A satisfying feature of looking after this column for the last 16 years has been the latitude granted me by editors for selecting material. This has delivered enough slack to celebrate the less spectacular among the yarns of derring-do and sheer survival. ‘Travels with my Nan’, published by the ever-inventive Lodestar Books and written by Nick Imber, tells of three generations of a family growing up with a small barge yacht in the Thames estuary.
The opening lines set the scene perfectly: ‘I first met her in Tollesbury and immediately fell for her. She was Essex Girl through and through, but not like the others, although she was shallow. There were only two problems. The age difference – she was born in 1904 and I was ten back then in 1959. None of this mattered to me but the second problem would be trickier; my Dad loved her too.’
We join Nick on his inaugural passage as a teenage skipper with a crew of fellow students. Like many a first trip, it doesn’t go as smoothly as he’d have liked, but the account smacks of an earlier, more innocent age than ours. The buoys may have changed, but the sands have not as the crew stand bravely out across the wide, cluttered waters of the Thames, aided only by steel leeboards and a Seagull outboard engine.
We slipped our mooring and set off along Gravesend Reach bound for Leigh. Flo volunteered to go below and make a hot drink.
“Nick,” she shouted up the companionway, “why is there water over the floorboards?”
“There shouldn’t be!” I said. Handing the tiller to a startled Pete I ducked below.
Diese Geschichte stammt aus der March 2020-Ausgabe von Yachting World.
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Diese Geschichte stammt aus der March 2020-Ausgabe von Yachting World.
Starten Sie Ihre 7-tägige kostenlose Testversion von Magzter GOLD, um auf Tausende kuratierte Premium-Storys sowie über 8.000 Zeitschriften und Zeitungen zuzugreifen.
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wallywind 110 launches
The first example of Wally Yacht's new wallywind performance cruising range launched this summer, during the iconic Italian brand's 30th anniversary year - and in time for its debut at the Monaco Yacht Show in September.
Irish skipper wins Figaro
Irish solo skipper Tom Dolan took a historic victory in this year's La Solitaire du Figaro Paprec, winning the solo multistage offshore race overall only the third non-French competitor ever to do so.
Youth AC puts on a show
Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli's team won the UniCredit Youth America's Cup after a highly absorbing series comprising 12 international teams racing the one-design AC40s off Barcelona.
ATLANTIC BEYOND
SAILING THE SECOND EXPLORATION 60 ON A WEST-TO-EAST ATLANTIC CROSSING WAS IDEAL FOR A RIGOROUS TEST OF GARCIA'S NEW NOWHERE YOU CAN'T GO FLAGSHIP
UNCONTROLLED
HELPLESSLY APPROACHING AN UNINHABITED ISLAND IN THE GALAPAGOS WITHOUT ENGINE OR ELECTRONICS, JON VAN TAMELEN FEARED BEING IMMINENTLY SHIPWRECKED
SECRET ISLAND
BEYOND THE FORBIDDING ENTRY RULES OF TAIWAN IS A CULTURE RICH IN SEAFARING HISTORY AND STUNNING LANDSCAPES, FINDS CAMERON DUECK
LAND OF THE BIRDS
SKIP NOVAK DESCRIBES THE PERILS, CHALLENGES AND JOYS OF A CRITICAL EXPEDITION VOAYGE TO SURVEY SOUTH GEORGIA'S ENDANGERED WANDERING ALBATROSS
FIRST STEPS TO BLUEWATER
YOU CAN GET INTO WORLD CRUISING FROM A STANDING START AND EXPERIENCE THINGS NO OTHER TRAVELLERS DO. CATHERINE LAWSON AND DAVID BRISTOW TALK TO FOUR COUPLES WHO PROVE IT
HARD CHOICES
IN AN EXCLUSIVE EXTRACT FROM HER NEW BOOK, PIP HARE REVEALS WHAT DROVE HER ON WHILE RACING THROUGH THE SOUTHERN OCEAN IN THE 2020 VENDÉE GLOBE.
INTO BATTLE
COULD THIS BE THE MOST COMPETITIVE VENDÉE GLOBE EVER? HELEN FRETTER FINDS OUT WHAT THE SKIPPERS WILL BE FACING.