The cruise – 2008 – A Broadsman

I have always written about my sailing holidays. At the time, I think I didn’t know why I was doing it. However, now when I look back at the various log-books, I am so glad that I did. As teenagers, we would assemble a motley fleet of dinghies, and my halfdecker before disappearing on the rivers for a fortnight. It was bliss… and it was cheap! Plus of course there was fire, sailing, and illicit drinking…

But. It has taken me 2 hours just to locate this particular log-book, as I appear to suffer from Captain Flint’s trunk syndrome…

The trunk.
The logbook.

So, I can’t put the entire week into one entry. I will transcribe exactly what I find.

Day 1
Well, today was the first day of what would (I except) to prove to be a difficult/interesting trip. Firstly, we have different craft entirely this year as we are using my broads yacht ‘Corsair’.

And, as most of the usual crew are either in India, or working hard, the numbers have also shrunk noticeably. Anyways this year we have James, Theo, Chris and myself.

Anyway, today! We set off in characteristic rain, and drove to Oby through relentless rain. By some fluke it did in fact ease off (what’s going on?) And at last though we did motor from Oby Dyke, and hoist a double reefed main & small jib. This proved very sensible as we stormed upriver to Potter Heigham. There we actually executed a smart mooring, and then quanted through the Arch.

After the boring procedure of mast lowering/raising was… well in truth this time is was not boring, the mast stuck in the hatch carling, and was forceably ‘persuaded’ to move, and nearly killed Chris (next time).

After Potter Heigham we roared upriver to Meadow Dyke and reached onto Horsey, that moment when you reach it, winding down Meadow Dyke is still one of the most dramatic moments of Broads sailing.

One very good thrash later we came to rest before motoring back up Meadow Dyke. During that time, we picked up a Martham halfdecker helmed by an exceedingly grumpy man. (n.b. they were paddling head to wind, we towed them out the dyke, much to the relief of their crew).

Once we’d left them, we chuffed upto Hickling where much to my surprise we saw ‘Mandi’ (commissioned by a lesbian school teacher and named to spell “M and I”) and also helped a ‘Japonica’ to move, re-moor and then sensibly decide to stay for the night.

Goodnight.

p.s. During this period, my good friend Theo was kind enough to illustrate the logbook, with my fountain pen. For this I am very grateful.

Our route.
Theo’s first illustration- Horsey Mere

Day 2

Well, this morning proved quite challenging. It was tremendously windy (F6-7) conversation between us and the ‘Japonica’ moored opposite was entirely based on how many reefs we would require!

In the ended, we opted for three & the storm jib and blasted across Hickling. Even with our stem-set jib and tiny mainsail we have the cabin-sides under!!!

Potter Heigham proved as ever quite forgettable, although some basic victualling in Lathams did occur. We sensibly motored from Potter, for two reasons;

A.) the wind had increased once more.

B.) in our furious sail across Hickling, I had shredded the storm jib and now had copious amounts of sewing to attend to.

On our way to Ludham Bridge we did an excellent piece of salvage, which results in a new acquired boathook. All credit to Chris for going wrist-deep in water to recover it.

After Ludham bridge we sailed with the freshly repaired storm jib setting wonderfully, it almost became civilised and briefly was sunny! Some nifty quanting past Irstead saw us out onto Barton.

Quant, sail & motor saw us into Stalham where an agreeable pint in the ‘Harnser’ left us brave… Hence via Tesco strode back to ‘Corsair’ and making a night passage to NBPC HQ on Barton, we’ve pitched camp inside a shed (no really!) set some fireworks and now are musing on inhabiting an island.

Goodnight.