SAILING A 120-YEAR-OLD FIFE RATER FROM PLYMOUTH TO LARGS WAS A VOYAG E OF PILGRIMAGE FOR DAN HOUSTON
There came a moment when it felt right to speak to the water, here in the middle of the Bristol Channel. I could hear the tiredness in my voice, “Let us go Eric, let us go north with the others, be at peace.”
This is going to sound weird because I was addressing the ghost of Eric Tabarly, France’s legendary sailor, and a unifying national hero who helped make the sport so popular there. He drowned in these waters while taking his beloved 100-year-old Fife rater Pen Duick north to the first Fife regatta in June 1998.
Tabarly had been heading to Milford Haven too and the weather conditions had been about the same – Force 6, gusting higher, at night, the sea getting up and a bit confused, occasionally climbing aboard, rain, murk, generally uncomfy. He’d had the wind behind him though, and was knocked overboard by the swinging gaff as the crew dowsed the mains’l while sailing downwind.
They never got back to him; his body was found weeks later by a trawler. It was a tragedy for all sailing, as Tabarly was as involved in sailing classics as he was pushing the envelope for speed on the water.
I’m sailing on a sister vessel, Sibyl of Cumae, also a Fife 36 Linear Rater, built in 1902, four years after Pen Duick, and converted to a Bermudan cruiser-racing yacht in the 1930s. Seeing lightning and storm clouds north of us we’d reduced our sail earlier in the night, and are now under staysail, with three turns on the roller at that, and bouncing along at eight knots – if we come off the wind a point or so. And that’s it – we’re going to be all day closing the Welsh coast at this rate. It’s still about 60 miles away. We can’t point high enough into the northnorth-easter. Sibyl is slamming noisily over the short, confused seas, and it’s begun to feel like we’re in a bit of a trap; hence the appeal to Tabarly. Scanning the chart the most obvious place is Waterford, over on the Irish coast, with a three mile wide river entrance and the port of Dunmore East which is deep enough for our 2m draught in all tide states. It’s all of 100 miles away, but if we can average 8 knots then it’s a quicker destination, and the weather is forecast for more of the same.
With the decision taken the sailing becomes easier and as a treat a pod of dolphins come racing out of the murk, arcing out of wave crests, spending a few minutes with us.
The two of us on Sibyl’s 51ft deck are part of a new five-strong crew. We met three days ago in Plymouth and on this, our second night of sailing, I can see that we’re going to have to get slick at slab reefing. Sibyl goes over on her ear quite easily and, like many wooden boats, a lit
