We called the previous episode of our blog the last chapter, when we left Barberry in Greece, all tucked up for the winter months ahead, then we flew home to catch up with real life again. We didn’t expect to be back here blogging again so soon, yet here we are. Why?
The answer lies in an unsuspected addiction to the feel of a boat heeling to the wind, the smell of the sea, and the sense of danger. After only two weeks ashore back here in County Down, we began to get withdrawal symptoms. Watching sailing on YouTube was no longer enough, and we visited Bangor Marina, where Barberry lived for five years, merely as visitors. We had to ring the doorbell and ask to be buzzed in!
This intolerable state of affairs couldn’t be allowed to continue, so I began sneakily trawling through Gumtree, DoneDeal, Ebay, and Facebook Marketplace in a search for small open boats that we could easily tow behind the car and launch anywhere with a public slipway. We knew exactly what we wanted: a Dockrell 17, one of which we’ve owned in the past. They’re solid, tough little boats and incredibly stable. Perfect for a couple of oldies, one of whom has mobility issues!
In summer of 2022 I had seen a couple of these boats advertised, but the timing had been all wrong for us then, as we were in the process of selling the farm so we could go off on our big adventure. We’d had to pass up on both the Dockrells, and as they’re about as common as hen’s teeth we didn’t expect to find another one in the autumn of 2023. Certainly none came up in my searches, but when I went back through my saved items in Facebook Marketplace, I realised that one of last year’s boats had been advertised not as a Dockrell, but as a “Duckrill”, which is why it hadn’t shown up.
The boat was in Portpatrick, Scotland, but that wasn’t too far away was it? With fingers crossed for luck, I messaged the seller. “I don’t suppose this boat is still available, is she?”
I was in the kitchen, baking, when his reply came back, and I let out a whoop. Laura, middle-child, glared at me suspiciously. “What’s all that about?”
“I can’t say. You won’t like it.”
“It’s another boat, isn’t it?”
“Maybe…”
A week later, Fraser and I were on the ferry to Cairnryan with a return ticket that added a trailer for the way back (just in case). The boat had been sitting on the side of the road in Portpatrick for several years and she was green with algae and half-filled with dead leaves and other debris, but she looked beautiful to us. Fraser (who happens to have a qualification as a boat surveyor) gave her and the trailer a thorough going-over and seemed happy with her condition. A small amount of haggling (I was onto a loser from the start, because he knew that if we’d come all that way we were unlikely to leave without the boat), a handshake, and she was ours.
We asked about her history and discovered that she’d been sailed on Lough Lomond. Her last-but-one owner had died so the local sailing club had sold the dinghy, on behalf of his widow, to the man from Portpatrick. We took this as a sign, because Clan Buchanan hail from Lough Lomond and the clan battlecry, taken from the name of an island on the Lomond, is, “Clàr Innis!” It was clearly meant to be, so thus our little boat was also named.
As an aside, I should say that we chose the Premium selection on the ferry booking, which allows free cancellation up to two hours before departure (I wasn’t sure if the seller would change his mind at the last minute), but it also allows access to the premium lounge, where free drinks and snacks are available to passengers. Fraser, being Scottish, felt a responsibility to eat and drink the value of the upgrade. As there was adlib wine available on the afternoon sailing, that produced some interesting results.
As a second aside, old people should never be left to make ferry or flight bookings without supervision by a young person with keen eyes and mind. When we turned up at the Belfast terminal at silly o’clock to check in for the morning ferry to Scotland, the sweet young woman behind the glass informed us that we’d accidentally booked from Scotland to Belfast and back again instead of Belfast to Scotland. Quite a queue built up behind us as she attempted to sort it out for us (see: the premium booking had already paid for itself!) as the original ferries we thought we’d booked were now full. Somehow she managed to squeeze us in eventually, and we parked up in the premium lane, trying not to meet the eyes of irritated drivers around us who’d been held up by our shenanigans.
We arrived back in Donaghadee that evening, tired, a little tipsy (only one of us) and very happy. Somehow, I managed to reverse the trailer onto our driveway neatly enough that we could still park cars around it, and we dragged Laura out of the house to admire our new acquisition. Now Clàr Innis was sitting on our lovely, clean driveway in well-to-do Donaghadee with its tidy bungalows and perfect lawns, she did look a bit scruffy. Nothing a jet wash and some elbow grease wouldn’t sort out!
A couple of weeks later, and Clàr Innis was as shiny and clean as a 50 to 60-year-old boat could be. We’d had the mast up and the sails on, and checked that everything was present. I’d soaked and cleaned all her green, slimy ropes and Laura even unbent enough to help with the jet-washing (I may have tricked her into it by purposely missing bits of dirt — she has mild OCD when it comes to cleaning). Fraser dragged an ancient outboard engine out from some dark and cobwebby corner and took it apart to make sure all the bits were in good condition before testing it in a wheel bin filled with water. This was a wet and smoky exercise, but it was reassuring to know the engine definitely ran!
After that, we kept an eye on the weather forecast. The heat wave we’d enjoyed as we brought Clàr Innis home had quickly disappeared, and the weather turned into its usual wet and windy autumnal state. We sat glumly inside the house as rain and wind lashed the windows and Clàr Innis slowly filled with dead leaves and rose petals.
