The Appearance of Seaworthiness

Years ago, I used to deliver yachts during the summer holidays. It was a great way to get a cheap holiday and explore a new place every night. We would sail the yacht Sea Tramp from its home on the Hamble to wherever most people wanted to charter it from over the summer, which could be Cornwall, the Channel Islands or Brittany, for example.

Sea Tramp was a 50′ ketch made of 25 tonnes of ferro-concrete. “A concrete boat?” people exclaim, but concrete is pretty impervious to corrosion. The owner had intended to take it around the world on his retirement but, until then, he would tweak the equipment every year. We would get on board to find that the anchor had been replaced, with chain of a pitch that didn’t quite fit the winch, so it would slip, or a new hole had been punched in the superstructure to allow cabling for the latest gadget.

Our aim this time was to deliver the yacht to its summer berth at Falmouth. We set out from the Solent, rounded Portland Bill and were looking to cross Lyme Bay, some 90-odd nautical miles, overnight.

During the night passage, we were occupied with fixing an engine problem when we discovered that the bilges of the boat were damper than they should be. A split water tank (repurposed from the owner’s farm) had dumped its entire contents. Turning back would involve facing the turbulent waters of Portland Race again, so the skipper decided we would carry on towards Brixham.

We reached Brixham at 3 a.m. and anchored off, because threading our way amongst tiny plastic boats in a waterlogged concrete battering ram with the aid of torches and bleary eyes didn’t seem like a smart move.

The next morning, we had a lot of work to do. We had to scout out the harbour to see where we could moor in order to pick up some water. We inflated both dinghies, fitted them with outboards, and Jim and I started making trips into the harbour.

We had both arrived back on board and were grabbing a coffee when we saw a large orange semi-rigid inflatable approaching at speed from outside the harbour. As it came alongside we could see it contained four men and a dog. Two men and the dog jumped on board and introduced themselves as Customs & Excise officers. We answered their questions about our movements and they seemed satisfied and ready to leave when the officer in charge asked if they could run their dog around below, as he’d not been off the boat all morning. All morning? It was only 9.30!

Nevertheless, the only correct answer to this is “Yes,” as a “no” leads to them taking your boat alongside the quay and dumping its contents on the quayside, if they wish.

As the dog had a happy, waggy-tail, sniff and rummage, we enquired of the officer why they were interested. It turns out that anchoring off a port in the middle of the night and making runs ashore in fast outboards at first light is exactly the behaviour of drug smugglers, and our large ketch made, in his words, “a good sea-going boat.”

The customs men were left quite perplexed as, at the mention of seaworthiness, we all recalled the spluttering engine and panicked bailing of the previous night and collapsed with laughter.

• Sailing