We Did Mean to go to sea
The English Channel has many moods but a number of them are vindictive. I have often found this to be the case and, in 2017, after a lengthy solo passage across where I found myself hallucinating towards the end, I quietly made a pact with myself that I wouldn’t be doing that again in a while. Fortunately at that time my boat was at the entrance to the French canal system – and the Mediterranean beyond - so the pact was easily upheld – until now. What beckoned me back? Well, empathy as much as anything else. A good friend of mine, Tom, had bought a 22’ Hillyard 2½ tonner and was planning to make the same trip I had done five years previous – Chichester to St Valery sur Somme. Although he is an experienced sailor, the thought of him battling across the channel alone did not fill me with joy so I volunteered to help him. I have branded this as an act of selflessness but it wasn’t just that; I’ve always liked a daft adventure and sailing across in a little boat like this with a relaxed skipper seemed to fit the bill.
In addition I knew from sailing with Tom the summer before that the boat, Puffin, sailed beautifully. Not only that but Puffin was beautiful; built back in the 1930s and professionally restored. It was easy to see why Tom had been seduced by her elegant lines. A further draw for both of us was that Puffin was a scaled down version of Nancy Blackett, Arthur Ransome’s own Hillyard 4 ½ tonner immortalised as Goblin in his excellent We Didn’t Mean to go to Sea. We had both been brought up on Ransome’s books, so this was just one further bonus. Nevertheless, looking at the boat as she lay in Emsworth Marina, Chichester, on the eve of the voyage, I couldn’t help noting the extreme
