 |
|
Excerpts
from |
‘She’s
leaning over Bob; BOB she’s leaning over fer fuggin’ ‘ell’s sake!’
‘I
know, I know,………. which page is it?!’
‘I
don’t bloody know fer Christ’s sake – l only skimmed the fuggin book, l
didn’t read every bluudy page!’
‘Fuggin’
typical, if it hasn’t got pictures or pop-ups, yoo don’t read it!’
‘Bob,
for fugging ‘ell’s sake, the water is creeping up to the deck on this side
man! JUST FIND THE FUGGIN’ PAGE!!’
Bob was quickly flicking through the book, as l desperately looked
heavenwards at the sails which seemed to tower over me. The water was creeping
even closer up to the deck as the boat leaned over to the pressure of the wind.
‘Try
the fuggin’ index man’.
‘Wot
for mate?’
‘How
should l know? Leaning over under L,
tipping over under T, fuggin’ sinkin’ under S, fer Christ’s sake. I
DON’T KNOW! How about P, fer complete and utter panic! Just find out how to
STOP IT; and at the same time,….. why are we now so far from the shore? I
can’t even get out and FUGGIN’ WALK fer Christ’s sake!
‘But
boats are supposed to lean over, look at the pictures.’
‘Yes,
but they appear to be moving forward at the same time, we just lean over and
twist round, back the way we came!’
And before we knew it, the dinghy had taken my suggestion and weather
cocked. The sails shook and the boat veered round, so that the wind came over
the opposite side and she started to lean over again.
‘Bloody
book’s no good, l can’t find wot to do next; we got the sails up ok, cast
off, shipped the rudder……all fine’
I gave Bob a glaring look.
‘Ok,
so that wos the wrong way round but we got away from the shore alright and
sheeted the sails in, so now wot?’
The book, which Bob thrust towards me came from the local library and had
helped us to raise the sails and get all the correct ropes attached to the
correct bits of boat. In consequence, our nautical language and knowledge of
boat terms, had risen from the ‘shiver me timbers’ stage to the ‘please
attach the main sheet to the main boom Bob’, stage. But this all blew away in
the wind, as panic set in with the realisation that you could not learn how to
sail, by simply reading a book on the subject! At least, not when real wind and
water were involved!
However, in our eagerness to get afloat and take our first steps towards
the ‘great adventure’ of crossing the Atlantic single handed under sail, Bob
and l decided that ‘doing’ was infinitely better than just reading about it.
Sitting in Bob’s bedroom, smelling of the great unwashed and surrounded by
books covering the subject, we found talk of the need to ‘tack’ into or
through the wind and to ‘gybe’ before the wind, all too difficult to take
in. I just wanted to emulate the adverts in the back of the boating magazines
and look all butch and hardy, with wind whipping through my hair whilst standing
on the quarter deck, tiller grasped firmly but easily in my calloused palm a
smoking pipe gripped between my smiling teeth, set in a Rock Hudson like jaw. Of
course, there had to be a fair maiden with raven gypsy hair and a ‘devil may
care smile’ clasping my Charles Atlas like chest, to add charm and romance to
the adventure.
‘No worries, Mary, l’ll see you back home safe from
this raging sea!’
The
gypsy maiden looking confidently up into my experienced and calm eyes may not
have been absolutely necessary. Just the thought that l knew what l was doing,
would have been enough, especially as the boom, attached to the bottom of the
mainsail of Bob’s little dinghy, whipped back across the boat and we started
to point away from the home shore, yet again!
This was the mid 60’s on a fairly quiet stretch of the Thames, by the mouth of the Kennet at Reading. Not the most beautiful stretch of the great river it has to be said, with several large, rusty and smelly gasometers and a busy railway line running close by. Palm strewn beaches were, unfortunately, not the back drop to our first venture in a boat. But the river was wide and clear, so that we were not in much danger of hitting anything if things went badly wrong!............................................
............................................
