Wish It Was Windy

I believe that water is for sailing on; not drinking.¹ If the water in question is the Solent, it’s not even for swimming in. I should know, I’ve tried it on a busy Saturday afternoon.

Our party that year was split across two yachts, and we decided to go for a race in the Solent. We agreed the route around some buoys north of Cowes and set sail on a sunny Saturday. Slowly. Really slowly. I was helming one of the yachts and, looking over the stern, I was convinced the wake was heading towards the front of the boat. I casually mentioned to the crew that we were going slowly enough for me to swim from the back to the front of the boat.

I was soon to wish that there had been enough wind to carry my words away. Dave took a quick look over the side and bet me I’d never make it.

Before you could say “jellyfish ahoy,” I’d stripped to my smalls and slipped over the side. Did I say slipped? I meant dive-bombed. By the time I’d surfaced, everyone on the yacht thought I’d spotted some pearls on the bottom. The yacht was five metres from me and my frantically inelegant front crawl couldn’t do anything to narrow the gap.

The yacht sailed on. Someone yelled that they’d circle back for me, but meanwhile I was just a small head bobbing in the busiest shipping lane in southern England. I could hear a humming sound … a menacing humming. As the large motorboat zoomed towards me, I found myself hoping that the pilot had been drinking enough to believe that there was a small crowd of us in the water.

Fortunately, they saw me soon enough to slow down. What’s more, they’d seen that my yacht was already circling back for me, so when the skipper asked if I needed any assistance, I decided that the least embarrassing way out was to pretend that the entire episode had been a planned ‘man overboard’ drill. Hoping that my face wouldn’t give the game away, I sent him on his way with the line “Thanks, but they’ve got to learn some time!”

• Sailing