The United Kingdoms - 18th to 26th May 2012 of Ludo’s Amazing Adventure - by Jeremy
The drive from Oxford to Anglesey is long enough to hear four consecutive hourly weather forecasts. Sunglasses on as we left on Friday morning, wipers thrashing as we arrived. So, no surprise that a weekend skimming across the azure seas never quite materialized - instead some serious poring over maps and downloaded weather and navigation apps, counting layers of thermal clothing and trial squeezing into dry suits, kit checks, boat checks, snack checks, check checks. Ludo is grumpy – nothing worse than old people fussing around is there? So let’s check out the pub…
Memories of A Wet Weekend in Wales… tough hours fund raising in that splendid and friendliest of pubs, Y Morfa (a duty which Ludo manfully embraces), with particularly arduous sequences of toasts to Ludo’s Amazing Adventure amongst the whole Rhosneigr community gathered to celebrate the weather (see the blog for photographic evidence)…. 50p coins piled up on the edge of the pool table to fund one ferocious bout after another….a bewildering number of Bennett-Jones gathered round a kitchen table, with assorted hangers-on, to participate whole-heartedly (Owen leading the way) in a succession of highly satisfactory and nutritious fuelling sessions (thanks Ali), and slightly less satisfactory planning sessions (where are the Land Rover keys? Has anyone rung the harbourmaster in Kirkwillie – or is it Kinlochwallie? Surely the tide must be OK if we leave just a bit later than 4am?) . Peter’s dexterous wielding of corkscrew and bottle-opener making sure goodwill and good spirits prevailed – what an impressive combination of generosity, humour, and stamina! The good people of Rhosneigr and in particular the extended BJ family – we who are about to sail salute you! Your support and generosity completely distracted me from what was to come…
20th May - Ellan Vannin here we come - Monday morning – well Sunday night really, for normal people – alarm goes off at 3.30 am…. I am in a muck sweat by 3.45 trying to pull my head through the top of the rubber drysuit and practicing closure of the hip to shoulder industrial zip over 3 pairs of socks, tracksuit bottoms and 7 layers of thermal vests. Remember I ought to visit the facilities again and go into complete panic at the thought of needing to do so again later in the day. Don’t eat don’t drink don’t think about it just hope. Decide to leave a layer behind – mistake. 4.45 am and we are squeezing past the barrier into Holyhead marina, and waddling along the jetty as gracefully as a pair of early deep sea divers, looking for the smallest boat in the harbor. Boat preparation – imagine standing on one end of a large tea tray on the surface of the water, with someone standing at the other end of it, each contorting himself to fiddle with ropes, fix the boom to the mast, run the sheets through the blocks (Ludo will explain), stow the kit etc etc.. By 5.15 an impressive gathering of Bennett Jones generations making up a, for the time of day, bizarrely cheerful shore party, is whooping and waving as we head straight towards the rim of the sun that is creeping up over the eastern horizon.
Then it is left turn beyond the harbour wall and out of its shelter; sheet in as the sails catch the wind, the tide is with us and we lean out to starboard as the dinghy heels to the easterly breeze, and the first salty dowsing of the day as Ludo decides to bury the bow in a nice little wavelet. Now I am awake, and the man at the tiller flashes his first grin of the day. Steer north across Holyhead Bay, in the lee of the northern hump of Anglesey, with the breeze and the sun getting up behind us – welcome to the open sea. We shift our positions to find the right balance as the little boat starts to ride the waves. The Isle of Man, more romantically Ellan Vannin in its own Manx, is 50 miles due north, more or less; the sun is up but providing more light than warmth, feet in the straps, jib sheet tight, and my bum is out over the water. Ludo is smiling….
