Romance of old boats

Where does the romance of old boats spring from?

by Gavin Atkin

I reckon it is possible to learn and understand many of the principles of sailing from them. Indeed, like you, that was pretty much my experience - ie getting into a dinghy for the first time, aged about 25, I had a pretty clear idea of what I was meant to do, and what was meant to happen, without instruction.

I'm inclined to think, however, that learning to sail is actually a bit like learning to drive a car: you pass the test and then spend the rest of your life learning how to actually do it for real. In other words, it's a practical learning experience where you build up knowledge by practice in different types of boat and different conditions of weather and lake or sea. I guess it is a process where you never stop learning or feeling that there is room to improve. Although I've gone on to be an RYA Dinghy Instructor, I'm not convinced I've ever produced one of those ruler-straight wakes that the Amazons seemed to excel in... . So I've obviously still got an awful lot of practice to do. Unless, that is, there's a passage somewhere in AR I've missed!

It'll be interesting to hear whether anyone else has experience - practical or literary - that might shed more light on this.

I agree you learn by your mistakes, though an experienced instructor can make the learning curve easier.

Starting young as in S & A's is the best way, as with most sports maybe that accounts for straight wakes.

I think that the appreciation of the romance of Old Boats is a separate level of enjoyment from that of sailing.  Many Old Boat enthusiasts sail, but not many sailors are also Old Boat people.  Quite a few of us Old Boat People [see the photo of Swallow, the 1917 ketch I owned until recently] enjoy the building or restoration aspect of ownership as much as the sailing.  I always had plenty of things to do onboard on days when even the gulls were walking.  I was too old when I discovered AR at 40 to learn how to sail from him, but I easily believe that others could.  Knowing what he was writing about made the books more enjoyable for me.

David.

I reckon that is a really useful insight, David. It's one thing for those of us who read AR first to feel his sailing "instruction" was accurate enough to help us when we finally tried to do it in practice. It's another for someone who was already experienced to read AR and recognise that his descriptions work.

I suppose that if AR had been writing technical sailing manuals, rather than novels, this would be the equivalent to subjecting them to an expert "peer review". The fact that his descriptions "sailed" through David's experienced review (sorry about the pun) increases my confidence that people really can use them to learn the basics of sailing. 

Previously David Bamford wrote:

I was too old when I discovered AR at 40 to learn how to sail from him, but I easily believe that others could.  Knowing what he was writing about made the books more enjoyable for me.

David.

By the way, I meant to say "great photo" David.

I certainly learned to sail from reading the Swallows and Amazons series.

At the age of 13 I went on a school sailing trip to Chichester harbour having never sailed in my life but having read and re-read the books.

On the first session I was with one of the teachers (a very sadly missed Mr Brown, known as "Bouncer Brown" to all students) in a mirror dinghy that was being used as additional safety cover, no sails and an outboard.

After about an hour the Mr Brown said "lets get this sailing, pulled into shore, took the outboard off, rigged the sail, put me in and pushed me off.

Naturally I did what I thought was the easiest thing and ran with the wind while I got the feel of it. I then realised that I was a considerable way up Bosham channel and had to make my way back against wind and tide through moored yachts.

Well I am proud to say I made it back, tacking all the way, as I had learned from AR.

I have been sailing all my life ever since then, although I have to agree that you can spend the rest of your life learning to sail!

Peter

Previously Geraint Lewis wrote:

I reckon it is possible to learn and understand many of the principles of sailing from them. Indeed, like you, that was pretty much my experience - ie getting into a dinghy for the first time, aged about 25, I had a pretty clear idea of what I was meant to do, and what was meant to happen, without instruction.

I'm inclined to think, however, that learning to sail is actually a bit like learning to drive a car: you pass the test and then spend the rest of your life learning how to actually do it for real. In other words, it's a practical learning experience where you build up knowledge by practice in different types of boat and different conditions of weather and lake or sea. I guess it is a process where you never stop learning or feeling that there is room to improve. Although I've gone on to be an RYA Dinghy Instructor, I'm not convinced I've ever produced one of those ruler-straight wakes that the Amazons seemed to excel in... . So I've obviously still got an awful lot of practice to do. Unless, that is, there's a passage somewhere in AR I've missed!

It'll be interesting to hear whether anyone else has experience - practical or literary - that might shed more light on this.

 

Previously Geraint Lewis wrote:

 Although I've gone on to be an RYA Dinghy Instructor, I'm not convinced I've ever produced one of those ruler-straight wakes that the Amazons seemed to excel in... . So I've obviously still got an awful lot of practice to do. Unless, that is, there's a passage somewhere in AR I've missed!

I have never understrood Ransome's apparent obsession with a straight wake. When going to windward, unless the wind is remarkably consistent in direction a good helm will be constantly making adjustments to get the best performance out of the boat and sails and these will usually involve a greater or lesser change of direction.

Perhaps a downwind leg is more conducive to sailing in a straight line but again slight course adjustments may be required as conditions change or winds shift.

I acknowledge that a meaningless waggle caused by distracting the helm is not good but a ruler straight wake is not necessarily ideal either.

Maybe it is something to do with a cruising mentality. My brother who was a keen dinghy racer but wanted to get his Yachtmaster certificate to charter cruising boats went on a weekend course down in the Solent. One of the other participants was a champion dinghy racer too.

At the briefing for their first trip the instructor told them where they were going and about how long they would take to get there and they set off. The instructor was rather surprised to find that they arrived at their destination nearly an hour early. The next trip, the same thing happened and the instructor was getting rather confused until on their third trip, he noticed that my brother and the other dinghy racer were constantly adjusting the sheets and fiddling with the sails to get the best performance out of the boat and in the process had thrown all his calculations out! He gave them a good talking to, telling them they were there to learn to be cruisers and to be much more casual about boat speed and performance!

I agree - a straight wake seems unnecessary.

However, all good dinghy racers will learn that using the rudder too much slows you down (it's basically a brake), so you have to make much smaller/gentler adjustments to the helm to make the fastest course, or use other tricks to steer the boat.

Are there some references to counting waggles in the wake in other Ransome-related material? I seem to remember reading something like it, perhaps in factual accounts from AR or children he knew? I can't recall where now....