Day skipper

As has been pointed out on several, if not numerous occasions by our esteemed captain, the crew of Erbas have the facility to post on this blog. Generally, we don't, partly because our captain does such a thorough job and partly because we, or at least I, can't be bothered. That said, our recent trip warrants a few comments.

I'm Rik, aka first mate. I've been sailing with cpt. Bru for a few years now, both on Erbas and our previous boat, Brigantia. Mostly I've been on the annual two week voyage as crew, mostly involving pouring coffee down the throat of the captain between pulling on various bits of string and the odd bit of maintenance. Oh, and it would have been rude not to support him on the beer drinking excursions ashore.

Having recently become engaged to the lovely Michelle I decided to take her for a week on Erbas to see what she makes of it all. Having never been on such a craft before, this would be very new for her. Having travelled across from Somerset to Essex on the Friday afternoon, which was rather foolish to say the least as it was very busy, we settled in for a quiet weekend on board, sticking around Fambridge which for me was novel as we usually get away quite quickly. We discovered the rather pretty little church which I didn't even know existed as it appears to be tucked away on private land. Well worth the visit though.

Monday saw capn Bru arrive and we were soon under way down river to Burnham. Running with the tide we made good progress but since the wind was largely directly ahead, wind over tide made things relatively choppy and not conducive to sailing so we motored all the way. In order to give Michelle a taste of the big white flappy things we motored on past Burnham, took a brief look into the mouth of the Roach (the river, that is, not the fish) then turned and headed back to Burnham. Running with the wind, we unfurled the genoa and cut the engine. It all got very much more peaceful and we enjoyed a brief sail up river back to Burnham. By the time we arrived we were pleased to get the kettle on though, as it was starting to get rather chilly, the wind still having a bit of a bite to it.

Bru having work to do on another boat left us to it for the week, and we enjoyed a few days in Burnham. I had to be back at home Friday evening and in order to avoid repeating my previous mistake of using the M25 on Friday afternoon, we decided to go back up river on Thursday and drive home that evening. Bru offered to take us, but I decided to take the opportunity of a relatively safe trip up river as my first outing as skipper. This was agreed by all, although I detected a slight shade of green on the face of Bru as we passed him on the bank taking photos. Whether it was envy of seeing us cruise by in the sunshine or the dread of what we might do to his (or, more accurately, his wife's) boat I'll never know. I think it was probably a bit of both.

Our trip was, I'm glad to say, thoroughly enjoyable. It was more of a drift than a sail to be honest, but with about two knots of tide and being in no particular hurry, we decided to unfurl the genoa, cut the engine and enjoy the peace. Much of the time we made less than a knot through the water, but it still wasn't really worth hoisting the main as with such little wind it would tend to steal the air from the genoa, and with the turns in the river an unintended jibe was always a risk. Not a terribly high energy risk given the conditions, but still a risk. So we gently sailed down river for nearly three hours.

As we sailed past the visitor pontoon at Fambridge we started thinking about getting the noisy thing back on. Just past there we were "entertained" by a couple of men on personal water craft who were clearly having fun. I later found out this is actually illegal on the river at that speed, but apart from the noise they didn't bother us. Then it was a push on the start button, a pull on the red rope and it was back into motor mode for the trip up the creek into the marina.

As we approached the pontoon, capn bru was there to greet us, which was handy as he could take the morning like to counter my distinct ability to end up directly between two finger berths. She was duly attached to one of said fingers and we settled in for a coffee. Or tea, in my case.

And so endeth my first day as skipper. Lessons learned were several in number. It was good to try the exercise on such a calm day on the river. This kept things like tides and wind very simple. It would also be useful to me if I could practice coming along side with Erbas, as she handles very different from the narrowboats that I'm used to. My biggest slap wrist of the exercise was by poor safety briefing to Michelle, my crew for the day. She asked me as we were going along what she should do if I fell overboard, more out of curiosity than anything I think but in fact it was a very, very good question. I proceeded to explain a few things but that should have been done right at the start. Definite fail on my part!

But in all I think it was a good day, a very enjoyable sail in the afternoon sun, and since the wind was behind us pretty much all the way it was warm too. Since the forecast was single figure temperatures and cloud, this was an unexpected bonus.

We set to packing up and clearing off whilst bru had a guitar session with the chap on the boat across the pontoon. We left about 8, and had a reasonable but still tiring drive back to Somerset.  Essex hasn't got any closer.