How Not To Do It by Richard Houghton

It was around September 1981 when I decided to do it.

I was the proud, 3 month long, owner of a Leisure 17 called Gaiety (a name which was the source of some considerable amusement for some of my friends) when I decided to undertake my first solo adventure from Leigh on Sea around the Maplin Sands and down the river Crouch to Burnham.

I hadn’t really got much experience other than a self taught part season on an old and leaky Wayfarer and then the three months ownership of Gaiety during which I had at least several times ventured up and down the Thames never quite losing site of the Southend pier.

But! I had seen a chart of the Thames and thought my grand passage to be feasible over a late summer weekend. I duly set off with a packet of digestive biscuits, a couple of bottles of water and a third of a bottle of Gin which sounds like a grown up Swallows and Amazons type of victualing. The Gin sounds a bit out of place but I was 25 years old and thus had legitimate ownership of the bottle. For some obscure reason I had also decided to tow the yacht tender which was half the size of the boat.

With dinghy in tow and a 4hp Seagull Silver Century to power me along I left at my first light which when I opened my eyes was around 9am. The weather was fair or perhaps more accurately described as a force 0 to 1 but with the engine phutting away I made good progress to Maplin Sands.

Then my grand plan went to rats and I made my first mistake. The tide turned and I started going backwards but rather than take the hint from him upstairs and return to safety I decided to anchor and wait the six hours for the tide to turn fair again.

About 6 hours later I was off again but by now it was roughly 10pm and time to turn the nav lights on which I would have done but for the fact that I didn’t have any. In fact my sole lighting consisted of a wick paraffin lamp and a two cell torch!

I wasn’t sure how far I had travelled because I didn’t have a log either nor did I have a depth sounder in fact the only instrument the boat or I possessed was a rather dubious ships compass which kind of sat on the cockpit floor mounted in plastercine.

However, I did have my brand new admiralty chart and I knew where I was because of the buoys and as night time fell I found the Spin Swatchway or Swatch Spinway or Lemons Hoof or whatever it was called and headed from buoy to buoy before entering the river Crouch.

It was the blackest of nights and anxiety and tiredness started taking its toll and part way along the Crouch (now against the tide) I ran straight into the mud bank burying the bow in the process and scaring myself silly. Having disengaged myself from the bank I carried on along the river will a football size chunk of mud wedged in the pulpit. All went well until a ship came up the river. The bugger was just behind me and I wasn’t sure which way he was turning. I headed left and he headed left, so I headed right and he headed right and all the while getting closer and closer. When he was only some 100 yards behind I floored the seagull and did a 90 degree turn and just hoped for the best breathing a sigh of relief as he slid past.

All bloody night I struggled up the port side of the river and I didn’t arrive at Bradwell until about 3pm the next day. I had as I said intended to go to Burnham, but Bradwell started with a B and would do for me.

By now I had been awake for some 30 hours and I was exhausted but I was also famished so I went to the local corner shop and with my two quid stocked up on essential supplies like more biscuits before phoning home to let everyone know I had arrived before going to sleep for four hours.

I left about 9pm and with the tide made good progress down the river but there still wasn’t any wind and although I again hoisted the sails they did little other than flap around and block my view.

There was very little traffic on the river that night but I was rather taken with the bullet shaped mooring pile that was on the other side of the river. I again reasoned that it was leaning over through age or a collision perhaps and thus forgot about it but a short while later I heard a rather loud F*****G HELL and I turned to see a sloop crossing my stern by about 10 yards and a bloke running along the side deck towards the bow. He didn’t have nav lights either but I reckoned him to be about 40ft so I am not sure that he qualified for the barely bigger than a dinghy excuse that I convinced myself applied to me.

The trusty dinghy was on a ten foot painter and at one point when I looked around I saw that it had got caught in the raised propeller of the outboard and although I didn’t realise it at that point it had broken the sheer pin.

