S T E L L A
Class Association
We had a fine sail down the Orwell and out to the Landguard
buoy with a southerly Force 4-5. When the wind dropped, I shook
the reefs out and, by the time Antares reached Clacton pier,
it was all but calm. Then the wind got up again, blowing Force
5-6 from the east. By the time we reached Burnham, the easterly
had died again and the rain had stopped. As I cooked supper,
I reflected, the strange sail home, with the wind so at variance
with the forecast. Then I turned in on the starboard settee and
fell quickly into one of those deep, dreamless sleeps from which
you awake not quite certain who or where you are. But this was
the night of Thursday; 15-16 October, 1987.
In the early hours of the morning, I became vaguely aware
that all was not well. It wasn't until I was pitched on to the
cabin sole by a sudden 45 degree roll to port that I woke up.
Another violent roll to port convinced me that all was not well.
It was 0420. I dressed quickly, put on waterproofs and went out
into the cockpit.
It was blowing harder than I had ever known it. I judged it
to be a southerly storm Force 10 blowing straight across the
river, but anemometers ashore in Burnham that night registered
wind speeds of over 90mph hurricane Force 12. Although it was
half-flood tide, Antares 1ay across the river to the wind. All
the elastic sail ties had blown down along the boom and were
impacted on the roller reefing claw ring. The mainsail was loose,
and everytime she swung slightly to the tide, the belly of the
sail filled, causing another 45 degree roll to port. Something
had to be done, quickly.
Attempts, to free the ties from the claw ring proved fruitless and I got a black eye
into the bargain. I used some old jib sheets to muzzle the mainsail, and then slackened off the topping lift
and secured the boom on the coaming.
The tops of the waves were blown off to form a white spume and there was spindrift
as high as the top of the mast.
At last I had time to look around. The Crouch is less than
400 yards wide at half-tide at Burnham. With the wind blowing
straight across the river there were waves 3ft high. The tops
of the waves were blown off to form a white spume and there was
spindrift as high as the top of the mast.
My Avon Redcrest dinghy, on a 20ft painter, rose up out of
the water to a height of 8ft, hovered like an unstable kite,
then turned over and came crashing down on to the water, only
to turn over immediately and rise again. It always turned over
the same way. By daylight the painter was knotted and twisted
like the elastic drive of the model aeroplanes we used to play
with as boys, so that it was only 3ft long.
Antares is moored on a trot with two other Stellas. Dimly
visible through all the spindrift, in the glare of the yellow
sodium lights along the riverbank, the nearest of them could
be seen pitching in the most incredible way. One moment the stemhead
would be submerged, the next the keel was visible as far back
as the echo sounder transducer. The Stellas are moored with the
buoy lifted almost to the stemhead. The buoy was clearly l8ft
from the stem. Would it part?
I crawled over the coachroof and along the deck to inspect my own mooring. The tail rope from the buoy had certainly stretched;
it looked twice as long and half its normal thickness. The ring on the buoy was too far away for me to pass a heavy mooring rope
through it, but the 'dog lead' I use to pick up the mooring from the cockpit was closer.
The foredeck plunged up and down while spindrift whipping past stung me in the face. It was reminiscent of the worst sandstorms
endured in the western desert in the Second World War.
With difficulty I clipped on to the buoy ring, using a special 3ft boathook. The clip is made of half inch stainless steel and
mounted on l4mm nylon rope. When the stemhead was buried in the trough of a wave the rope was made fast round the samson post
to take some of the weight off the tail rope. Then, for good measure, the rest of the 'dog lead' was taken back to the foot
of the mast and made fast to take some of the weight off the samson post.