My Guru

My Guru had watched my struggles and antics, mistakes and triumphs. To someone who has sailed all his life he was not surprised. He had seen it all before. However thank goodness he had compassion and understood the passion for sailing I had and was willing to subtly teach me ‘sailing’.

As we all know, boating on a budget means mastering a lot of complex skills. Diesel engines, moorings, sails, warps, stem head fittings, furling Gear, kicking straps, plotters, navigation lights and so on. Being an engineer of course he knew how to sort out a new propeller shaft, taught me how to charge the stern gear, why I had oil in the bilge, winterising, engine service and so on.

After my little trouble with Paul, my Guru took me sailing both in his boat and mine. He taught me to heave too, sail trimming and making good use of tide and tidal currents. He parted with a lot of good local pilotage knowledge and he showed me how to use DSC on the radio. He had excellent sight of the moorings from his home and had some good advice on keeping ones boat safe. He warned me of the possibility of ending up like this guy who got it wrong with the tide just opposite me.

I wintered Juliet Jay up stream on the way to Wareham at Ridge farm, Ridge Wharf, where Juno and I would spend hours cleaning and messing about in boats. Juno loved it to, being a pointer she had lots of practice pointing at ducks, deer and bumble bees! The trips up the River Frome from Hamworthy were good practice for river navigation. It was good to have the boat so close to home.