Reflecting nowadays, I tend to doubt now my students learnt anything much, during my early years teaching. Certainly, having thought that teaching yachting on an RYA Coastal Skipper or Yacht master course was about going offshore in all weathers. The two boats we had in Poole weren’t bad at all. Two brand new (out of the box) Sadler 34’s…
During those days you didn’t need to be a cruising instructor; just a yacht master offshore and get a school to take you on. Thought, I knew loads about sailing buy it certainly didn’t mean that it would be easy to pass this on. My first school was based in a drying creek in Poole Harbour.
I knew we’d have to get more sheltered water than just Poole Bay and would often go down to the Solent ASAP. Having a kind of big and little triangle offshore that depending on weather we might try to complete. The small one was down to the Solent for boat handling, MOB’s etc, then back past Poole and Anvil Pt. into Weymouth. Possibly then across Lyme Bay to Dartmouth etc. with all the fun of rounding the Bill (Portland). The larger one was the Solent, across the Channel to Bray or Cherbourg then back via Weymouth, Yarmouth I-O W etc.
Over the course of a couple of seasons, I got to know the people at the Miner’s Arms in Bray, Roland, and his wife. They ran the local chandlery in Alderney and the inshore RLNI lifeboat. By my second season I’d probably gotten a bit more confident; but still can’t have been doing the teaching very well.
One thing that has stuck in my mind from all those years ago. It was close to the fall. I’d had a reasonable forecast and decided it was okay for a last big triangle to cross the Channel, again! Half-way across the wind had veered more NE from east and it had started to blow quite hard.
Cherbourg was a much better option than Alderney which has quite a rocky difficult night entrance with the strong Channel Island tides. It is totally exposed to the NE as well.
My boat ‘Sea Hawk’ was down to just two of us. A lovely guy from Derby (ex-miner) and moi.
I called up Roland on the VHF who was expecting me that night telling him, I’d be heading for Cherbourg.
He said “it’s not too bad here John. I’ll meet with the RNLI RIB and give you a nudge in. There’s one free buoy left with some lee. We’ll take off your three crew to the hotel. There’s a big group at the Diver’s and we are looking forward to seeing you. Call me up about 15-twenty minutes before the you come in”.
We entered Bray under bare pole doing 6-8 knots. It was blowing F8-9 but the tide was going west. And we’d managed to spot the leading lights quite early. Rowland was there with his full RLNI crew; he said later it was good training.
We picked up a buoy, both of us we’re wet and quite cold. Then, he took three of my crew off to the hotel; whist we bedded the yacht down.
We’d tied to one of his big yellow buoys; there were only three other boats on these buoys. He collected us and we spent the rest of the night in the Diver’s Arms…
Later I began to reflect this was no way to run a yachting course. After passing my YM instructor’s ticket. I realised that risking people’s lives for what was a good night in a pub.
I started talking to a guy who did run structured RYA courses and had a fine school. They knew how to run courses. How to teach, coach, etc well, etc. plus he had good training for his instructors; if he thought you could do it!
The tough ex-coalminer who’d had been through it all with me; decided that there might be something about offshore sailing that appealed to him. Ignorance can be bliss; if he only knew how stupid I’d, been…
