to read more articles and tips by Tor or find out about his book “Ready for Sea” then visit his webpage Tor Pinney’s Homeport

Here is the song written by Tor and the lyrics are here

If you have any stories about sailing, dating, love or the sea and would like to guest on our blog then please email us through our Lovesail website for more details.  Contact details at the bottom of the Lovesail home page.