Learning to cruise continued

  Next morning was bright and clear. It was low water and the silencer for the stove lay on the sand a few yards away. After a walk to the nearest farm for some milk, a good cup of tea braced me considerably and the next move was a stroll under the bridge to the famous Maplin Sands across which I hoped to reach the Thames at high tide. The channel shallows seaward of the bridge until it peters out altogether after about half a mile as the seawalls on either side fell away north and south. A pole with a crisscross topmark shows the watershed half a mile out from the shore and beyond it the hard sand falls away very slowly for two or three miles to the River Thames. A hostile wind blew from the northeast and no crossing of the Thames was likely today so I decided to go into Southend, walking from the boat across the mud and sand in my waterboots, which I then hid in the long grass after changing into my shoes. On the road to Great Wakering I was surprised to find a police checkpoint. All cars and pedestrians seemed to be producing passes so I had a chat with the constable to make certain that he would recognise me on my way back. The view of the estuary from the end of Southend Pier rather dulled my appetite for the crossing, although the wind was certainly in the right direction. By the time I got back to the boat the tide had come and gone again. The tent sagged badly between the boom and the gunwale so I sorted out some pieces of wood from the flotsam on the saltings, bound them in pairs with six inches of line between them and hung them over the boom. This doubled the amount of room inside and there was less chance of rain collecting in the hollows. A visit to a friend on a local farm passed away the rest of the afternoon and I turned in soon after eight o’clock. The calls of the seabirds over the marshes still ring in my ears. Nowhere else have I heard them so crisp and crystal clear. The night was very cold and I lit the stove early next morning to warm up the boat a little, a practice I rather dislike in case I dropped off to sleep and something caught fire. It was a lovely clear day with wind from the northeast again. While waiting for the tide to float me just before 1100 hrs, I cut a sump in the floor boards in the stern sheets so that I could bale out while steering. The bridge keeper came along and had a chat, telling me that I would be unable to cross the sands to the Thames until the weekend as they were a firing range and he was not allowed to let anyone through the bridge. This meant several days delay but it couldn’t be helped. Anyway we had a long chat while he showed me over the bridge. It is a curious structure, pivoting at the northern end with a curved scorpion style tail loaded with blocks of concrete to balance the weight of the span. It had to be wound up by hand which was very hard work indeed but of course the correct positioning of the blocks can make it much easier. More important from the sailing point of view, he told me a lot about the run of the tides here. About two hours either side of low water the channels are dry except for a few shallow pools near the bridge. The first of the flood appears from the Crouch, flowing up between Rushley and Havengore Islands and under the bridge towards the sea. Eventually the tide flooding across the three miles of sands from the Thames meets the water from the bridge on the watershed by the beacon. Until the early twenties this watershed was the only road to Foulness Island and is marked by line of brooms or withies, from which it gets its name, the Broomway. The tide coming in over the sands is later than that which has made the long journey round from the Crouch and is therefore higher. It overwhelms the tide from the bridge and floods back into the channels among the islands until high water. Then the reverse procedure takes place. It ebbs under the bridge towards the Thames until the Broomway uncovers when the rest runs slowly back into the Crouch until we are left once again with a few shallow pools.

Of course I could have lowered the mast but in those days I considered it a Herculean task quite out of the question singlehanded. At high tide there is only a foot or two of clearance under the centre span of the bridge but at the first of the flood there might be enough to get under with the mast up. I was high on the bank and would not float until about an hour before high water so there was no chance of slipping straight under the bridge today. After careful consideration (half the joy of sailing) I decided to sail away on the ebb, exploring west of Rushley Island, back into the Middleway with the ebb and up to Burnham, later returning with the young flood so that I might pass under the bridge and through to Kent. It was a fine sail and with the tide full, I had a much better view of the surrounding countryside than when I had crept along, deep down in the channels, on Sunday evening. The magic of the area began to grip me. Although I had to beat once I reached the River Roach, the tide had begun to ebb by now and progress improved. This was before the days of `cam` and `clam` cleats but over the winter I had devised a clever device for holding the mainsheet that would enable me to release it instantly in a sudden squall. Off Potton Point I gave it a test and found that it wouldn’t work! The boat heeled over wildly as she lumbered round into the wind with water pouring over the coamings, giving me the first real scare of my sailing career. Water was well over the floorboards by the time she righted herself but this was the first sign that Zephyr was the type of boat that suffered fools gladly. She was to suffer many times at the hands of this fool over the years ahead. Of course there was no question of buoyancy although I vaguely hoped that she would float water logged if the worst came to the worst. Later I found that she carried two hundred and eighty pounds of lead on her keel.

