UNLIKELY HERO

A CROSS-EUROPE ADVENTURE IN A 10FT DINGHY SEES SANDY MACKINNON NEARLY COME A CROPPER OFF WHITSTABLE’S MUD FLATS

When the Great Seamanship column put out to sea 20 years ago, the extracts were drawn from classic sailing literature, much of it written before World War II. As years went by, we

realised we were missing a trick and that a stream of eclectic new material was being published. Mining this rich vein has been a source of continued delight. A fine example arrived this month and I confess it has been a struggle to put it down. The Unlikely Voyage of Jack de Crow by AJ (Sandy) Mackinnon tells the tale of his solo voyage from Shropshire to the Black Sea in, of all things, a Mirror dinghy.

The tale begins with Mackinnon, a teacher at a small public school, discovering the dinghy upside down under a pile of leaves by the local lake. He rescues the boat, names it after a pet raven, and decides to use it to take his departure from what might be described as ‘life so far’. Once underway, the book is a wild helter-skelter of experiences, people and narrow squeaks with disaster.

We join him beating into a rising north-east gale towards Whitstable out of the Swale on the Thames estuary. It’s noon and he has already been underway since 0515 but matters rapidly deteriorate from the tough to the bizarre.