In the blood

[Wansworth]

My father didn’t come from a nautical background but whilst in Ceylon after the war he had built a lug rigged Priam dinghy.On return I recall going round several boat yards looking at wooden tore outs until one day at Teddington lock we had a trial run in a fan tail launch…….and somehow ended up with a fifteen foot lugger with the jib set on an iron bowsprit measuring a good three foot.This was sailed mostly at Sunbury.Then it stayed for many years propped up in the front garden .At sometime in the very early sixties father got together with a neighbor and produced a plan for a Bermudian rig using the original bamboo lug sail mast .The boat was then towed to the sea and launched in Chichester harbour although we sailed her off the beach at the Witterings.She was fitted with a brand new Evenrude.Two summers were spent at Chichester until a move to Bognor meant the boat was kept on the mud at Littlehampton .By 1966 I was the main user and on various coastal jaunts picked up sailing and seamanship skills.So Iblame him.

 

[Snowgoose-1]

Nice piece .
Reading old sailing books, they seemed to mess about with various rigs and setups in bygone days.

I think Slocum made rig changes during his circumnavigation to suit expected seas states , wind force , and direction. Seems we are still at it with things like Twistle rigs and code zeros.

 

[johnalison]

10/10 for spelling bermudian the old way. I’d like to bring back spinaker as well, just to annoy the young.

My father’s sailing career was nothing like as romantic. He took the family on the Broads, and I have quite a lot of cine film of this from about 1935. They used to have a mixture of motor and sailing boats, both cabined and Yare and Bure half-deckers. On the strength of this, he ordered a small yacht from Mitchell’s yard in Portmellon, from where Helen Tew’s ‘Helen’ came, but the war came along as well as my sister and me, and the boat never happened. I also got a lot of Broads experience before my father bought a half-share in a Firefly, later whole, which became my boat as my father approached seventy. I suppose he was a frustrated sailor, but I don’t think he would ever have got full use from a sea-boat.

 

[Fr J Hackett]

Although I learned my sailing much of it by trial and error on the Orwell in my grandfathers converted ships lifeboat. There is no history of sailing in the family other than my father’s youngest brother who served on MTBs in the Second World War my father and his father being professional soldiers and maternal grandfather also a soldier. So my interest really came about by accident and why my grandfather bought his boat remains a mystery. We did have a couple of holidays on the broads in the very early 60s where I was the only one to make use of the sails that came with the old clinker built tenders that came with the motor cruisers that my father hired which again is a bit of a mystery as he never displayed any interest in my boats or sailing and found good excuses to decline the offers of a weekend aboard.

 

[Snowgoose-1]

Although I learned my sailing much of it by trial and error on the Orwell in my grandfathers converted ships lifeboat. There is no history of sailing in the family other than my father’s youngest brother who served on MTBs in the Second World War my father and his father being professional soldiers and maternal grandfather also a soldier. So my interest really came about by accident and why my grandfather bought his boat remains a mystery. We did have a couple of holidays on the broads in the very early 60s where I was the only one to make use of the sails that came with the old clinker built tenders that came with the motor cruisers that my father hired which again is a bit of a mystery as he never displayed any interest in my boats or sailing and found good excuses to decline the offers of a weekend aboard.

Perhaps there is a sailing gene that skips a generation or two .
Many seem afflicted.
Could always pay for a DNA test. You may have a touch of Viking in you.

 

[Fr J Hackett]

Perhaps there is a sailing gene that skips a generation or two .
Many seem afflicted.
Could always pay for a DNA test. You may have a touch of Viking in you.

Probably have given my father’s family are multi generational Suffolk folk

 

[Snowgoose-1]

Probably have given my father’s family are multi generational Suffolk folk

Perhaps best not to look too far back in time.
We might be related to Vlad the Impaler .

​

 

[Fr J Hackett]

Perhaps best not to look too far back in time.
We might be related to Vlad the Impaler .

​

Some people would say that’s a distinct probability as well

 

[johnalison]

It’s certainly not genetic. I have had four siblings, none of whom showed any interest at all in sailing or the sea. My own children adored sailing but moved inland with family commitments.

 

[Clancy Moped]

I think me and my dad once went on a pedalo for half an hour