THE OLD MAN AND THE SEA

Jim, my much loved, much respected sailing skipper contacts me to invite me to help deliver a yacht with him. With the owners he embarked from Holland and made a North Sea crossing, bound for Inverness. North westerlies prevented that. They diverted to Lowestoft, and are shortly to embark again on the long trek northwards to Peterhead. Now the mention of Lowestoft sets my nostalgic juices flowing (see blog 28 Feb 2009 "A spring in the step") as it was a holiday spot when I was a boy. I have an inescapable memory of eating corned beef sandwiches on the esplanade there. They were half filled with corned beef, half filled with sand from the beach. Therefore, despite family commitments over Easter, the idea of revisiting Lowestoft for a few days at sea with Jim in a well found boat, is a call that is difficult to refuse. In the schooners and clippers of old, the Skipper was known as The Old Man. This was true, even if the Skipper was aged twenty five. I think of Jim as The Old Man, regardless of his age. I've never seen him flap, despite scenes of chaos that would try a saint. I've never known him stuck for a solution to a problem. I've never heard him lose his temper, despite warning me the first time I met him ten years ago, to get used to being shouted at. And his cunning, character and knowledge has brought many many advantages in yacht races, and much hilarity ashore. In celebration of ten years sailing with Jim, I've agreed to do my fourth Fastnet campaign this year. After the 2001 Fastnet, I swore that I would not do it again. It was too gruelling. I hurt too much. I'm just getting too old, I told myself. But when Jim rang in 2005 saying "H, we need a crewman, can you do it?" I found myself agreeing to go. And this year, the tenth anniversary, I just have to. But I can't go to Lowestoft. I look on the net, just to see if Lowestoft has moved on in the forty years since I've been on holiday there. It's still recognisable. The Royal Norfolk and Suffolk yacht Club is still there with its funny little copper roofed dome. And they have a web cam. I look and a boat is leaving. I ring Jim.
"Have you left?"
"We're leaving now."
"Are you in the Outer Harbour?"
"How do you know?"
"I can see you on the web cam."
"I'm waving!"
"Fair winds, Jim," I say, and a bit of my heart goes with them on that long North Sea trek. Across the next forty eight hours I find myself doing calculations.
"20 hours. They'll be off Skegness or somewhere."
"43 hours. Hartlepool? Blyth? Amble?"
And my mind is filled with memories of collisions, groundings, near misses, crash gybes, wild broaches, middle of the night stumblings, making animal shadows on the mainsail by torchlight to Jim's despair, kedging in shipping lanes in deep fog, race winning scams that never quite come off, and a hundred lager and wine fuelled shenanigans in ports both sides of the Channel.