Much has been made of the difficulties of 'getting into' sailing and as I glanced down the list of boats for sale at Suffolk Yacht Harbour last Saturday, it was easy to see why. Right down at the 'cheap' end of the page was your £25,000 twenty-odd footer from the '80s, and at the top, several hundred thousand pounds of streamlined - and wallet-bashing - cruising yachts adorned the page. And that's only the second hand boats. Without a top post in a law firm, the prospect looked rather forbidding...
But the marina itself had a different story to tell. Two yacht owners stopped me straight away to ask if I fancied joining their crew for the day's race. There I was, with only a couple of weeks' sailing experience under my belt, and a certain lack of ready cash to throw at sailing gear, and already I was being invited aboard by total strangers. 'Getting into' sailing suddenly seemed a whole lot easier.
Fortunately I already had an opening into the cruising world for the weekend, as Cathy Brown, the ever-helpful MainSail editor, had invited me to help sail her forty-foot Grand Soleil.
The plan was to sail down to Burnham, stay overnight, and return the next day. Despite the forecast, we headed out past the aesthetic monstrosity of the Port of Felixstowe on Friday morning, in rather 'fresh' winds, and Richard Brown directed my eye to the depth gauge. Three metres of water! Wallace and Gromit might have called that a close shave.
However surprising the depth in the river mouth, I only became more amazed as we headed further out to sea. About five miles off shore, there were still moments when less than three metres of clear water showed beneath the keel. I did my Competent Crew course around Anglesey, so this was something outside my experience. Lashing waves, white horses and the deep navy-brown colour of a murky British sea are all features I associate with deep waters, not an over-sized paddling pool. Welcome to the world of East coast sailing!
Water depth didn't turn out to be the decisive factor in the day's outing though. The wind speed won all the stakes there. The shipping forecast had warned of force five to seven winds, so we knew our plans were a little optimistic, but it was only as we approached Burnham that they began to seem wildly so. The gusts had definitely increased in intensity to seven and upwards, and with the prospect of beating up the shallow channel to Burnham in those conditions, we decided to run for home. Cathy was highly apologetic, but she needn't have been.
One thing I've learned from mountaineering is that you can't send the Great Outdoors an itinerary and expect a firm seal of approval in return. I once spent six weeks in Greenland with a team leader who waffled endlessly about 'the uncertainty principle' that identifies an expedition from a holiday. With my fellow explorers, I teased him endlessly about this at the time, but of course he was right. When you've got Greenlandic glaciers on your hands, 'guarantees' are rather ambiguous entities, and there's no such thing as an arctic storm that believes in schedules.
The same principle applies to sailing, particularly in a gale, so I wasn't disappointed that we had to retrace our steps. I was happy just to have day out on the sea, even if it meant sailing straight back to Haven Ports YC.
On route home, I learned several valuable lessons. One of these isn't listed on the Day Skipper syllabus, but it turns out to be one of the keys to successful sailing: how do you reach for the box of biscuits whilst helming without steering off course?! I'd always thought sailing was all about streamlining the tacking process, but there are definitely some unofficial skills to consider too...
My thanks to Cathy for a great weekend. Has she converted me to East Coast sailing? Well, let's just say that I won't need much persuading to head coast-wards in future.
Can someone just make sure those sand banks don't shift around any more before the next time? I don't want to run a £150,000 yacht aground!
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Susan is new to TheMainSail and after plunging in at the deep end - or the gale force end - this weekend, she's looking forward to a summer of sailing. Her cruising experience so far is limited: highlights include pootling around in Toppers, sailing a Sigma 38 around the North Wales coast, and being named after a boat which sank (yes, really - blame the parents!)
As a convert from the world of kayaking and rock climbing, she hopes to gradually pick up the ropes over the next few months. Follow her progress in this blog.
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