Mudeford Water...just outside Christchurch, Dorset. A haven for small boats and fishermen. The larger boats tend to inhabit Poole to the west and the Isle of White to the east; the centre of British Yachting.
On a fair day, from the air, the small boats on the water look like feeding gulls except they leave a momentary trail in the salt water in their passing.
A special day! With me hanging on to the painter Jason, pipe in mouth of course and one plimsoll sans laces, floated her off the dolly into the water.
She bobbed there. Hull, mast and boom gleaming in the bright sunlight. Mains'l neatly furled. We'd used some light stuff. Jason did that not I! The jib, neatly folded in the bow as we didn't have a bag that suited the dinghy's new suit of clothes. "She roids in the water roight noicely"said Jason punctuated by odd puffs of smoke from his pipe. "Once we 'ave our weight in 'er she'll settle on 'er lines." I nodded sagely. I didn't have a clue what he was talking about. She was floating and she was mine....that's all I knew......at the time.
She looked happy.If she could smile she would have. It's almost as though she was asking why it had taken so long to get her back in the water. Eager.
"Well get in." says Jason. "Get your weight on 'er centre line and sit yourself down on the forward thwart." Whaaaa. Centre line? Forward thwart? This boat has her own language. I knew I wasn't going to be driving so, by elimination, I concluded that a thwart is a seat and there were only two. I got in and sat down. Not much room. Jason stepped over the gunnel and sat down.
He just sat there for a while not saying a word, tiny puffs of blue smoke coming from his pipe as he breathed. He looked about our little world. "You'm did a roight, noice job on 'er. All Bristol loike."
He picked up one of my bright, shiny, clean oars upon which I'd vested hours of work and actually put it in the water. He poled us off until we were in a few feet of water.
"Grab the jib sheets and bend them onto the clew of that thar little jibs'l" he says. I looked at him questioningly. "Hmmm" he says. Another puff of smoke. "Watch me. When you don't understand.....ask! Stupid not to ask."
He was a good teacher. As he worked he named each item, each part. He recited its function and how each was a part of the whole. There I was, sitting in a small boat, listening to an old man who, only a few short weeks before, had been a complete stranger to me. Listening to him opening a world to me that I'd rarely thought of until, on a whim, I'd parted with my fiver and bought a small boat. Watching his gnarled old hands, burnt black by the sun, calloused by years of manual labour, deftly tie knots with a skill I have not matched to this day fifty years later. Always punctuated by little puffs of smoke. What did he do at night?
I remember him looking at me over his pipe and saying "if you'm only larn one knot larn the bowline. You'll need her if you take to the sailing. Learn to tie 'er upside down, blindfold and soaking wet. You'll need 'er. She can save your life."
He was patient. Never critical. If I got it wrong he would simply grunt and show me again.
Soon we had the sails up and I do mean "we." My bowline on my clew. My hanks on my forestay. Cunningham off. Outhaul tight. There we were head to wind, sails gently luffing.
Jason pushed the tiller over and fell off the wind slightly. The boat actually started to move!! Miracle of miracles. "Haul in on that thar jibsheet until the jib is full and bye." I actually knew what he meant.
The dinghy accelerated.....as much as an old wooden dinghy can accelerate. The sound of the tiny waves lapping against the hull as she moved through the water was payment enough for the hours of labour.
As we moved away from the shore the light breeze filled in slightly and the lapping of the waves turned into a hiss and the dinghy developed a slight heel. The joy of sailing! Drops of water sparkling in the sun. Saltwater wake astern of us. Eddies around the rudder. Slight weather helm. Quiet. Gulls wheeling high above. Wind in the air. The boat talking her own language.
Jason sat there. Tiller in one hand mainsheet in the other his pipe doing it's best to lay a smokescreen astern of us. He crossed his legs and, leaning against the transom, spoke of sailing.
"Sailing a boat is a feeling." he said. "She'll talk to you if you've larned to listen. Feel the wind on your cheek. Feel it shift. Larn how your boat reacts to adjustments." I didn't realize then just how many adjustments there are on a well fitted sail boat. "Larn in a dinghy!" He was adamant about this. "The dinghy tells you immediately what's up. You sail with all four cheeks sensitive to what is going on. The cheeks on your face tell you what the wind is doing. The cheeks on your arse tell you what the boat is doing." "Get it wrong and are insistent she'll get mad and dump you in the water. Get it right and she'll sing to you down the waves of the ages. If you can sail a dinghy you can sail anything!"
He was so right. Fifty years later I still pass on the advice of this old man.
We sailed together through that summer. I think he looked forward to it as much as I. He spoke of the intricacies of trimming a boat large or small. He talked of the weather and how to observe. He talked of trust and trusting your boat providing she was well found. He talked of tides and the effect of the moon. He talked of currents...the danger of wind against wave. He talked of open water, the danger of a lea shore, the thrill of a big boat, rail down, charging through the water.
In retrospect he was talking about life, analogous to our needs and the needs of a successful relationship. He walked the talk!
We talked of many things but never of himself or his family and rarely of his experience.
Except once........but that's another tale!
The photo by the way is the dinghy complete with me in my youth. Taken in 1960. Regrettably I have no photo of Jason. He would have been a good subject.
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