Perhaps I should have known better. My sailing companion for the trip from Chichester Marina to Gosport, in my 19ft Mk1 Shrimper, was Scaf, a bearded friend from Belgium.
I’d had trouble with Scaf before, though admittedly this was at the age of 18, a little over 40 years previously, when our plans to drive a Land Rover from Sussex to Saudi Arabia had faltered when the vehicle stuttered to a halt in Kent after the fuel pump packed up.
Scaf wasn’t bearded nor Belge then, and I was neither deaf nor grey, but over four decades had passed since that adventure and we were now on our way to cool off from the scorching August sun with a swim in Osborne Bay on the Isle of Wight.
The weather was perfect, wind variable between zilch and 15 knots, sea state minimal and visibility miles. There was surprisingly little commercial traffic and when the wind died, we lowered our sails and motored