About 5 or 6 miles north of Holyhead stands a lighthouse on a precarious perch provided by a jenga jumble of rocks called The Skerries. They mark the departure from the shallower waters of Holyhead Bay and the lee of Anglesey, into the deeper open waters of the Irish Sea proper. If you look on the chart they are surrounded by lots of squiggles interpreted in the Admiralty Chart symbol guide as “overfalls, rips, and tide races”, and more specifically references to “dangerous wrecks” and “uncovered rocks”. As you approach, respectfully clear of the rocks, you can actually see ahead the dark line on the water across your path, and the kicked up spray and the white water the other side. Just another transition, for Ludo on his epic voyage, but for me, the first time I experienced in a small boat the weird sense of a looming, physical unknown getting closer and closer, anticipated and visible in its approximate nature but unknowable in its detailed proportion and effect. Anyway, basically the waves suddenly get a lot bigger, the boat jumps up and down like a lump of ice in a cocktail shaker, and you all get very wet. It is at this point that Ludo chooses to embark on the full, technical RYA approved version of the crew briefing (deadpan) – “ just make sure you stay in position to break the waves before they hit me”. Fair enough…
So we survive the Skerries and the wind picks up as we leave the lee of the island and remind each other to keep a sharp eye out as we are about to enter the shipping lanes – imagine a lumbering cargo in a rush to make the most of the tide out of the Mersey at the beginning of a long voyage, and a 16 foot coracle containing two loonies bobbing across its path… Well let’s just say we decide not to put it to the test. Back there, out to starboard behind us, the sun is up over the horizon now, over Liverpool Bay, over its docks and city, and, it occurs randomly to me, over that graveyard of Bennett-Jones dreams, Anfield… I decide not to mention this cruel thought to the skipper.
Now we are sailing. Out into the Irish Sea, open sea but surrounded under each horizon by the Kingdoms of the UK. England is behind our backs to the East; as we look ahead, over our right shoulders, the bow is pointing north towards the Isle of Man and Scotland beyond; to our left, Wales has disappeared in our wake to the south; sitting on the starboard side, perched two feet apart with me in front and Ludo steering to my left, we are facing out to port, west towards Ireland, into an open ocean, shuffling our positions to keep the boat balanced as waves rise and fall beneath us. Four kingdoms, united as they are separated by the same sea, and right in the middle the Isle of Man, whose citizens are British but which is not part either of the United Kingdom nor the European Community. What a country.
The bow of the Wayfarer shoulders into each heave of the sea, and gusts of wind occasionally threaten to push us over unless we lean back into the water behind us and slip the sheets at the same time. Boots are now firmly hooked under the straps to hold us in and counterbalance body weight hiked out over the water. I am doing my job – I know this for two reasons, firstly because I am very wet, and secondly because Ludo’s smile is now broad. The rhythm develops: the nudge of the tiller as the bow lifts, the twitch on the sheets to power up as we get ahead of the wind, the smack onto the surface as we fall over the wave, the scramble to get bodyweight back over the gunwale as the gurgling surge dies away. No need to talk, apart from occasional yelps of warning as a big set of waves looms, or an elated whoop when we feel the whole boat lift up onto a foaming crest and we experience a few moments of surfing acceleration. The job in hand is fully preoccupying, the movement constant and increasingly instinctive. This is what sailing in small boats is all about – every shift of wind or water demands instantaneous and coordinated responses from both of you, full concentration, until after a while you start to anticipate them. Now we are sailing. We are away from the hassles and stress of land life, of work worries and diaries and too much choice and guilt about yesterday and fear about tomorrow, and all we have to do is get safely to land before dark. Time for some chocolate. Now we are both smiling.
The formula for calculating the distance to the horizon (d, in miles, where h is the height of the observer above sea level in feet) is 𝑑≈1.22,-ℎ.. This means that if your eye level is 6 feet above sea level, say standing on a beach, and assuming no refraction caused by temperature gradients (that’s why it is ≈ and not =), and that you are either under 48 years old or have the right spectacles on, your visible horizon out to sea would be about 3 miles away. Useful, Eh? Now of course if you are standing on a hill, or looking at a lighthouse out at sea, then you will obviously be able to see further. Sitting on a small boat your eye level is by definition close to sea level, so the key variable is the height of the observed object. The top of a significant inland mountain will be visible from the sea a long time before the actual coast line. If a coastline is low lying, it recedes surprisingly quickly if you are sailing away from it at around 5 knots. All of which is a long way of saying that on a 50 mile crossing, like the one between Anglesey and the Isle of Man, you can expect to see nothing but sea for a good few hours.