Further down the river a buoy with a long pointed top mark appeared straight on the bow and although being carried by the tide at a fair rate of knots I successfully managed to cleverly steer around it only I had forgotten about the dinghy on the ten foot painter which had a different idea.

Sure enough the painter caught on the buoy and both yacht and dinghy came to a rapid halt and the hulls bumped. I stood terrified looking at the buoy while listening to the painter creak wondering what part was going to break and then slowly but surely the buoy leaned over and the painter gradually slid along the pointed top mark before releasing me to once again wreak havoc.

As the dead of night approached so did dense fog and although Gaiety was a mere 17ft long I couldn’t see the pulpit. In the distance I could hear the clang of the Spin Swatchway, Swatch Spinway or whatever buoy but I couldn’t see it but knowing the water wasn’t deep I decided to anchor and wait for morning.

I didn’t sleep a wink I just sat in the wet cockpit waiting for dawn and sure enough as dawn appeared I could make out the buoy. It was then that I tried to start the outboard which was easy enough only the busted sheer pin didn’t transfer the drive to the prop and no matter how much I revved the engine propeller sat there motionless.

In any event under sail we managed to get through the Swatchway (gap) and started making our way along Maplin sands but progress was painfully slow so much so that at one point I started towing the yacht with the tender and oars which was fine until the tide turned.

Eventually we anchored again to wait out the tide and on the turn we set off again. By this time a breeze had sprung up and although it was dark and I couldn’t see the bow we were moving in generally the right direction. My biggest fear was the Shoebury boom which according to the chart lay some where ahead jutted out for some considerable distance and I felt certain I would hit it before I saw it. It was then that I heard breaking water over to starboard so I turned to port and headed away from the noise. Together with the tide I guessed we were moving at about 5 knots. A very short while later we ran head on into a sand bank and stuck fast. In an effort to get off and although Gaiety was a bilge keeler I hung over the water holding onto the shrouds hoping to reduce the draft!

This sounds stupid now but by this time sheer terror, inexperience and lack of sleep had started to affect all of my judgements. I gave up and waited for half an hour when the tide floated us off, but the experience had shaken me, and when combined with the knowledge that I had very little clue where I was, plus the fog signals of the big ships going up and down the channel and the ominous Shoebury boom I decided to head gingerly inshore towards the relative safety of Maplin.

As I said I didn’t have a depth sounder but being the adventurer that I was I did have some fishing line which I tied to a spanner and dropped over the side as a crude lead line. When I had gauged the water to be shallow enough I anchored again and lit the paraffin lamp hoping that any fishing boats would see it.

All was well for a few hours but when the tide ebbed and the ships went by the boat started to pound heavily on Maplin Sands. To this day I have no idea how the keels stood the pressure and should the worst have happened I knew that my only flare which was a WW2 smoke flare probably wouldn’t have been a great help in dense fog. A life jacket may of helped but I didn’t have one of those either however I did have the trusty tender and a pair of oars.

When dawn broke I could see a channel marker and I upped anchor and towed the yacht with the tender towards it and joyfully discovered my position. I was still due East of Shoebury boom but felt confident that I would see it in the daylight and now reducing fog.

I then pulled the engine onboard to see if I could fix the sheer pin and although I didn’t have a spare I did find a shackle which I managed to flatten off by hammering it with a spanner until it fitted.

Gingerly I started the outboard and much to my astonishment it afforded me intermittent drive and I started making real progress towards home.

Unbeknown to me my wife eventually realising that I was two days over due had phoned a family friend who worked on the Police launch to ask if she should be concerned. His response was along the lines of ‘Naaa he’ll be fine’ and that was that.

However conscience had got the better of him and he had decided to have a look for me himself. Sure enough after about two hours of struggling with the poorly Seagull the Essex Police launch emerged from the mist and towed me back to Two Tree Island.

Having been returned safely back to land I decided that there was a bit more to this sailing lark and I knew that for all of my stupidity I had indeed been incredibly lucky.

It was then that I started to learn properly and, if this year's AZAB is anything to go by, I still am!

Richard Houghton