At the beginning of 2023, although the mate and I were unhappy with the way the Island Yacht Club on Canvey Island were treating our ‘boy’ and that we have never forgiven the club at the way we had been treated over a ‘problem’ in 2019, we weren’t about to cast off and sail away permanently…
We were keeping a low profile whilst continuing as club volunteers with a continuous need for mooring repairs.
We had a major ‘fortieth’ year refit planned for Whimbrel during the spring. it being forty years since the boat was ordered. I also had an impending new knee operation and an unknown was how long I would need to recuperate. It was going to be tight, possibly.
The year began with a refit for the main companionway hatch. This was written about at the time.
As always, we fitted our lives around the joys of walking and sailing, plus our weekly Saturday club work party. Little did we know, this latter ‘joy’ was nearing an abrupt end.
At the beginning of March, my youngest brother jumped at the chance to come sailing – something that has become almost a rite of passage over the past few years. Two nights were bagged in fine weather. We made it to Queenborough and to Upnor, enjoying great sailing.
During the spring I was reminded of the honour ‘bestowed’ upon me by Yachting Monthly the previous year. I was, in their opinion, one of twenty-five people who’d furthered yachting around the UK and beyond. It came up in conversation at a work party – few knew and even less cared, apart from the enquirer!
The Island Yacht Club themselves, although told at the time, followed the award up with complete silence…
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Our faces had never fitted. An old hand took me aside years ago and suggested we got out – as he himself did not so long afterwards (based at Brightlingsea now) If not in with a certain corp, then you were a nothing. We were generally happy with that situation, as are the majority of club members around and about.
My knee op was looming and it wasn’t long before I was under the knife…
I wasn’t out of action for long and with the exercises and day by day longer walks was up to five kilometres at the fifth week of convalescence. At that point, we booked a date for Whimbrel to be lifted out.
It was a little under eight weeks after my knee op that the boat was set on chocks ashore. During the work period – just four weeks – I had a bout of trouble with blood pressure medication caused by my GP Practice.
Further, we had problems with club members treating the compound as a race track with resultant dust clouds coating boat with fresh coatings taking place. Signs did nothing. Finally, I made an official complaint, verbally at first then formally in writing. That caused a stir… Old wounds were opened and vengeance against us was sniffed (and, privately, alluded to).
Our 2019 RIB perpetrators were now the head honchos of the club…
The problems caused me angst and my disturbed sleepless nights returned – these began after the 2019 RIB bombing and then being bullied (cowered) into ‘shutting up’ about it all … during my cancer treatment…
There are some ‘nice’ people at the Island Yacht Club.
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So, with my sister and two friends aboard (for their week of sailing) Whimbrel departed the Island Yacht Club for good.
As we left, I had just one look back down the line of creek buoys – buoys that I had looked after for fifteen years overseeing upgrade from painted drums to proper pucker floats… Never mind the estimated £100, 000 of Saturday work hours freely given. Now, it seems: for what!
Within a week of sailing away, my mind cleared and I was freed to sleep almost normally. It was magical. A leaden sinker miraculously became buoyant and the trauma suffered with the RIB attack and its aftermath floated free and drifted away on the tide…
One of my biggest regrets is the ‘joy’ I put into my writing about Smallgains Creek and our club mooring: they feature throughout all my estuary books. I don’t read back through them and probably never will.
Will I write about Whimbrel’s forty years at the Island Yacht Club sometime, maybe … maybe from another base, maybe!
Having booked a permanent berth at The Blackwater Marina before departing the Thames, we visited, as we oft had over the years, for a stopover. In fact we came in several times during the summer – for the last two visits the manager refused to charge us as we were about to pay our berthing charge. She said, it was ours in any case!
Very kind…
On one visit with a flat calm, we motored past all the creek navigation buoys and marked them on the satnav whilst noting numbers/names. Later I inputted the details. Useful: however, they’re treated as a guide now for Whimbrel has found her liking for these waters…
It should be remembered that Lawling and Mayland Creek have been thoroughly explored by dinghy as well as on Whimbrel over many years and has been written about (Yachting Monthly and in my books).
During our time up on the Backwaters, Stour and Orwell, we popped into Suffolk Yacht Harbour to meet up with a cousin, a son of my mother’s brother, who had had a passion for sailing but never had a large boat. Retired, he has taken the plunge.
