Chapter 7 Learning the ropes

That year between the Easter and the start of the school summer holiday I sailed the boat as often as I could. I hadn’t sailed on the sea before and I was cautious, not wanting to put the boat or myself at risk. Linda and I intended to use Fram during the six week holiday, and I needed to get used to the boat, the sea and the tides, and the winds’ effects on them. Linda was pregnant for the first time, and we knew the baby was due in October. She found it difficult to get up and down the ladder to the boat on the Newhaven mooring and didn’t come sailing very often. But we planned some gentle summer cruising later.

The previous year when I was renovating Fram at Linda’s parents’ house in Haywards Heath I met a neighbour of theirs, a nice bloke called Peter Broome, then in his early thirties, who turned out to be a keen sailor. He was very helpful and encouraging; he told me about the cheap moorings at Newhaven where he kept his boat, a Sunstar 18. He very kindly offered to accompany me the first time I took Fram out to sea, an offer which I gratefully accepted. On that occasion we popped out of Newhaven on a gloriously sunny spring morning and sailed up and down the coast, trying the boat on the various points of sailing. Fram went well, and I learned a lot about trimming the sails when going through a choppy sea.

I’d been collecting equipment for the cruise all year, and by this time I had on board a couple of lifejackets (one of which was Linda’s), a Sestrel Junior handbearing and steering compass, an inshore distress flare pack, a Danforth pattern anchor, a fisherman anchor for everyday use, a two burner cooker, a chemical toilet and a pair of oars - I could just about row Fram if the outboard failed, though not in a chop or against a head wind. I never took a camera with me in these months - I wish I had - so my words will have to suffice here.

I didn’t sail far in those three months; going east from Newhaven I once went as far as Beachy Head - or at least to within a mile or so of the old lighthouse under the cliff. Linda's father, Les, came with me on that occasion. The first time I went west to Brighton and Shoreham I sailed in company with Peter Broome in his boat and a friend of his, whose name escapes me now, in his Alacrity 18ft; we passed the (then new) Brighton Marina, sail past the Piers and go as far as the entrance to Shoreham. I learned to sail Fram on my own, I sailed it in almost flat calm and in conditions where I needed to reef, but probably never more than the bottom end of force five. The scariest thing was getting in and out of Newhaven harbour, especially when one of the Car Ferries was using the entrance. I should explain that the entrance is about 400 metres long and 60-70 metres wide at its narrowest, and the Ferries seemed to take up about 90% of that width; in reality it wasn't quite that bad, but from literally sea level they looked huge. There was a system of lights to prevent small craft using the channel when a Ferry was moving and this allowed enough time for a fishing boat with a big diesel to get into or out of harbour without inconveniencing the ferry - but not enough time for a small sailing cruiser with a 4hp Seagull, especially against wind and current. A couple of times I was halfway in, struggling against the tide, when the Ferry appeared at the top of the harbour entrance. All I could do was to turn smartly round and run back out to sea hoping that the Ferry wouldn’t catch me up.

My favourite memory of this short period was one Saturday in the June of 1977. My parents had visited us and my Dad came out for the day. Fortunately I also had my friend Paul Davies with me. The wind was from the west, the sun was out, and the tide was ebbing down towards Brighton. We tacked down to the marina, the tide under our keel flattering Fram by increasing our speed over the ground. When we got to the Palace Pier (Brighton had two fully functioning piers in those days) we turned to head back to Newhaven, now with the wind behind us but the tide against us, still on the ebb. As we went the wind steadily increased from a Force 3 up to about the top of Force 4 - and I started to learn about the dangers of wind over tide. The waves were travelling in the same direction as we were, but the tide ebbing under them gave them a steep, occasionally breaking face. We would sail up the back of a wave and then, as we surfed off the top of it, we would drop two or three feet with a bang into the trough - and it was quite a bang. Now I had no experience of this, and I’d just rebuilt the boat and wasn’t wholly convinced that it wouldn’t split in two when we slammed down into the waves' troughs. Paul said I went ominously quiet; I got the impression he wasn’t feeling too happy, either. Meanwhile my Dad, bless him, was standing in the hatchway with his elbows bracing him on the cabin roof. Puffing his pipe, he was completely unconcerned. Later, when I told him how nervous I had been, he paid me one of the best compliments I’ve ever had. “I wasn’t worried, John. I had complete faith in you.” I really did feel about a foot taller after that.

The other great thing about that day was seeing two dolphins swimming parallel to us about twenty yards away as we approached Newhaven. I even forgot about the waves for a moment. They glistened darkly in the late afternoon sun.

Back on the mooring I carefully examined the boat - floorboards up, stem to stern. There wasn’t a drop of water: Fram was tight as a drum.