The remainder of the 2012 season passed without too many notable incidents, we manage a short cruise to Geldeston in the company of 2 other registered RCC yachts, but increasingly signs were apparent that ‘Corsair’ was showing her age, and I was showing my naivety / lack of funds to manage & maintain her properly.
What was fantastic though, was sailing in a fleet of 3 such different yachts. We represented the oldest, pre-war design – & were accompanied by 2 RCC’s which showed how the concept had been modernised. S/N 275 ‘Breeze’ was a Derby-built boat, with an incredibly impressive racing career to her name, she’s owned by the family of a lifelong friend, and as photographed below – she’s come a long way from the hirefleet.
Her mainsail is from an international star one-design, giving her a powerful performance. Upwind in heavy-weather especially, she just takes off, and points, and points… A far cry from our own performance, sadly.
Whilst enjoyable, the predominant memory of the 2012 cruise is that as we were tacking into Beccles in light airs, our 1951 boom decided to snap directly above the mainsheet blocks. This swiftly became a fairly stark lesson in how the mainsail on a Broads yacht can (and will) become uncontrollable – and how quickly a jib that’s sheeted in can push you into the bank, HARD.
Without the funds to do anything else, I recall the frustration & resignation of the hot/dusty walk upto Jewsons in Beccles, where some cheap laths, a fence post & some galvanised grip-fast nails were purchased. A fairly brutal repair then followed – with my hammering the fence post inside the two broken segments of boom, and then applying the laths/grip-fast nails to stop everything sliding apart again. Ugly, yes. Cheap, yes. Long-lasting, no. Satisfying? Definitely not!!
At the time, although I knew I wasn’t keeping ‘Corsair’ as I should have, I also knew how powerless I was to do anything else. I just had to pray we’d somehow keep going. Which, without sounding like a complete idiot, is extremely hard, and simultaneously incredibly stupid. Wooden boats require an extremely high standard of maintenance, you cannot just ‘hope’ – and in my heart of hearts, I knew I was failing her.
There followed a litany of events for the remainder of the season which followed in the same vein, that torrential downpour at Breydon regatta, highlighting all the deck leaks / windows needing to be rebuilt, and ultimately the collision at our mooring which further broke our awning spreaders, tore the awning beyond repair & snapped our boom crutches (late August). All in all, it was a pretty horrid experience, spread out against the back-drop of knowing I needed to do more, if I was to keep ‘Corsair’ safe.
I may have only been 5 years into owning her, but already I found she was a significant part of my life, something which echoed the feedback from previously owners I’d spoken with, they all fondly remembered her & talked at length about how she was centre to many fond memories & friendships for them. However hard it may be, I was determined to keep hold of her, and in truth – I knew I needed her.
By December – we’d taken the unusual step of de-rigging ‘Corsair’ & having her ready to be craned out. Despite having endured a litany of criticism from the red-tape brigade last year, it appeared we’d be able to use the riverside pub as a winter storage / impromptu boatyard again. With that in mind, ‘Corsair’ suffered the ignominy of being towed upstream, derigged & deposited on the moorings the night before the Turkey Race.
The race itself proved to be worth of the pages of J.D. Sleightholme… Firstly I stayed aboard a strange boat, in December, with no knowledge of how to work the heating (mistake no. 1) – then, I realised I couldn’t work the cooker… (mistake no. 2) – which lead to me being sub par on the morning of the race itself! I was half bloody frozen to death, starving hungry & for some idiotic reason I’d volunteered to run the race, including laying the course.
Unfolding a sail-cover & awning is no fun in the winter, when its wet you get soaked. What’s even less fun, is karete chopping the folds in, because the bugger is complete frozen solid! Ooopf. My finger’s turned blue, then white & numb. In fact every rope was frozen solid. I’d been promised that rigging a bermudian yacht was mere child’s play, it’d only take seconds… Pah!
We set off to lay the course, and naturally the cock up fairy wasn’t done with us yet. Thundering upstream (well, 6mph with a diesel clattering away) there was a sudden BANG… And the engine stopped. Bollocks. Wuuuuhhh, wuh, whuh wuhhhhhh groaned the starter, nothing, nada, zilch.
BOLLOCKS. I’d only dropped the lower mark, and there was no club boat to help, no vhf & no mobile signal. BOLLOCKS. Return to basic principles… ALWAYS keep the mainsail ready to hoist, tied down in crutches is no bloody good, same goes for the jib. Have it ready to unfurl. Somehow we managed to not hit anything, and I cut (always have a knife) some sail ties, BUT we got the main up & kept some way on… Now. A breather.
Oh no, oh NO! Can’t have that, a gust came down & with a mocking thump/gurgle – the weight & chain for the racing mark (stowed on the foredeck) rattled down to the lee-side & overboard. Oh bollocking bollocks.
Now, I want to you imagine that you’re walking briskly, and without warning I grab your left hand, refusing to let go, whilst you keep walking… that’s the sort of inertia we had, expect it was a 3 ton 28ft ex-hire boat fandango. We lunged to port, we involuntarily gybed, luffed, everything shook/banged like hell, we payed off, we gybed…., we swore, we tangled the ‘effin buoy it’s tackle under the keel, into the jib sheets & generally everyfuckingwhere…
Eventually, some order restored, I threw that buoy into the river with a rage normally associated with a family game of Monopoly.
It really wasn’t our year no matter whose boat we were on! We did manage to extricate ourselves, and get back to start the race on time. Eventually we finished a full 90 minutes behind everyone else (the wind dropped, and with no engine to use, there wasn’t any point in retiring, so forced to sail the course) – and definitely had developed mild hyperthermia as a result of rescuing that bloody buoy.
Heyho.
A Broadsman 