Dave Selby
Anyone can find themselves out of their depth
Sailors have long had a troubled relationship with water – ever since biblical times when Noah failed his Day Skipper practical on tidal heights and got extremely neaped on top of Mt Ararat, only to be abandoned there by the rest of the crew. Frankly, they behaved like animals, which is not that unusual on a flotilla holiday.
And as for Moses, the so-called miracle of parting the Red Sea did earn him a pass as it demonstrated a better understanding of tidal calculations, but suspicions remains to this day about whether the work was really his own.
Remember, he’d just come down off Mt Zion where a very tall and imposing figure with a booming voice and luxuriant white hair and matching face furniture much like Father Christmas gave him some kind of tip-off. I don’t know exactly what Tom Cunliffe was doing up there, but whatever it was it took Moses ages to tap it on to his tablet. What really puzzles me about that is why when they already had tablets were later versions printed on reeds?
In the event Reed’s Almanac, which today is printed on paper, only encouraged more sailing on water, mostly with calamitous and embarrassing outcomes. Take Columbus, whose ‘discovery’ of America involved confusing Cuba with India. I made a similar mistake once when I made landfall in The Hamble and thought I’d found Monte Carlo. It wasn’t just the mooring fees, nor the traditional costume of 1980s Howard’s Way haute-couture. What threw me was the strange dialect, which was nothing like the Queen’s proper Essex English. When I said “’ow much? You’re ‘avin’ a larf, mate!,” they just shrugged their shoulders and went “pfff” and “phoo” with arms outstretched and palms splayed upwards. Call it intuition, but that gave me an idea and when I tried “Çòmbîén? Vôùs êtès fóùs, mátè!” one of them stepped forward and said: “Aah indubitably, I think we have a visiting yachtsman here. As deputy vice rear second sea lord of the Royal Asterisk Yacht Club founded ages ago in the olden days it behoves me to extend to you a most cordial welcome. I’ll have a page sign you in forthwith. Of course we’ll need to see your vaccination certificates – just a formality, you understand – but once you’ve quarantined for 14 days and we’re satisfied you’re not contagious we very much hope you will avail yourself of our facilities and buy us all a drink at the veranda bar – it’s members only inside, as I’m sure you appreciate, but we do have an umbrella at your disposal should it come on to precipitate.”
Water is the problem
My point is that none of this could have happened without water, which is why Jesus tried to turn it into wine, and that in turn led to the establishment of Royal Asterisk Yacht Clubs all over the place as a means of drowning your sorrows in preference to just drowning.
Indeed, thanks to science and experiments by PBO readers there’s a growing body of evidence to suggest that water is the main contributing factor in 99.98% of incidents of boats sinking. In fact it’s probably even higher than that because the other 0.02% are Old Testament Gaffers who still insist with biblical zeal that a boat full of water is not sinking, but ‘taking up’. The story of Jonah is just one of countless examples, and I’m sure there’s another one.
Water for sailing on is variously categorised as short, steep, shallow, confused and mountainous, but it can also be hard. Hard water is terrible for washing machines and was even worse for the Titanic.
As with the vacuum cleaner it was British ingenuity that provided the solution to water in 1655 when it was outlawed altogether. Until then navy sailors had received a daily ration of one gallon of weak beer, but as it was diluted with water it was highly offensive as well as unhealthy.
In 1655 matters improved when the daily ration of watery beer was replaced by half a pint of rum of spectacular 95.5 proof (54.6% ABV). That’s an actual true fact, and though many sailors found it solved everything, it’s a wonder that the Royal Navy ever left dock, let alone once ruled the seas.
An explanation of sorts was provided centuries later by solo circumnavigator Sir Francis Chichester, who countered aspersions about his aversion to having water on board by saying: “Any damn fool can navigate the world sober. It takes a really good sailor to do it drunk.” And that’s another true fact.
‘Old Testament Gaffers insist a boat full of water is not sinking but “taking up”’