My husband had been wanting to learn to sail for many years but had never been able to afford either lessons or a sailing boat. It was always a dream for him to be able to sail the Broads like all the other sailing boats he used to watch from his office window.
He recently came into some money and decided not to fritter it away but to buy his first sailing dingy. The dingy came complete and he was told it was ready to sail, it just needed a lick of paint to spruce it up as it had been stood for a while. He was very proud of his new sailing boat and we went down to it the first weekend to start painting it up in a lovely shade of blue. It looked lovely and we both couldn`t wait to go out and try it on the river.
A couple of weekends after that we decided to give it a try, My husband had had a lesson with a mate at work who took him out on the river in his boat (which is the same as ours) and my husband thoroughly enjoyed it, all went well and he handled the boat in the correct manner and felt confident in being able to handle our boat as well.
When we got down to the boat my husband set it up, (I didn`t do much as I have never sailed or been in a sailing dingy before), and set off down the first drag of the river rowing the boat. When we got to a safe point to put up the sail we did and set off. At first the sailing was gentle and I enjoyed this, I even had time to take a picture of my husband with a smile on his face and wave at another boat owner who I knew, but as we got further into the river everything went pear shaped.
We started to drift to one side and ended up bumping another boat, we then drifted to the other side and ended up being grounded twice, the oars had to come out again to move us from the side of the riverbank. After reaching the middle of the river we nearly capsized twice, my knuckles were white as I grabbed onto the edges of the boat, my face must have been a picture and I was squealing as I visioned us being toppled over the side into the cold river. I am sure if anyone had a video camera we would have been featured on "You`ve been Framed" we must have looked so funny.
We were heading to a bridge where lots of tourists stand and watch the boats going by, I didn`t want to be a laughing spectacle of everyone who was watching so I shouted at my husband to turn the boat round quickly, which he did, in circles..... Everytime the boom came across the boat it hit my husband in the head, I could see it coming so I ducked to miss it, asking him if it hurt he said no the boom was hollow, which is a good thing as I don`t think I could have sailed the boat if he had been knocked out.
He eventually took down the sail and decided to row back to the mooring point. As soon as he started to row he realised the rollocks were coming loose from the boat, the more he rowed the more the screws became loose. He did happen to have a screw driver in his pocket for some strange reason ( he might have guessed that might happen) and started to screw the screws back in while we just drifted away. Every so often he had to stop to screw them back in.
We did eventually make it back to the mooring point and boy was I glad to be on dry land at last. My husband said to me after we had packed the boat away "you won`t want to come out with me again in the boat will you?". My answer is not printable....
Hope this makes you smile, I can smile now and I will try to go out again in the boat, after he has made a few adjustments.
Brenda Eastwood
Corton, Lowestoft