AT HOME WITH TOM CUNLIFFE

From planning a post-isolation cruise to re-imagining classic board games with a nautical slant, Tom has a number of creative suggestions to make the most of lockdown

These are tough times for sailors. As the new season gets underway, many of us are becalmed in the homestead. Even if we aren’t ill personally, we’re keeping the front door closed so as to do the right thing by suffering humanity. I’m in an even worse situation than many; my yacht isn’t just chained to the dock in the local marina – she’s in a shed in Denmark, which, at the time of writing, has pulled up the drawbridge and dropped the portcullis at the border. So, here I sit, pondering on creative ways to have a nautical time.

I’m all right for drink, there seem to be some victuals still knocking around in the bottom of the freezer, my library is among the best-stocked in the western world and my roses have never had it so good, but my hands are going soft from lack of sailing.

Here, then, are a few ideas that we classic boaters can get stuck into while we are confined to barracks.

1 MAKE A DOORMAT

I made the mat in the illustration more than 40 years ago. Returning from a protracted ocean voyage, I’d no money, no job and no home to go to other than my faithful little ship. The harbourmaster was snapping at my heels, waving a berthing bill, but all was not lost. In my forepeak was a 120-fathom reel of unused half-inch manila rope I’d won in an Old Gaffers’ rally in Lymington before I’d set sail. Polyester rope was the coming thing, so the boat was rigged with that, and the lovely natural fibre had sat undisturbed in the darkness, tossed hither and thither by stormy seas, until its moment of glory.