Queen’s Diamond Jubilee.
There’s to be a river pageant on the Thames
today, it’s a bank holiday weekend, and there’s little news. So, despite the
continuous rain, the Jubilee obsessed BBC is showing continuous coverage of
damp people preparing for the event. A wave of nostalgia washes over me, there’s
a flotilla of sailing boats, and some of them have been based at St Catherine’s
Dock next to Tower
Bridge .
Some years ago (1990?) I was invited
by Ian Wollen to be part of a crew to take a sailing Brixham Trawler “Regard”
from St Catherine’s Dock to the Isle of Wight
to take part in a Cowes Classic rally. Regard was built in 1933, originally
named “Our Boy” and changed to “Regard” in 1954. Wooden boats have a ‘character’
all of their own, some love it, and some put up with it. There’s a history of
her on this page, but as the boat is sold I don’t expect the link will last for
ever.
Regard had been kept in dock
for several years, and was suffering from a lack of maintenance and a surfeit of
decay and dirt. It was arranged to take her out onto the river (Thames ) for a shakedown trip before venturing out to sea.
I really don’t remember much about it apart from getting very dirty, as
everything we touched was covered in grime. Wood swells when it gets wet and
this is what makes wooden boats waterproof. If the wood dries out, it shrinks
and gaps appear between the planks. Gaps had appeared in the deck and all that
part of the hull that is above the static waterline whilst just floating in the
calm waters of the dock.
The original design had not given a lot of thought to an engine, the consequence of which was that the
propeller was to one side of the substantial rudder. This meant that turning to
port was inevitable and rapid, whereas turning to starboard was recalcitrant
and slow. This made the tight manoeuvring required in St Catherine’s quite
interesting, and I was only watching. Once out on the river, we motored down river
towards the sea.
As soon as Regard started to
move on the water, and roll in the wake of other boats, the water started to
come in. Lots of it. We had to clear everything away from the hull sides and
man the pumps. It wasn’t threatening but it was wet. We also found that the
deck leaked. In heavy rain lying in your bunk getting dripped on is not fun. I
remember Ian remarking about: “That’s the reason we have fibreglass boats”, and
some die-hard traditionalist crew members muttered about his suitability as
Captain if he didn’t appreciate the ‘Character’ of the boat. The other members
of the crew were two guys with a vast amount of experience, tales and fun, and
one twat who actually knew everything; but nearly ran us onto the well marked
submarine defences off Southsea.
On the trip around Kent we found a Thames
sailing Barge with an Aga for cooking and real ale on tap. We also found that
old engines in boats can give up at any time. I earned my keep by making water
pump gaskets out of brown paper with a ball pein hammer. It was a great trip
for me, and I got treated to a most spectacular thunderstorm at night over a
dead calm sea. It was my first sailing passage, as prior to that I had only
done day trips. Thank you Ian for the experience.