Then, yesterday morning, the wind eased and the sun came out. This was our chance! We’d researched local slipways and decided that Groomsport was our best bet as there are stone steps you can use to get onto the boat once she’s floating, and there are tie rings, which Donaghadee slipway is lacking. High tide wasn’t until mid-afternoon, so we had plenty of time to phone the local council and register the boat, paying for the slipway use. That’s when I remembered we hadn’t insured the boat yet, so I spent a bit of time phoning around for quotes (no insurance, no launch — council rules).
Finally we were ready, the car loaded up with sails, lifejackets, outboard engine, fuel, loads of ropes, anchor, bucket (you never know when you might need a bucket — best not to ask), Barberry’s old lifebuoy, a handheld VHF radio. The list goes on. I reversed the car up to the trailer and Fraser hooked the boat on. That’s when it started to cloud over. By the time we were in Groomsport (only ten minutes along the coast from Donaghadee), the sky was an ominous steel grey and there were whitecaps out in the bay. We sat in the car with the windscreen wipers going and decided we should maybe wait for another day.
But the rain eased, so we agreed we’d start prepping the boat, no pressure, just in case the sea state calmed down. It takes a while to get a trailer sailer ready to launch. The mast is down and secured lengthwise along the boat, so that needs to be raised to vertical, at least a two-person job. Luckily, we’ve owned quite a number of small sailing boats and dinghies over the years so we quickly dropped into our old habits of teamwork and in no time at all the number plate board was off, the mast was stepped, boom attached, sails on, outboard and its fuel supply attached and ready.
Laura turned up at this point to laugh at us, so we put her to work taking photos, lifting the mast (she’s small but mighty) and hauling on lines. Typically for Northern Ireland, someone we knew also turned up, walking his dog, and took more pics (he’s a sailor, so he knew to say nice things about the boat).
I reversed boat and trailer cautiously down the ramp, dodging enormous patches of seaweed that had been flung up by the recent storms, then Fraser and Laura pulled her off her trailer with long lines from the harbour wall. This was the moment of truth. Would she float or would she sink?
Thankfully, she floated and our hearts lifted. With Laura’s help, we scrambled aboard and she cast off our lines for us. My heart was in my mouth as Fraser started the ancient outboard engine, but it went on the first pull and he steered us away from the safety of the slipway and into the dense mooring field in the harbour. We’d decided to stay inside Cockle Island as there were still breakers outside the harbour and the tides in Copeland Sound can run pretty fast, but we did manage to get both sails up.
There were occasional moments of panic. Initially, Fraser didn’t want to raise the mainsail but I (unused to taking orders after being skipper for five months on Barberry) mutinied and hauled it up anyway. Then I realised that: 1) we only had a very narrow strip of water to sail in between the moored boats and 2) the nearby seagulls weren’t swimming but were actually walking around on submerged rocks.
Fraser switched off the engine. I’ve had far too many bad experiences with outboards refusing to start in emergencies, so I may have raised my voice just a little. Not panicking, you understand, just being the reasonable party. He calmly replied that he’d thought the object was to sail, not to motor, which was a difficult argument to refute, especially when he followed it with, “Ready about!” and swung the tiller across.
“No, I’m not ready. Wait a bit. Where’s the other jib sheet? Watch the boom! Argh!”
The boom on a Dockrell 17 is quite low. I’m a little overweight, especially around the middle. It wasn’t pretty. Eventually we sorted ourselves out and I may have raised my voice again (slightly) as a stone wall rushed towards us at speed, but somehow we got the boat turned.
“Maybe we needed a little more speed for tacking,” Fraser said, as if it had been me who’d shouted ready about and not him.
A couple more runs up and down the harbour and we were happy that the little boat was all we’d hoped for and more. The outboard engine started again as soon as it was needed, and I started to drop the sails ready to retrieve the boat onto the trailer. That’s when I discovered the disadvantage of a lid (or tiny cabin) on this boat, which our last boat was lacking. The main sail dropped beautifully, but the jib was too far forward for me to reach with my stumpy little arms and padded mid-section. It came halfway down then stuck, filling with wind as Clàr Innis lifted her skirts and raced towards the slipway.
Fraser let go of the tiller and came forward to sort it with his long, ape-like arms, so I grabbed the tiller (I’m far happier helming anyway; crewing is for fit people with good balance) while he finally got it under control by clambering onto the tiny foredeck.
Retrieving a small boat onto a trailer is a great spectator sport. Many’s the time we’ve brought our takeaway coffee and a bag of popcorn down to the local slipway for an afternoon’s entertainment while hapless sailors try to wrestle their boats onto trailers in a crosswind, or drown their cars by forgetting the handbrake on the slope. It’s good, innocent fun — until you’re the one paddling around with rolled up trousers wet up to the crotch, and tugging on wet ropes.
For a while, Fraser and I were working at cross-purposes at different sides of the boat as I pulled and he pulled, both thinking the boat needed to move but not agreeing the direction. Laura didn’t actually break out the popcorn, but she certainly smirked. Still, experience finally saved us and at last Clàr Innis was safely on her trailer. I brought half the Irish Sea into the driver’s footwell as I paddled back to the driver’s seat muttering about seaweed, but the good old Ateca managed to haul the boat and trailer out with no difficulty. It only took an extra half an hour or so to unstep the mast and secure everything for towing again, and we were pretty pleased with ourselves as we drove home along the coast road.
That might be the last trip for Clàr Innis this year as the autumn and winter winds build up, but it felt good to be out on the water again. There are plenty of jobs to keep us busy throughout the cold, dark months as she’s a very old boat and has been neglected in recent years, but that’s half the fun of owning a boat. We certainly won’t be idle, that’s for sure!