International Flying Dutchman
UK - GBR

 

Going sailing with Julian - Katherine Steele and Lynne Gilbert

Summer 1998

Katherine’s story

Julian asked me to go sailing the other day, so I thought ‘why not?’ I’d had a really stressful day at work and I needed to chill out. He said ‘go home, get your scruffy leggings, trainers and spare undies (in case you get wet) and meet me at the marina’. So half-an-hour later I arrived at the sailing club and Julian threw a life-jacket and some boots at me, and we wheeled the boat into the sea. We got in to the boat and moved off slowly. Julian directed me to pull on bits of brightly coloured rope, and we set off towards Anglesey. I wanted to see Plas Newydd, an attractive country house over-looking the Menai Straits.

It wasn’t very windy, and the little bit of wind that we had kept dropping off. We changed tack quite often, which I helped with by pulling on more bits of rope, but we seemed to be slowing down. The evening was spent floating about in a mellow kind of way until the tide was pulling us backwards as quickly as the wind was blowing us forwards, and eventually we were floating motionless. The tide took us back to the sailing club as we tried to catch the occasional gust of wind. We never did get as far as Plas Newydd.

I hardly got wet at all, so much for the spare undies. Once we had packed the boat away, we went for a drink in the pub. It had definitely been a really enjoyable way to de-stress after a busy day at work

Katherine

‘I come to Bangor for my first real job and I have to work with this weirdo, it was never like this back on the farm’ - Rosie Applecheeks

Lynne’s story

Julian asked me to go sailing with him the other day. I thought why not? - it was a boring Sunday morning and I wanted to do something active and exciting. Julian phoned me and told me to wear my "scruffs", and bring a full set of spare clothes. Half-an-hour later I arrived at Felinheli and helped unpack the boat. Julian threw a harness, life-jacket and wet wet-boots (thank you very much Katherine) at me and we took the boat down to the water and got in. We set off rapidly towards Anglesey.

It was quite windy, and Julian (somehow) persuaded me to go onto the trapeze. I was a little nervous but tried not to think about it too much. I hesitantly nudged myself over the edge of the boat whilst keeping a firm grip on the handle of the trapeze. We weren’t going too fast but I got the occasional mouthful of Menai Straits, Julian hinted that I could solve that problem by keeping my mouth shut - huh. We unrolled another sail and went faster, along with the additional speed came the additional mouthfuls of seawater. By this time I had realised why Julian asked me to bring a spare set of underwear.

When we’d been out for about an hour I was feeling quite brave and quite proud of myself for going on the trapeze, I’d even gained enough confidence to take both hands off the handle and wave to another boat. Julian had one last surprise for me - another sail came out from the front of the boat. Controlling a sail and concentrating on standing on the side of the boat scared me to death - but I was proud of myself for doing it. After three exhilarating hours we headed back to the shore - very wet. We got changed and went to the clubhouse for a cup of tea. It had definitely been a great way to liven up a boring Sunday.

Lynne

‘We used to burn puffs with earrings like him alive at the stake outside the mill gates’ - Emma Grimethorpe

Observations

Both my friends commented as to how different their experiences were, going out in the same boat with the same person on the same piece of water. The only thing that changed was BF 0-1 for one of them and BF 4-5 for the other. We know you get what you are given on the day, but that was the biggest surprise for the non-sailors.

You can’t stop progress, but I do wonder how easy it would be to take novices, even those who are intelligent, capable, and reasonably fit, out in a twenty year old asymmetric skiff, in either wind strength, and still be on speaking terms at work afterwards.

JULIAN BRIDGES IRL 4 / GBR 380

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This page was last updated on 06 December 1998 - Please send contributions and comments to Richard Phillips mailto:100446.2371@compuserve.com . For more sailing links see www.sail-cd.demon.co.uk/index.htm