Chapter 2 - Shipwreck

The next major episode in my sailing career involved nearly drowning on the Great Ouse near Bedford. First I will have to introduce the other characters. Ian Roberts was my best mate in school and out from the age of about fourteen to eighteen when we slowly lost touch (me to college, him to become a Chartered Accountant). He was tall, thin, gentle and seemed slightly effeminate; he passed his driving test two weeks after his 17th birthday, and his parents gave him a car - a 12 year old Standard Eight, possibly the slowest vehicle in the road by 1966 when he acquired it. And yes, his parents were well off; they seemed fabulously wealthy compared to everyone where I lived. They had two new cars on their driveway as well as the Standard.

Ian had a sister, Sally, two years younger, who I fancied; Sally had a friend, Carole, who I also fancied, as did Ian (well, we were 17). Ian and I and another school friend, Charlie Legg (now Prof. Of Psychology Charles Legg somewhere in the University of London, I believe) decided to book a sailing holiday on the Norfolk Broads, of which more later. Ian’s father owned a Heron sailing dinghy - an eleven foot, plywood, gunter rigged, Jack Holt design - which he kept at Tempsford Sailing Club on the Great Ouse. Ian and I decided to practise our boat-craft before the holiday and, at the same time, to impress both Sally and Carole by taking them sailing. Fortunately Charlie couldn't come. Fortunately there were four life jackets. Sally and Carole prepared for the trip by each buying a pair of jeans and applying extra make-up for the occasion; Ian and I wore older clothes but didn’t stint on the hair-spray.

We drove in the Standard to Tempsford and launched the dinghy down the club slipway. The sun went in and the wind seemed to increase. Ian insisted I take the tiller; I felt suitably heroic. The river was about forty feet wide. We hoisted the sails, all climbed in, and cast off. I hadn’t sailed this boat before. In the first twenty yards, while I was trying to sort out the mainsheet, I managed to sail very badly by the lee, the boom went over in a standing gybe with an almighty crack, banging Carole on the head, the dinghy capsized and we all went in to the very cold water (did I mention that it was April?).

I came up under the sail. There was no air to breathe, just wet terylene sailcloth above my head. This was not a situation I had ever been in before. Purely by instinct I clawed my way to the edge of the sail and emerged choking and coughing. It felt as if I’d been under for minutes, but I guess it was seconds really. Sally and Carole had, very sensibly, swum to the bank where some cows decided to investigate the newcomers to their field; the girls suddenly found that they weren’t very fond of cows en masse, and stayed half in the water, shivering and swearing vilely. Ian and I decided to tow the dinghy to the bank before trying to right it, as the wind felt too strong and we were too demoralised to do the thing properly. The river took us about a quarter of a mile downstream before we managed to get the dinghy to the bank. At one stage we managed to stick the mast-head into the mud at the bottom of the river.

Eventually the four of us and the dinghy were all together again. We bailed the dinghy out, and decided that we wouldn’t try to sail it back upriver to the clubhouse, so we lowered the sails . We walked along the bank shivering and swearing at each other between chattering teeth; well, actually, most of the swearing was directed at me, to be fair.

No-one had a change of clothes; we had two small hand towels between us, and the roller towel from the loo in the clubhouse (fortunately we had Ian’s father’s clubhouse key - the only piece of foresight anyone exhibited during the whole day). We sent Ian out to run his engine until it was really hot in the car - he didn’t want to do this because of the waste of petrol, but we threatened him with violence if he didn’t. We got home about four hours after we set out, still very damp, barely speaking (except for me - I apologised all the way), having sailed about 20 yards, swum about 100 yards (or 10 in the case of the girls) and walked a good quarter of a mile towing the wretched Heron.

It took me a long time and a lot of Vodka and Tonics before Sally and Carole forgave me, but I never quite regained the heroic stature in their eyes that I fancy I had before.

Ian and I went to the Broads determined never to fall in again.