Steve
My interest in sailing started some years ago when night after night, on my way home from work, I passed a house with, in the front garden, a dingy. Seeing the dingy deteriorate over the course of a year to the point where if it waited any longer it would have been firewood, I knocked at the door and made the house owner an offer for the boat. A deal was struck and I had my first boat. A Heron class, described by John Fisher in his 1961 book "Sailing Dinghies - Types and Classes as:- YACHTING WORLD "HERON" CLASS Length O.A 11ft 3in. Beam 4ft 6in. Sail Area 70 sq. ft. These hard chine plywood skin boats sponsored by the Yachting World were designed in 1951 by Mr. Jack Holt for the family who would like to store their boat athome and who do not wish to incur the expense of a trailer for taking her to the water. The Heron can easily be stowed on the roof of an average 10 h.p. car resting on rubber chocks or rollers. Gunter rig has been adopted so that both mast and spars can be stowed in the boat itself. The heron is fitted with eye bolts so that the hull can be suspended from the garage roof when not in use The boat is half decked and fitted with both mainsail and jib. Draft with plate down 3 ft. Can be built from a kit...... How anyone was supposed to heave the boat on and off a roof rack unless they were Mr. and Mrs. Universe is beyond me, I had enough trouble getting it on and off the trailer. After replacing port side of the deck and painting the hull a bright yellow Spooky Lady, as she had been renamed, was taken to Harwich Harbour for the first sail - but how do you sail? Slowly we found out and have been finding out ever since Sailing is a sport in which there is always something to learn. After owning a number of dingies I bought a small cabin boat an 18ft Talisman which, as I lived in Northampton at the time, spent most of its time on Rutland Water, a large man made lake - well large for England. After moving to Clacton on Sea in Essex I bought Amelia-J an Anderson 22 the boat I owned untill 2004. She may be old and she may be small but she is a very good sea boat, indeed two of the class have been trans Atlantic. Their skippers must have been barmy!! My sailing in Amelia-J was much more restricted, rarely having more that one day at a time off work, day sailing is generally all we can achieve, sailing to a nice pub, lunch and a sail home. Sailing further a field is, when I can manage it, undertaken with friends in their (bigger!) boats. Over the years I have managed many crossings of the North Sea (One of which is described in A Simple Plan) and the English Channel to Calais and Cherbourg, one memorable delivery passage from The Hamble River on the South Coast of England to Harwich Harbour on the East Coast of England when the wind speed peaked at over 50 knots and a fabulous trip on a Dufour 1800 from Titchmarsh Marina in Walton to the Langelinie Marina in Copenhagen via both the Dutch and German Fresian Islands and the Keil Canal.
|
|
|
|
Anderson 22 |
