Page updated 8 July 2004
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| Is Greg doing his fair share? |
I was raised in darkest Surrey and have fond memories of boats from early childhood. A favourite summer Sunday trip would be to go punting on the Wey. Even more exciting would be taking a longer car journey to Henley and take a punt from there. Few photographs of me remain from those days, because I tended to be behind the camera not in front of it. The one here, showing Michael, my younger brother (by 18 months), paddling frenziedly has a note in the family album, written in my schoolboy hand, saying "I don't like this one it gives the wrong impression!"
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| The first Chapman holiday cruise, made in 1963 |
Big sister Gilian had trouble getting Michael to smile! |
Finally, in 1963, the whole Chapman family, which including my brother and sister, Gilian, and family dog, Toby, took a holiday on a "proper" canal, the Llangollen. Starting from a boatyard below Bunbury Locks, in a 24' plywood built cruiser, called Margaret, we made our way to Llangollen and back. It was powered, I recall, by a single cylinder 4hp Stuart Turner diesel. The Pontcysyllte was also memorable, with its handrail with missing supports and towpath needing wooden planks to covering holes in its surface.
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| The last of the party enters the lock |
Facilities then were nothing like a modern hire boat, let alone an Ownership's craft. It was a scorching week and a lack of refrigerator meant packs of butter became liquid in a morning, and milk curdled still quicker. Meals for five were always going to be a trial on board as they were only two burners and a grill on which to cook, and back then canal-side pubs were not the kind of place to which my parents were prepared to take their children. For Mum the holiday was a nightmare, but I was hooked on this kind of boating!
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| A 1968 Wey trip. This time in punts! |
1963 was also the year the family moved further south to Crawley, in Sussex. So most boating that was done was once again limited to punts and skiffs hired from Farncombe Boat House or the boatyard in Guildford. In those days they did not offer narrowboats for hire.
By now, of course, parents were left behind and the trips were made with friends from work. My brother, Mike, would usually come as well. Indeed it is his colleagues from work who are rowing into the Unstead Lock in these typical late 1960's outings. Mike is seen again, on another trip, this time in punts, opening the lower gates.
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| Siesta I in the early morning mist. |
1965 took the family to the Broads on what was to be the last holiday which the family took together. Siesta I came from Richardson's yard at Stalham and is seen here as the mist clears from South Walsham Outer Broad on the morning of 7 September.
In 1966 Mike and I learnt to sail. It was a fortnight's residential course, organised by Sussex's Youth Service near Bosham. Camping out on a beached Thames Sailing Barge in Chichester Harbour, the course used Enterprise and 420 dinghies. A week after that it was back to the Broads. Buzzard had been booked from Loynes Boatyard at Wroxham. It was then the oldest sailing yacht in the Blakes fleet. However, it was unusual for a Broads yacht of the time as its cooker was mounted in the cabin rather than in a locker in the cockpit. Two school friends, Brain Carter and Tony Anders came too. They are many more tales to tell about that trip, but no camera was taken!
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| Spindrift - pictured in 2002. |
In 1967 there was a week spent on Spindrift I, a new yacht then operated from Eastwood Welpton's yard at Upton Dyke. There were two of them built. They are still to be seen around the Broads today, awkward boats that were pigs to sail. Built of wood, they remind you of a 1950's motor cruiser with a full width cabin, no side decks and a small Bermudan sloop rig. With their huge freeboard they sailed sideways rather than forward most of the time. Best forgotten! (The picture here was taken in 2002 and was sent to me by Craig Slawson.)
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| Tony Herbert beside his boat as it settles on the falling tide. |
Around this time, friend, Tony Herbert, bought a small yacht of his own. It was kept on a berth up Bosham Channel with only five hours of water each tide. Regular jaunts were made to the coast, from Crawley, some involving camping out overnight. However, most boating done over the next couple of years was limited to trips on the Wey or at a municipal boating pool near Worthing! It remains the only municipal boating lake that I have encountered that actually hired out sailing dinghies by the half-hour, along with canoes, pedalos, and small outboard powered launches.
Canals were not forgotten and in 1970, Mike with his girlfriend Mary, now wife, hired a narrowboat. Greg and friends of his and Mary went too. Again it was a trip up the Llangollen. This time the towpath across the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct was in far better condition, but as ever, the subject of the toilet arrangements were high in the minds of boaters.
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| Crossing the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct - 1970 | Not as sophisticated as today's pump-out facilities |
In 1972 my parents moved to Norfolk, in readiness for Dad's retirement. To encourage the children to visit as often as possible a small GRP yacht was bought. This was a SeaHawk, built at Reedham and paid for in two stages in order to avoid the worst of the newly introduced VAT. The plan worked! I spent a great deal of time at week-ends on the boat, even more once I got a job in Kings Lynn on the other side of the county, which is where Liz and my paths crossed for the first time.