For some reason, the Ol’ Man had the foreshore of his boatyard
festooned with bits of old angle iron pocking anti-invasion like from the water.
Goodness knows why, although in reality l guess they were just the left-over
supports for long derelict jetties. The wood planks having collapsed or rotted
away, the only bits left, were the vertical iron supports which snapped at any
unwary idiot who passed closed to them. We never did want to get close to them
of course, realising their potential danger to body and boat but inevitably, we
would end up tangling ourselves in their lethal embrace just because, at this
early stage in our boating adventure, we never had full control of where we were
going! I mean, we always knew roughly where we wanted to go and often pointed in
that direction, but not having complete control over what the wind and water did
to us, we most times never quite got there! Often we were near ‘there’ and
quite often fairly close to ‘there’ but at other times, ‘bluudy miles
off’ which was our norm, when we headed to make a landing at some innocent
piece of shoreline or river bank.
Our early mastery of helmsmanship and the piloting of small craft,
indicated that we were never going to become fully fledged captains of important
liners or even ferry boats. The captain berthed his ship ‘quite near’ to the
jetty was not going to put a smile on the faces of the expensive passengers
having to wade ashore carrying their cases, in mud up to their necks!
Our observation and lookout for desirable landing places was excellent,
our skills in getting there, were, shall we say, poor, or in fact ‘bluudy
hopeless’! Hence, having aimed for a bit of grassy bank or a nice solid
mooring, we would inevitably end up drifting helplessly onto the ‘Ol’
Man’s piles’ as the half submerged angle iron became known.
‘Jeesus wept, yoos stupid buggers seem to be drawn to them piles every
time yoos try to come ashore!’ would be the laughing cries from our fellow
boaters on shore, as they observed, with great hilarity, our latest attempt at
berthing Bob’s dinghy. The poor old boat was beginning to take on the look of
a battered old tub as we scrapped against the piles yet again, with a horrible
jarring sound.
‘I
should put tyres all round, if l wos you.’ Which we did, only to look too much
like a floating scrap yard, so we abandoned that idea and instead put the tyres
onto the iron piles, so that every time we hit them, we bounced off them and
just left great black marks on Bob’s nice white topsides.
Several collisions and muddy episodes later, we finally mastered the art of getting the dinghy to go where we wanted it to go, under the power of the wind. We might have learnt quicker on a sailing course and under the guiding tutelage of an experienced teacher but then, what the hell, we were young and this was just a quick prelude to the ‘big one’, the Atlantic! And anyway, we were idiots!!.............................................
..........................................
A classic example of this incredible stupidity occurred after Bob and l
had started to get the hang of sailing and which bits went where and more
importantly, why. We were standing on the bank having just sailed Bob’s dinghy
for half an hour without hitting anything or anybody else. Not only that, but we
had made a passable attempt at getting the dinghy alongside the jetty under
sail, without breaking anything or leaving further black marks all over her
topsides. We were quite taken with our own skill and growing expertise at this
boating lark, especially as we had been closely observed by a gaggle of female
students watching us from the shore.
We tied up with a flourish and managed, on this occasion, not to leave
the usual spaghetti of hairy rope hanging from our mooring cleats. We were
efficient in our boatmanship and looked speculatively at the hopefully admiring
ladies, for an entrée into their gaggle. But their attention was taken by the
boats still out on the water. Two in particular held their attention; two racing
dinghies which unusually for this part of the Thames, had crew out on trapezes.
Bob and l followed their gaze and saw these two sleek craft creaming along with
their crew members standing with their feet on the edge of the boat, suspended
out over the water with a wire attached to a harness which they wore under their
bottoms. Getting the crew weight right out like this, helped keep the boat’s
upright, something we had only just learned to do by sitting on the edge of the
boat.