And we do. This is interesting in a small boat – is that the right word? Looking at an empty horizon in all directions might seem a curiously oxymoronic combination of dangerous and boring – there is a Clive Jamesian simile lurking here but it escapes me – like having a Japanese blowfish dinner, where a random bite of bland but wrongly prepared food could kill you, lasting several courses, with only All You Ever Wanted to Know about Accountancy for company? Well, as Bill Clinton might have said, it depends on what you mean by… The truth, naturally, is that it can be dangerous but usually isn’t, and that it can be boring but usually isn’t, and hopefully there is enough time when it is neither to get you out of bed again the next day. Of course there is another perspective, that there is a relationship between the two states, of being frightened by danger and being bored, which is somehow inversely proportionate. If it is not a bit scary, it’s not fun. One particularly satisfying aspect of all this is that since very few other people have done it, most people’s imaginations are more effective at impressing them about your bravery and heroism than your stories will ever be. Only the most cynical listener amongst the swooning audience takes the returning hero at his word when he modestly insists “it was nothing”, carefully avoiding a detailed account of his actual or imagined feats. Thus the Flashman technique, when asked how may times the boat nearly sank or you ever feared for your life as a giant wave loomed, might be to respond with a lop-sided grin and “well let’s just say it beats watching daytime TV”. On the other hand, it is difficult to describe how quickly things can change at sea, how cold hunger and tiredness slow your reactions, and turn untying a knot, or gathering in an armful of furiously flapping sail, into Herculean tasks, especially while keeping balance on the heaving tea tray which is a Wayfarer in a choppy sea (and that’s before you throw in some of the freaky combinations of tide and wind which the British coast offers in its ceaseless efforts to keep your boredom at bay). Ludo, of course, has seen all this and more by now, and has a lot more to come.
After slipping from the jetty at Holyhead around 5 am the first few hours brought almost perfect conditions – we covered 27 miles in 3 hours, and it was certainly not boring. From then on the wind gradually wore off and the second half of the crossing took three times as long, so it was close to 6 pm before we were dragging the boat up the slipway at Port St Mary, ably assisted by Ludo’s fellow refugee from Southampton Uni, Chris Hill, a local lad whose family are leading lights in the Manx sailing community, and had very sportingly agreed to put us up for the night. A beautiful evening on the southern tip of the Island, clothes hung on the line, a shower a cold beer and a day’s worth of food in one meal – thank you Hills for warm hospitality and very comfortable beds. A look at the charts and tide tables, alarm set for 4 am, a call home and then it’s sleepy time…
21st May the Emerald Isle awaits – Chris sportingly drives us to the water while the rest of the Manx population snores sensibly on – but they don’t know what they are missing, a gorgeous sunrise and a light breeze as we slip round Port St Mary’s protecting seawall, waving to the loyal Chris standing on the end with his camera. Turn right and through the little passage between the cliffs and the Calf of Man lying off the southern tip of the main island, negotiating the narrows across a patch of sea confused and whirling, tugging the little boat endlessly in different directions as the tidal eddies shift continuously. Luckily conditions are calm so the effect is curious rather than scary. We set a course a bit north of east and wait for the wind to pick up… gradually, oh so gradually, Ellan Vannin recedes behind us, the sails flap, the sun climbs behind the stern of the boat, and we wait for the wind to pick up… well you can guess the rest. Apart from sighting a basking shark and numerous seabirds this was not the most eventful day – beats watching daytime TV though… suncream on, layers stripped off, and time to explore the boat’s sunbathing area.
Ludo is about 6 foot 2, I would guess, about the same as me. The Wayfarer’s total dimensions are, measured in Ludos, about 2½ by 1. The bit you can actually sit in, behind the mast and in front of the stern locker, between the gunwales on each side and bisected lengthways by the centerboard housing down the middle and sideways by the thwart for sitting on, is about 1 ½ by ½ Ludos. So given that I am about the same proportions as the skipper, you can get a rough idea about the scope for privacy, or even stretching out. Fortunately the logistics of weight distribution on a dinghy under sail mean that the two crew are normally either seated side by side, using their weight to counteract that of the wind in the sails, or when the wind is blowing from behind or not at all, seated one behind the other facing forwards. In other words, you don’t have to look at each other much, and that’s as far as the privacy goes. As for stretching out, well exceptionally, in a flat sea, one of you can steer sitting at the back on one side, while the other sort of collapses on his back on the bottom of the boat on the other towards the front, although your shoulders won’t quite fit between the centre board and the gunwale so your arms are in the air, your neck is cricked up at one end next to the mast so your head is in the air, and your knees are bent up at the other over the thwart so your feet are in the air. Think upturned giant turtle in a rubber suit jammed into a pudding bowl. There is photographic evidence that sleep is possible in this position, and after getting up at 4am its temptations are hard to resist, but the risk is you nearly turn the boat over as you heave yourself back up, and you feel like the hunchback of Notre Dame for the rest of the day. Most of the time you are both looking out at the sea, the wide sea. So, on this exceptionally flat day, we pull our hats down over our sunglasses to keep out the glare, we take in the expanse around us, we take it in turns to steer while the other one tries to catch up on some sleep, and we creep across the glassy surface of an empty Irish Sea.