Their daughter, up on the boat’s deck, had sailed the Round Ireland Race recently and with her skipper won their class… The boat was sailed up to Inverness with a skipper aboard, then by family with friends down the Caledonian to the West Coast and down to Tarbert transiting the Crinan… My cousin is promising me a sail from Tarbert next year!
We had an interesting departure from Titchmarsh during August: Christobel had a ‘whoopsie’…
Briefly: The boat was all prepared for departure with sails ready to hoist – we were going to sail out.
As Whimbrel began going astern out of berth, Christobel stepped onto deck edge, late, forward of shrouds, slipped and ended up hanging down side of boat from the top rail wire!
I had to manoeuvre further astern to get the turn back in, whereupon a couple of helpers took her. She got wet, finally…
The episode and changing lasted ten minutes, and we sailed out cleanly at second attempt!
While berthed at Halfpenny Pier at Harwich, a large forty-foot boat struck Whimbrel’s port bow a glancing blow. A stanchion base was deformed. However, later when looking closely, the deck edge had been stressed too.
We wandered up into Colchester’s Hythe using the city authorities conveniently placed pontoon for a couple nights. It is a lovely spot if mud isn’t a problem to you. The creek bed provides a feeding ground for much intermixed bird life – waders competing with many types.
The Wivenhoe SC played hast to us a couple of times, once with a fellow Finesse 24, Windsong. It was after that visit we attended a small rally of our class at Brightlingsea…
The summer dawdled on, we took life easy in all respects for I was being very careful with my new knee!
There were days when we sat at a mooring or at anchor just allowing life to carry on around. There was much reading enjoyed by both…
The latter part of the summer was spent dawdling up to Maldon and around the Blackwater to West Mersea. It was blissful. Then, the summer had to end!
Moving into early autumn, we had an enjoyable balmy weekend away to see the Colne Barge and Smack matches – something I had never experienced, then a cousin and my youngest brother spent a cracking weekend aboard, taking in West Mersea and Brightlingsea with a wonderful romp home up the Blackwater.
When stowing our gear, with the two boys, I dropped our weekend egg supply! They fell into the fore cabin bilge which made interesting cleaning, clearing the ‘white’ especially from under the ribs!!
After the trip with the two boys, the dinghy was stowed on its trolley and ‘berthed’ in the marina storage area, where in time, much varnish work was stripped back and coats built up. The oars, rudder, and dagger board were serviced at home. Finally the inside was repainted … ready for the new season.
During the autumn we got out as the weather (and space) allowed, getting away under sail, and, on a sultry afternoon, I sailed back into the berth single handed too…
During the middle of the autumn, my latest book, ‘Sailing through life…’ finally came out.
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On our jaunts out on the boat and further walking exercises round the borders of Lawling and Mayland creeks, it became obvious that the area was a hotbed of overwintering birds. Many species of duck and of course the ubiquitous Brent goose!
Huge swirls of dunlin, knot and other waders (usually mixed up) have regularly been witnessed while sailing in the creek.
One thing was sure, I wasn’t missing out on the spectacles oft seen down off the end of Canvey Island. (A place I now rarely have the need to go…)
So, how do we feel in our new home?
Happy. At peace. No stress. No hassles. No bullying or the threats of. Manager remarked that she’d suffered workplace bullying and in its unlikely occurrence, to report immediately…
Yes, we miss the chaps we worked with on the work parties, but the rest of the rot, not one jot.
We’ve still to ‘test’ the yard hard for our spring bottom refit (antifouling), but the manager has assured us it should all be to our satisfaction.
We feel blessed with our lot.
Back in 2010 in the introduction to, ‘Mudlarking – Thames Estuary Cruising Yarns‘, published by Amberley, I wrote:
‘The pleasures of an arrival in a creek fringed with saline plants, with their heady scents of summer, are enough for this sailor and his mate. The sight of traditional craft, smacks, old wooden yachts, classics or otherwise, or the ubiquitous, evocative spritsail barge adds immensely to the aura: to fetch up with any of these, in the same anchorage, adds timelessness…‘
Well, we are now berthed within ‘that paradise’ – I should have moved us three years ago, we realise this now…
Finally, Whimbrel and her crew would like to wish all readers a very happy New Year and a peaceful coexistence with those around you.