My course due west up the Crouch brought the wind astern but now the tide was against me. This was my first experience of the sort of seas that can get up when a strong ebb meets a lively east wind in the Crouch and I was scared of gybing, after the experience off Potton Point earlier that day. I kept the jib full of wind and sort of tacked to leeward, coming round into the wind each time I neared the shore. About two hours before low water I beached on the mud at Burnham and enjoyed a stroll along the front among the busy boat yards. It was my first visit and I certainly liked it, but would hate to moor there as it is so crowded and there is little scope for weekend cruising. I got into conversation with some of the old salts on a waterfront bench and became a freeman of Burnham in a manner of speaking in that they showed me how to nudge open the gentlemen’s lavatory without putting a penny in the slot. Alas, a new building has long since replaced that old one but it is now free anyway.

By the time that Zephyr floated again the wind had almost died. I realised that it would be impossible to beat back over the flood tide and round to the bridge, so I took the easy way out and went upstream with the tide. There was only the barest suggestion of a breeze as the sun went down ahead of me. She drifted along surprisingly fast. Peace so peaceful; quiet so quiet, just a few seabirds, the swirl of an occasional fish, the almost full moon over Canewdon Church and the amber glow where the sun had just gone down. I even made a cup of tea under way. It was 2245 hrs when I anchored among the moored yachts at Fambridge, which at the time, seemed to be the safest thing to do as I had no riding light. The fear that I might hook my anchor round the moorings never occurred to me. Ignorance is bliss?

Next morning I moved on with the flood soon after 0700 hrs At Hullbridge I went ashore for some stores and discovered sterilised milk (sold in sealed bottles like wine) for the first time together, with several other things. This time the boat was still afloat when I returned unlike my experience at Burnham the previous day when I had beached on the ebb tide. This business of getting ashore without a dinghy would turn out to be the main problem with this type of cruising. On with the flood tide to the head of navigation at Battlesbridge where I had my first real meal of the trip. The sky was overcast at high water the wind came in easterly with vicious squalls. After a few tacks down river I beached against the cant of the saltings on the Northern Bank about a mile below the mill for it was too lively for my liking. It may seem silly to be scared so far inland (fifteen miles) in such a narrow part of the river but I read a few weeks later that a chap had drowned while sailing there.

This system of beaching the boat on the mud against the wall of the saltings, usually about two feet high, is very convenient for one can step ashore in shoes, and odd gear can be dumped out of the boat onto the grass. There is of course the danger that the boat will topple outwards as the tide falls and to counter this I took a line from the masthead to the anchor, which I planted out in the field. I tried a tinned Christmas pudding and found it very good indeed. For several years after the war they could be bought very reasonably during the summer and could be eaten hot or cold. Over the years I knocked them back by the dozen. With plans to leave on the night ebb, I got down to sleep early. I was settling down into the rhythm of life and began to sleep well. Too well in fact! It was dark when I woke to the first chuckle of the returning tide but there was no hurry so I dozed off for another hour.

Suddenly I woke to find the boat heeling over. I clambered out into the night to find that the tide was well away and the boat had shifted for I hadn’t troubled about fore and aft lines. Her stern was well aground but the bow was high over the saltings and as she settled the weight must come on the bowsprit. Already the bobstay was as tight as a fiddle string as it cut through the rough grass into the firm mud. Suddenly my eye alighted on the dagger plate, a fine piece of armoured plate that a previous owner had put into her to improve her windward qualities for racing. It did noble work that night as a gigantic spade. I soon cut a slot into the saltings for the bowsprit to drop into and the panic was over for another twelve hours. That ladies and gentlemen, is the only advantage I have ever discovered for a dagger plate over a centreboard. So to sleep again.

