I've recently started following some canal boat vlogs
(This Narrowboat Experience, and Cruising the Cut). When I commented - via email - on one of the vlog episodes and got a favourable response, I realised I should start putting some of these stories into writing - as others have commented from time to time. I had thought about trying to put these into a book, but I don't have the time and energy for that, so I'll start doing a few little vignettes, and maybe put them into a book later ...
So here is
"Sailing Yarn No. 1", written in response to
"What went wrong".
***
Oh, what things have gone wrong for me while boating ...
Well, in the 80s I had a trailer sailor that I kept at a friends' place. One day, we had about 25 knots of wind blowing onshore, but the tide was half out and, as a result, a sandbar was protecting the ramp and jetty, so we thought we'd have a go at launching my boat. Things went wrong one after the other, until we wound up with the topping lift
(the rope which goes from top of mast to end of boom) wrapped completely around the end of the jetty ... We looked at each other, and decided to spend the day at my friends' place having cuppas while his wife rolled around on the floor laughing at us.
As another example, quite a few years earlier, I decided - during a Uni holiday - to go to a sailing dinghy regatta in Far North Queensland that I used to enjoy as a
(teenaged) kid. I rang ahead and arranged to borrow a boat, and got up there a few days before the regatta - only to find the boat upside down, drying from having been repainted with house paint.
The next day, we turned the boat over, and noticed it didn't have a king post to support the mast on the deck
* . We looked around, and found a bit of wood that was probably meant to be the king post, and glued it into place, then went away to let the glue set. Next morning, we rigged the boat, started sailing, and - at about 10' off the beach - noticed that the jib
(also called a headsail) was pulling the tracks it was sheeted through
(i.e., the tracks where the ropes controlling the aft [back] corner of that triangular sail) out of the deck.
We returned to the beach, had a look under the deck, and wound up glueing the standard piece of timber reinforcement under that track to spread the load
(yes, we found some suitable bits of wood nearby).
Next day, we started sailing, and the reinforcement holding the track to the deck worked splendidly ... until, at about 10 m
(or yards - the estimates have some flexibility in them) off the beach, the entire deck started to lift off the boat ... SIGH ...
Back to the beach, found that there was another standard bit of reinforcing that was missing, so we found some suitable timber, glued it into place, and came back the next day - which was the day of the first race
(an "invitation" race, so it didn't count for the official regatta places). While rigging the boat, a halyard jammed, so we turned the boat onto her side to clear that
(that was quite common in those boats, and just a minor inconvenience), and while doing that, I heard a friend ask me "Kay, should this bit of the boat be sitting on the sand?"
The poor old boat had dry rot, and as we had turned her over, a piece of the bottom ply had simply stayed where it was on the sand, leaving a one inch hole in the bottom ... I was able to borrow a boat - that stayed entire - for that first race from someone who had a cold
** , while we glued the recalcitrant bit of ply back in place. On the following day, we got as far as the first mark
(in fourth place, so I was happy that we were doing reasonably well), and I looked at the water in the boat - compared the waterline inside and the waterline outside ... and calculated that we would probably still be at least
half afloat if we went straight back in to the beach, but if we continued we'd probably be swimming at about mark 4.
I heard later they had used the boat to fire up a barbecue.
* I have another disaster story about a poorly installed (by me) king post (as a result of undue optimism about how long it would take to fit out and tune a GRP shell), but that can wait for another "yarn". (I had set the boat up for racing, and eventually sold her to the sailing scouts - who, apparently, spent the next year trying to figure out where all the ropes went ... )
** The best part of this whole episode was me borrowing that boat. I wound up winning by a good margin, which was enjoyable for me, but when I got back to the beach the boat owner charged down the beach and said - as near as I could translate through the cold - "What did you do to my boat?" "Er, nothing, I just tightened the vang a little." I told her how her boat had actually won the regatta a few years ago, and with the improved confidence she had, she went from finishing races at the end to finishing in the top third of the fleet. I wound up spending the rest of the regatta crewing for another young woman, and she also learned and improved, so it wound up being quite a good regatta in the end.
That wasn't the only time I'd helped others by borrowing a boat. A year or two later, I borrowed another boat that was up for sale for the same regatta. We came third that year, and as I was derigging the boat after the last race, I accidentally dropped the owner's special shackle key in the wet sand, which was shifting with every wave, and couldn't find it. I started apologising profusely, and he just laughed, made a comment about how much I'd just added to the re-sale value of the boat, and said to forget about it.
Copyright © Kayleen White, 2018 (where this date is different to the year of publication, it is because I did the post some time ago and then used the scheduling feature to delay publication)
I take these photographs and undertake these writings – and the sharing of them – for the sake of my self expression. I am under no particular illusions as to their literary or artistic merit, and ask only that any readers do not have any undue expectations.
If you consider me wrong, then publish me – with full credit and due financial recompense, of course :)
