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For a start Sam didn't have any visual aids. Members were clearly slightly nonplussed. They're used to a sequence of pictures, preferably with captions, so that, should the mind wander slightly to adventures past (boats, dreamy anchorages, quayside trysts) for a few moments, the images surely draw them back to the talk. More experienced members show little outward sign of these fantastic excursions having taken place; some as they return to the living lecture may raise a thoughtful finger as if to say “Good point” but that's it.

They needn't have worried. Sam's talk was so colourful and rich with images that everyone quickly forgot there were actually no pictures flittering on the wall; it just seemed there were.

Sam has written almost thirty books: thrillers and novels against a sailing background, children's book and a biography or two. But to many he will be best known for his regular writings about The Minimum Boat where the central conceit is that small boats, with only the essentials, are more fun than big ones with all the latest gizmos. And the people who sail small basic boats are more fun too.

He has a Shrimper with a big anchor and no fridge. He uses a leadline; the depth sounder he carries is an old one so hardly counts. He swears by the sextant but carries, unless I misunderstood, four GPS's (the cheery justification for this seeming inconsistency slipped past like a pot marker in the fog). His trailing log is a precious antique. He abhors chemical toilets (and presumably the whole furtive business of creeping up to the bogs and emptying them) and is an adherent of the bucket. This multi-purpose device finds many uses (why we refer to it as multi-purpose I suppose) apart from the unspeakable. I pick out lobster boiling as, I suspect, Sam's favourite. Which brings me to food and drink. You'll suspect by now that this is not minimum. Some of it is gathered, some caught (fish mainly) and some of it out of carefully-nurtured bottles.

While on the matter of food he mentioned the ship's biscuit and how he'd tried to buy some. The only available supplies were on HMS Victory apparently and, disappointingly, not original. Sam found a recipe and made some (after a few false starts until he realised that “biscuit” means “twice-cooked” in French) which he keeps on the boat and looks at from time to time. There is, it seems, no intent to consume.

It would be wrong to give more detail of the evening. You should either have stirred yourself from Lady Gaga's latest album and been there or book him immediately for a reprise. If you do invite him watch out for: the brother up the lifeboat slip in the fog, the role of Steven Hawkins' A Brief History of Time, the corrugated-iron catamaran, corpses in the bilges and a hundred-weight of cocaine. If he forgets them, remind him. And be prepared to hear a genuinely revolutionary approach to sailing which invites you to forget bigger boats and all that expensive gear that fills the sailing magazines and simply sail, enjoying where you are and what's around you, above and below.

I met old Angus afterwards standing in the dark before the prow of the old Rover, twirling a crank-handle meditatively in his hands. Perhaps the battery was a luxury, perhaps the thrill of hearing the motor spring into life without aid of a starter, as it did in those far-off days, would be worth the effort. Of course, then it was Elspeth who did the cranking while he advanced the spark.

Capt William Wells
Life and Times of a Ship's Pilot

Captain Wells, in uniform (although he retired with the rank of commodore) gave a vigorous and personal account of the art of pilotage of ships up to 250,000 tons displacement, and the relationship of pilots with the masters of the ships, and the employers (since 1988) Trinity House. Everything possible is done to prevent applicants from becoming pilots: only one in sixty-five pass the examination where the pass mark is 98%. We learnt of the Williamson turn which stops a large ship in little more than her own length, and how the passage through the Thames Barrier cannot be done straight! Capt. Wells’ career was almost 50 years, when he retired to become a nautical lecturer. As he pointed out, the prime requirement is temperament. RG

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SHIPWRECK
SMALL BOATS
HIGH LATITUDES

Roger Taylor

In this talk illustrated with superb slides and some extraordinary video sequences, Roger Taylor tells how shipwreck on a square-rigger lead him to a lifetime of small-boat singlehanded ocean sailing. Roger has sailed 19’ and 20’ engineless yachts from the Roaring Forties to the Arctic Circle. Last year he sailed to 80°North.

Roger has been sailing for over fifty-five years. He has written two books, the much-praised ‘Voyages of a Simple Sailor’, and ‘Mingming & the Art of Minimal Ocean Sailing’. His third book, ‘Mingming & the Tonic of Wildness’ is due out later this year. In January 2010 Roger was awarded the Jester Medal by the Ocean Cruising Club for ‘an outstanding contribution to the art of singlehanded sailing’.

Roger's website

at 2000 on 9 February 2012

THE HOUGH END CENTRE