Innsbruck, Austria
I have often felt envious of other travellers sitting reading all day when I am rushing around like a mad thing so today I sat down in the sun, with Kindle and set about reading
The Unlikely Voyage of Jack De Crow: A Mirror Odyssey from North Wales to the Black Sea
His description of his Mirror dinghy which is the same as our Teasel is written in a style that I can only aspire to. His description, please indulge me
A Mirror is to the sailing world what a Volkswagen Beetle is to the world of motoring. Everyone, anywhere, without exception. who has ever sailed a dinghy, seems to have learnt the basic skills in one of these gallant little tubs with their distinctive scarlet sails, almost invariably taught by some eccentric great aunt* wearing a big straw hat and calling out “Swallows and Amazons for ever!” with every tack and turn.
People will tell you that they were first designed in the 1950s in response to a competition initiated by the Daily Mirror, but, frankly. I don't believe it. No. it was clearly designed some time in the 1900s as a joint project between Arthur Ransome and Heath Robinson, with Ernest Shephard chipping in occasionally on the blueprints.
It is appropriate here, I suppose, while I am standing over the dinghy in the warm sunshine waiting for the black paint to dry, to describe a Mirror dinghy for the benefit of those not privileged enough to have had a nautical Swallows-and-Amazons aunt. I comfort myself with the thought that all the classics are unashamedly dull when it comes to describing the minutiae of nautical travel and seafaring adventures.
Half-an-hour's perusal of any Ransome book will enable even the most landlubberly of readers to rig up a mainsail jury hitch with belayed cross-over, and in Robinson Crusoe, there are detailed instructions for such things as converting a goat into a pair of moccasins without fatally damaging the original animal.
A Mirror dinghy is eleven feet long and four feet wide. Her nose is not pointed like most dinghies, but cut off square, giving her a sturdy, snub-nosed look. There is nothing even remotely aggressive or shark-like about a Mirror. She looks about as streamlined and racy as a toy hippo. The front three feet consist of a flat deck beneath which are two door-less lockers. This is where your aunt stows away bottles of ginger pop and pemmican sandwiches and more serious sailors store spare bits of rope or sail or shackles. It was where I was to stow all my worldly possessions to last me for a year of sailing: a space about the size of your average vegetable crisper.
Three broad decks or seats run right around the cockpit. making a Mirror the most sofa-like of all small dinghies to sail. and enabling several First Mates, an Able Seaman and a Ship's Boy to be deployed in relative comfort about the dinghy. Across the middle, however, is a sturdy thwart where a solitary oarsman will sit to row. Slotting into the gunwale on either side to hold the oars are the rowlocks, pronounced ‘rollocks'. much to the amusement of the Third Form when attending sailing lessons. (Yes, all right, settle down, Smithers, settle down).
So much for the dinghy as a mere rowing boat. However, she is primarily a sailing vessel and as such needs a mast. rigging. a centreboard and a rudder. These may be briefly explained thus.
A Mirror's mast is only about ten feet tall, not nearly tall enough to take a full sized sail, so it makes use of a gaff. This is a long light beam of wood with a hollow groove along its underside into which the thick leading edge of the sail is threaded. It is this gaff that is hauled aloft and when fully erect. (All right, Smithers, I've warned you once) projects out another six feet or so above the mast top, providing the necessary height for the sail. By modern design standards this is a clumsy contraption, but was ideal for my purposes. You see, unlike most dinghy sailors out for a quick skim on a local reservoir, I would be encountering bridges and it is a very rare bridge that is generous enough to allow a fully masted dinghy to sail beneath it with impunity. With the ability, however, to simply lower the gaff and dip the peak and still keep sailing onwards, I was sure that I could escape being mauled by all but the lowest and meanest of the bridge tribe. Such confidence
We have just hauled up the mainsail and noticed that along its bottom edge is a long, heavy and potentially deadly wooden beam called a boom. This is what swings about in a gale in a Conrad film and sweeps hero and villain off into the raging seas to battle it out there once all the poop deck fighting has become tedious. At the outer end is a dangling pulley through which a rope, the mainsheet. threads. This then runs through a series of pulleys, but ends up in the skipper’s hand, allowing him to haul in or let out the mainsail with ease. The only thing you need to know about this is that of all the myriad pieces of tackle and equipment on a sailing boat, this is the one that will jam, tangle or catch at every opportunity and cause imminent death by drowning, strangulation or sheer bloody bad temper.
Nearly finished. A smaller sail known as the jib runs up the forestay and this is apparently invaluable or sailing into the wind for some mysterious aerodynamic reason which I've never been able to fathom.
Very soon after setting off, I abandoned the additional complexity of a jib, and the appropriate Law of Aerodynamics went off in a sulk somewhere and Jack and I got on perfectly well without its pedantic presence. So much for science.
The rudder, I assume, hardly needs explaining unless, dear Reader, you have grown up entirely as a member of some desert dwelling tribe without even the scantiest knowledge of boats, the sort of people Odysseus went looking for in his dotage. Nevertheless I will explain that it is the most vulnerable piece of the dinghy's equipment. being prone to ploughing into underwater obstacles, crushing against lock walls, jamming against banks and so on but. by some divine mystery, by the end of the whole trip. it was the single part of the entire boat that had not needed patching, mending. replacing or discarding
As opposed to the centreboard in fact. a hefty solid slab of hardwood that seemed to break at every opportunity, and the last item in this over-technical catalogue. The centreboard is simply a slim but heavy vane of timber that slots down through the hull and projects like an upside-down shark's fin several feet below the keel. When down it provides stability and prevents the dinghy drifting sideways in certain sailing conditions. When drawn up and out of the long centreboard case. it lies around, barks your shins and, if you are going fast enough, allows the foamy brine to well up through the case like a bubbling spring and fill half the dinghy with water before you notice what is happening.
So there you have a Mirror Dinghy described. Any questions? No, not you, Smithers, put your hand down, I don't want to know. Dismissed.
So there you have it, Teasel described with a flourish and seeing our boat out of the corner of my eye atop the Disco while a sat in this thirty degree day was delicious. The book has me laughing out loud on many occasions as the man is as foolish as me. Getting the text was an ordeal that kept me up far too long. Kindle reader on my MacBook, screen grabs, online OCR then stringing it all together. Won't be doing that again in a hurry.
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| From memory from her book |
Roman had spotted that there was an organised camp activity for playing with Play Doe. He had cycled the camp without success so we set off about an hour after the session had started and after enquiring at the office found two lovely teenage girl facilitators sitting playing with their phones and no children in sight. Roman immediately peddled off to get Audrey then the two of them basked in the teenagers attention for the next couple of hours.
The same went for the afternoon's hat and bag making course except this time there were two facilitators and four Royds'. Roman checked the clock every four minutes for the two hours till the afternoon's session started and lolled around BORED. All four disappeared off for the afternoon session leaving me to the adventures of Jack de Crow. The teenagers happy to speak English got a through briefing on all our adventures and probably a few secrets as well.
*Auntie Stephanie, my enthusiastic sister fills this role beautifully when we are in NZ (as does their Grandmother, my Mum an enthusiastic Ransome disciple, as am I).
