The Unlikely Voyage of Jack De Crow by A. J. Mackinnon

Author:A. J. Mackinnon [Mackinnon, A. J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: book, humour, ebook, travel
ISBN: 9781574091526
Goodreads: 97501
Publisher: Sheridan House
Published: 2002-05-01T00:00:00+00:00

Dashing to Dover

‘What matters it how far we go?’ his scaly friend replied.

‘There is another shore, you know, upon the other side.

The further off from England, the nearer is to France – Then turn not pale, beloved snail, but come and join the dance.

Will you, won’t you, will you, won’t you, will you join the dance?

Will you, won’t you, will you, won’t you, won’t you join the dance?’

—LEWIS CARROLL, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland

I have described at some length the discomfort and weariness of beating headlong into a brisk wind at sea – the strain of hauling on sodden ropes, the six-times-a-minute dousing with a pailful of cold salt water, the difficulties in hauling the boat about at each tack. But give me a choice between all that and the sailor’s dream of a following wind and I will take the beating every time. Running downwind that day was utterly terrifying.

For most of the time I was surfing down each wave into a green-grey valley of water, the blunt bow, never designed for these speeds, sending two great fans of spray up on either side like egret’s wings. So highly powered was the boat with the sail out wide that the dinghy constantly threatened to nosedive into the waves and send the whole contraption somersaulting forward like a cyclist who has incautiously applied the front brakes too savagely on a steep descent. At times the prow did dip under, and the sea would sluice over the foredeck in a shining torrent, filling the dinghy with another few gallons of Channel water. What is more, with the wind off to one side, one can always balance the boat by leaning out into the wind on the opposite side of the sail. But here, with the wind directly aft, the whole boat rocked and swayed alarmingly with every swell and I was forced to sit crouched on my haunches in the middle of the dinghy, leaning from side to side to counteract each new wallow. An added danger was that of gybing, when the wind catches behind the sail and slams it across to the other side with murderous force. Had this happened, I could not have escaped capsizing and breaking the mast at the very least.

Lastly, there is the sheer speed of travel. I was planing most of the time, a phenomenon usually associated with more hydrodynamic boats than a Mirror, skidding wildly down the face of each tremendous wave and setting every fibre of the old wooden hull straining and humming and vibrating until I thought she would disintegrate beneath me. All in all, the experience was rather like surfing on an elderly cello.

One thing can be said for that leg of the voyage. I covered the miles with a rapidity I had not yet experienced. Whitstable vanished astern, Herne Bay came and went, and then the North Foreland cliffs. This is the Heel of England, the point beyond which you cannot even pretend that you are still in the Thames Estuary.

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