I’ve often wondered why people give names to inanimate objects, why they feel the need to christen cold steel, personalise plastic or anthropomorphise auxiliaries. Perhaps it’s superstition – a belief…
Dick Durham
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The master mariner’s tale: Why experience trumps preparation
Some years ago, I arrived at a chilly sports centre in the Midlands to give a talk to some yachtsfolk keen enough to turn up on a winter’s night. One…
‘Much to my horror I found the floorboards afloat… my boat was slowly sinking!’
Darkness still reigned when I warped Betty II, my 25ft gaff cutter, out of her mud-berth at Canvey Island, in the Thames Estuary. Once out in the deep water of…
‘An orange glow lit up the horizon: an oil tanker had been torpedoed’ – Dick Durham
Inside an old jewellery box sits a yellowing fang set in a gold mount. It is the triangular molar wrenched from a shark jaw trolled for somewhere in the South…
‘She went like a bronco, throwing her bow to the western sky’ – Dick Durham
There’s nothing like planning, and of course, it had all been planned a year in advance. Application forms filled in, a berth allocated, pilot book purchased. Documents of competence, proof…
Cape Horners reflect on their epic adventures at their annual dinner
There is not a sailor in the world who does not recognise the craggy, conical peak of Cape Horn. It is, like it or not, the ultimate sailing goal, the…
Sailing though the British winter with the Little Ship Club
And then there was light, most welcome it was, too after a gruelling drive via several motorways into the pitch black New Forest. I drove on, motivated by the thought…
Is Britain really a maritime nation?
Many years ago, I was on a family motoring holiday driving towards Brittany when, in a small town, we passed under a banner proclaiming a regatta. I was baffled: we…
How to lay your own mooring
Over the years I have had deep water moorings laid for me and also dug in my own half-tide moorings. Both have been in positions which suited the craft I…
In search of the famed ship Beagle, which carried Charles Darwin to his discoveries
For several years I kept my Contessa 32, Minstrel Boy, at Paglesham on the River Roach in Essex and was a member of the Roach Cruising Association (RCA), one of…