As we approach the Irish coast we think about cracking, well flapping, on, north towards Bangor, our planned jumping off point for Scotland the next day. After some squinting at the navigation map on the Iphone and confusing conversations with the trusty shore support team who have spent the previous night refreshing themselves in Dublin (don’t ask) having crossed over on the ferry the day before, we decide to head up the coast to the lovely port of Donaghadee, a name like a one word poem, perched on the shoulder of Ulster on the southern side of the entrance to Belfast Bay. We were lucky with the tides but eventually, after a 14 hour day on the boat we had to walk in through the shallows for the last few hundred yards, before climbing on to the sea front and stripping down to shorts and T shirts – lovely! A beautiful sunny evening, a hard earned beer and a fine introduction to Irish warmth and hospitality. If you ever find yourself around there on a summer’s evening you could do a lot worse than wander the seafront at Donaghadee then grab a drink and a bite at the Pier 31.
As ever, friendly locals are on hand, spontaneously, to help with the boat and our logistics, and again we see evidence of the individual generosity which has characterized so many people’s reactions to Ludo’s adventure. Everywhere the boat goes people are first curious – so you are sailing round Britain in a plastic bathtub to raise money for charity – then offer to help with local advice, accommodation, and always reach into their wallets to make a donation. It is a veritable tonic to be out of reach of the latest revelations about new ghastlinesses of human behavior, and the depths of the messes and muddles it has brought on the world. Instead we see friendly faces and open-handed generosity everywhere we go. Thank you Ludo for offering me this opportunity to share a little bit of your Amazing Adventure, and good on you for taking on such a mighty challenge…
22nd May - Scotland calling – complicated tides mean an early start again, so up at 3.45 for our third crossing of the Irish Sea in as many days – and what a cracker it is. No problem with the breeze today, a fresh 3-4 over the starboard quarter as we steer due North towards the Firth of Clyde, continuous sun and the spinnaker hoisted all day – 12 hours on the same tack, a lively but never alarming sea, and that finest of continuous views over the stern – a straight and boiling wake that means you are making steady progress towards your destination. We dodge the ferries and soon are again out of sight of land, taking it in turns to helm. I get some necessary practice in the delicate art of keeping the kite well filled and pulling us efficiently onwards as our speed surges in the following sea. The exhilarating ride goes on and on as the sun climbs higher, and the hourly nav checks show our steady progress. The rocky lump of Ailsa Craig, guarding the mouth of the Clyde is high enough to provide an early landmark, then the southern extremity of the Isle of Arran on our right, then it is past little Sanda and round the corner at the bottom of Kintyre, before tucking in to the left behind Davaar Island and into the loch that leads to the port of Campbelltown. The wind drops as we nudge into the marina, squinting into the late afternoon sun. We finally jump ashore on Scottish soil, to be welcomed by a single paparazzo, representing that eminent organ, the Campbelltown Courier. I worry that all this attention from the world’s press will go to Ludo’s head – but he poses modestly and supplies a few choice quotes along the lines of “it beats watching daytime TV…”. The boy is learning fast.
It is a beautiful evening and we celebrate our fourth Kingdom in 4 days with a pint of heavy as we let it all sink in – Ludo is about a quarter of the way round his Amazing Adventure now, he has steered his coracle through cold and stormy seas through the Channel round the Lizard all the way past Wales across the Irish Sea and back. He has arrived in Scotland and the sun is shining and the beautiful highlands and islands of the west coast stretch ahead. Excellent. Best of all, perhaps, he doesn’t yet know what the rest of this Great British Summer holds in store for him… haha.
As for me, it’s back to London on the morrow for 24 hours before returning in hope of more sunny, breezy days on that little boat amongst those isles and inlets stretching up to the feared Cape Wrath…
To be continued…
Jeremy