Next morning I walked across to the farm and left a bottle there which the cowman promised to fill with milk while I shopped in Wickford. When I returned about mid morning, they gave me back the empty bottle saying that the farmer had told them not to let me have any milk. Halfway back to the boat, I was hailed by the farmer who gabbled away furiously in some foreign lingo. I explained that I had been forced to stay there because of the weather and intended to leave on the noon tide. He gabble on and I repeated my story time and time again. Suddenly his face broke out into a broad grin, he did everything but throw his arms round me and kiss me and we parted the best of friends. I have often wondered what that conversation was about. The only theory that I can come up with is that he feared the possibility that I intended to moor there permanently as a houseboat.

The wind was still easterly but a little easier and I sailed at 1515 hrs at the turn of the tide. Just how many boards one has to make between Battlesbridge and the River Roach is anybody’s guess but it seemed a long, long trip. With the spring ebb tide, everything was in my favour but of course the tide at Battlesbridge is an hour later than at Key Reach so that only five hours are left to get into the River Roach before low water. By the time I got to Burnham I was watching the clock anxiously. It was cold and I was glad of my duffle coat under the overcast sky. As I eased the sheets round Branket Spit, the clouds rolled away to the southeast leaving a clear blue sky. Already the wind was dropping off when I grounded on the way to the bridge and I seized the opportunity to make a quick cup of tea while the water gurgled past the boat. In a few minutes she swung to her anchor, eager to be on her way. The wind died away completely in the Middleway but the boat glided along on the tide. Magic is the only is the only word to describe that evening. The light was fading and the moon quietly introduced herself above the sea wall. Even the sea birds seemed to have lost their normal fears and just sat there in the silent gloom as I glided past. The only sound was the occasional ripple of the water over some irregularity in the shiny mud banks. By the time that I reached the bridge, the mast would not pass under by about a foot. Just too late! I rowed back fifty yards and anchored for the night, had a cup of cocoa and so to sleep.

At about 0200 hrs a great roaring noise seemed to be shaking the whole boat. Through the open flap at the stern, the sinister black frame of the bridge loomed very close indeed. I rushed aft and looked out to find the ebb tide rushing past the transom out under the bridge towards the sea. My seven-pound anchor had dragged and now I was but ten paces from the bridge. I had horrible visions of being swept hard against the cold ironwork. My! How that tide was roaring past! The full moon looked quietly down as I wondered what the hell to do. I could never have rowed against such a tide so I ended up just sitting there waiting, Macawber like, for something to happen. After about a quarter of an hour I realised that the noise was getting less, the tide was easing and the danger was over. Next time I looked out, it was daylight and the boat lay well away from the bridge in a few inches of water.

Friday was misty with light winds from the northeast. I spent the morning shaping the tent to the coamings so that I could walk on tip-toe along the side decks when it was erected. Brass hooks were screwed in every six inches. The edge of the balloon material was cut to shape and the lower edge doubled back. Holes were made every three inches and a line threaded through which gave alternate three-inch lengths outside and inside. The outer ones clipped over the brass hooks. At the bow and the stern I fitted double flaps so that the outer one kept the wind out whichever way the boat lay. Suddenly I realised that the returning tide was halfway up my boots. The bridge keeper came along to say that the shoot might be cancelled today in view of the poor visibility, which would mean that I could sail across the sands to the Thames. Actual permission came at 1340 hrs, three minutes before high water. I made a very poor show of getting under way, such was my excitement to get to sea. My guide was an artillery hand bearing compass and the only chart to hand was the Bartholemews half-inch road map of Kent, which gave some of the buoys and banks in the estuary. My plan was to clear the flats and then steer due south in the hope of finding Whitstable.

The sea was smooth, the wind was about force two from the northeast and it was a very quiet trip indeed. The shape of the Isle of Sheppey gradually grew out of the mist and after picking up the West Middle Buoy, I altered course slightly more easterly. The East Columbine buoy helped me to pick Whitstable Harbour out of the mist. I found my way into the entrance, running aground almost immediately. A local informed me that it was as good as low water, which of course was absolute nonsense, but at the time I had not developed a mistrust of such local experts. After a cup of tea I began to look around me. The dirty little harbour with its high slimy walls looked very much less attractive than the open saltings. In fact the tide didn’t turn until 2000 hrs and it was 2200 hrs before I floated and moved to anchor for the night on the mudflats. It was an awful job trying to cook supper as she rolled and tossed monotonously in the slight swell. I was beginning to realise the vast difference between artificial harbours along open coasts and the sheltered creeks of Essex.