We have some great writers on Classic Sailor. And here is a great piece, from Lucy L Ford, on the pitfalls of going ashore in the dinghy:
The ‘dinghy experience’ for the ungainly housewife has never quite been welcomed as the opportunity for ‘challenge and adventure’, that it should have been.
On the contrary, it is thought to have been responsible for a considerable amount of ‘nautical neurosis’.
Was it …
… capsizing in the surf in Worbarrow Bay?
… slowly sinking on the Beaulieu River as dusk fell and the tide rose, and water poured through a two-inch tear in the floor?
… finding an adder coiled around the outboard in Salcombe, attracted apparently by the languishing rubbish?
… the removal of the bungs, whilst on the water, causing the tubes to rapidly deflate?
… or was it that occasion when, encumbered with oilskins, sea-boots and life jacket, carefully negotiating the stern of the yacht
(inevitably cluttered with ‘sailing jumble’), in order to get into the dinghy, that the life jacket inflated, impaling its wearer on the flag pole.
Overall the lasting impression of the ‘dinghy experience’ is that of sitting in a higher nervous state, ankle deep in water, with wet knickers.
To counter the effect of this rapidly advancing neurosis, a ‘new’ dinghy was purchased. One would have hoped that the name ZODIAC would be an omen of a better experience, but alas it was not to be.
With the new ZODIAC dinghy, tubes firmly pumped, dry underfoot, lifejacket abandoned, the nervous housewife was finally lured into a state of perfect confidence and relaxation. Fingers trailing in the water, drinking in the tranquillity of the River L’Aberwrach on a glorious July day, now what had all the fuss been about?
It was on the return trip from the shore, laden with supplies, halfway through the moorings, heading for ‘home’, anchored as ever the furthest out and against the tide, that tranquillity was suddenly disturbed by a strange, tearing sound.
At first it could have been mistaken for the ‘yak, yak’ of the Terns which circled excitedly overhead. No, it was a definite sound of tearing. Daylight was appearing between the tubes and the transom; water was rushing into the dinghy; all the rubber that attached the transom to the tubes was hastily disengaging itself. Momentarily one considers that all that is between you and your God is a lot of swimming and a rapidly flowing spring tide.
We did make it … just … but the “new” dinghy is now unusable, as is the new-found confidence in the ‘dinghy experience’.