The girls were full of ‘wow’s’ and ‘yeah’s’ as they watched
and admired these dinghies racing past, spray flying everywhere. Peeved at their
complete lack of attention towards our beautifully executed boatmanship,
especially as all previous attempts to achieve a decent landing had been so
awful l donned the clothes of the complete idiot by uttering the fatal words,
loud enough to catch their ears……’Easy that is Bob, just standin’ there
suspended from a wire. You’re goin’ ter fit one o’ them trapeze thingys to
your boat soon aren’t yoo Bob?’
‘Wot?’
‘Those
trapeze thingys – no problem to us, yoo’ll ‘ave one set up soon so’s we
can go faster.’
‘Wot?’
Bob
eyed me as if l was mad, but l didn’t care. The girl with the long blonde hair
had obviously heard what l said and half turned to me.
‘You’re
going to fit a trapeze to that little dinghy are you? Great. It’ll be
spectacular on such a little boat. You’ve had experience on a trapeze before l
guess?’
‘Oh
yes’ l replied, full of bravado. ‘That kind o’ sailin’ is no problem!’
‘Good,
l’m sure my brother Johnny out on the red boat would be very happy to let you
have a go on his, just so that you can keep in practice and see what it’s like
on a bigger boat.’
‘Er
well……..l wouldn’t want to bovver ‘im, l mean he’s obviously enjoyin’
‘imself. I wouldn’t want to butt in loike.’
‘Oh,
that’s no problem, l’m sure, Johnny always likes to share things.’
‘Er,
er’ - Oh bugger! OH SHIT I thought!
‘Yeah
but Bob here’s got ta get home loike, so we need to pack up an………’
‘No
l don’t!’ Bob was beginning to enjoy this, l could tell and wanted to help
me in showing my idiocy!
‘Yoo
go roight on ahead mate. Show us wot yoo can do – seein’ as yer such a
expert loike!’
I
thought ‘ you bastard, Bob’ and
turned a withering look on him.
‘There’s
no problem with time mate, l’ll pack up the dinghy and stow the sails whilst
you go out and enjoy yerself.’
I turned to try and give another excuse to miss blonde but she had
already caught the attention of Johnny on his red boat and he was now flying in
towards us. Shit!
He landed at the far end of the jetty with brilliant skill and miss
blonde talked to him whilst she held the boat steady.
‘That’s
fine, Clive here needs a pee anyway, so your friend can borrow his hardness for
a few minutes.’
Before l knew it, l had the harness fitted to me like a big stiff nappy
and l was handed into the boat before we were pushed out into the blustery
Thames. I turned to look at Bob who simply smiled and gave a cheery wave.
‘Enjoy it mate, it may be a long time before you can trapeze again!’
‘Too
bloody right’ l thought and ‘l’ll pay you back fer this mate……..if l
survive!’
‘Ok,
clip the trapeze wire onto the hook on your harness and then let’s get her
back onto the plane again and give them a good show.’
I hooked on, guessing where the wire went. Johnny nodded and indicated for me to suspend myself over the side of the dinghy. I was scared………. very scared!..........................................
..........................................We
rowed across the river - the rain
falling without let up, me in the stern clutching our wet bags of wet clothes
and wet bread whilst Bob rowed.
‘You
know wot mate.’
‘Wot?’
‘I
bet we look like a couple of tits!’
‘Huh!
- give me a tit roight now mate and l’d be quite happy!’
Funny how some dark clouds, a bit of wind and rain plus a dicky engine
can cast a pawl of doom over your world. At the end of the day, if disaster
struck and the Atco had coughed it’s last before we got back to the mooring,
we could have drifted or paddled to the river side, tied up and simply walked
home.
But it’s the shattering of a goal that is disappointing, especially in
your youth. All we wanted to do was get as far as we could in a day or so down
the Thames from Reading and get back safe and be proud of our achievement.
Because we had had to turn back before we had planned to, we felt that we had
failed. Later in life comes the realisation that making a tough but sensible
decision to curtail an adventure in order to get back in one piece is success in
it’s self. Conquering the Thames towards London and the sea could wait another
day.