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| At the helm on Barton Broad |
I soon had Liz on board, although almost the only photographic evidence has Liz slaving over its methylated spirit stove. Perhaps this is where I went wrong! (Liz refuses to allow the picture to be displayed here, even though it does show her with hair its original colour, not the colour is now is after virtually twenty five years marriage to me!) However, Liz didn't like water and liked sailing even less as. As far as she was concerned, the boat kept healing over in a most unpredictable way, and there was nowhere to lie on deck and just soak up the sun.
That virtually ended my boating career, but boating festered away for some twenty years and finally burst out again after computers, modems and, finally, the internet arrived. I managed to start doing some virtual boating, finding myself the role of creating and maintaining a web site to keep Nicholson's Guides up to date. This now covers much more than Nicholsons. Day trips, to visit acquaintances he made via the internet, followed.
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| nb Gypsy Rose tows nb St Kilda out of Soham Lode |
One of the more memorable of these, on 25 October 1998, was an expedition as far as possible up the, essentially unnavigable, Soham Lode, a tributary of the Great Ouse. The trip was in support of a campaign by Town Councillor, Tony Hinsley, to return the lode to navigability. I cadged a lift from the Waterfront at Ely, along with the Mayor, press and other dignitaries, on nb Jabberwocky, Mark Zytynski's boat, transferring to nb St Kilda, Robert's Law's floating home once we had reached the entrance to the lode.
In the photograph here, I'm standing behind Jean Gawlinski (with Camera) who is beside Robert, at the helm of St Kilda, while George Coulouris steers his boat, nb Gypsy Rose. With no winding hole, it was necessary to tie stern-to-stern in this way, in order to be towed out again once the boats had got as far as they could.
I made a similar trip with Steve King, the following summer, aboard his trip boat Liberty Belle. That time Steve had invited me. It was filmed by Anglia TV for their Sunday lunch-time programme "Take It On", designed to encouraged people to do voluntary work. Steve and I were interviewed about the restoration of the Lode and the tourist and other benefits it would bring to the area. Unfortunately progress up the lode in summer was practically zero. Weed completely choke Liberty Belle's cooling intake and most of the film showed Steve or I hanging overboard, broom in hand, attempting to keep it clear.
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| Far longer than the staging provided, nb Fulbourne waits for level water at Salters Lode |
Another of the more memorable trips took just a few minutes on 6 August 2001. Fulbourne, a full length working boat, owned by a private syndicate of enthusiasts, was due to make a passage of the Middle Level through to the Great Ouse. There are few full length boats that make this trip and this was possibly the first of the old working boats to have done it.
What makes it interesting is that Salters Lode lock is not long enough to take a full 70ft boat. So to make the passage, it is necessary to wait for level water on a falling tide before one can pass through, out onto the Great Ouse. From there it is a short half mile dash, with mud banks appearing all round you, to Denver Sluice in order to make it up to the calmer non-tidal waters of the South Level.
I turned up at Salters Lode, complete with my camera and bike so I could make the return road trip of 5 miles, and was invited aboard by Martin Ludgate, one of the owners, to make that passage. I have now produced an illustrated version of the report that I posted to news://uk.rec.waterways on the following morning.
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| Mike on his 50th Birthday treat, with his daughter Carrie and me! |
I've not forgotten how to sail and when Liz and I were invited to join Mike and his family for Mike's 50th birthday celebrations, I was out on the broads again. This time on a traditional half-decker, hired from Martham Boatbuilding and Development Ltd's yard. As Ben, Mike's son and Mary, his wife, aren't sailors, our party also hired one of the yards, rather elderly and past their best, day launches. The picture here, taken from the launch, has me at the helm and shows us just after leaving the dyke at the Pleasure Boat at Hickling. We had just had an enormous picnic lunch outside the pub in glorious sunshine. Later on, when we had reached Horsey Mill, the skies opened and a ten minute thunderstorm left us soaking wet. Even though we were forced to take a tow down Meadow Dyke as the wind died away and we needed to get back to the yard before closing time, it still counted as a great day out.
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| Mike, with my SeaHawk launched for its first time and not yet fully rigged. |
In contrast, the trip the following year was embarrassing. I managed to get the half-decker hired on that day well and truly aground and out of channel just opposite Meadow Dyke. It was impossible to row out of the shallows against the force five and we were obliged to resort to mobile phone and a call to be rescued.
In October 2001 Liz and I bought a share in nb Stolen Time, but this was sold about a year later. My first trip was a solo one made in February from Acton Bridge. In the summer we had a fortnight cruising the Four Counties Ring. I was again solo in November when I took a short cruise from Fradley Junction where she had been taken for her winter overhaul. I used to maintain a site about Stolen Time but it has, for the time being, been withdrawn.
On Easter Day 2004, I bought my own SeaHawk, a small grp yacht built in 1979. Liz, of course, does not entirely approve. However, I couldn't resist starting a web site in honour of the SeaHawk, as I couldn't find any other on the web!