Barely six months after emigrating from Britain to Canada via transatlantic liner in May 1967, disembarking in Montreal and driving the 4,554 kms to Vancouver in the Austin 1100 * we had brought with us and having had the good fortune, somewhat against the going odds, to land a well-paid job in Vancouver soon after our arrival as did my wife, I fulfilled a goal going back to childhood and bought a sailboat.
She was a Shark 24, a fibreglass 24 foot One-Design racing ** fixed keel vessel designed in 1959 by George Hinterhoeller a then 31-year old Austrian immigrant and boatwright living in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario. When he designed the boat, he said he “wanted a boat that would go like hell when the wind blew”. It sure did exceeding 10 knots on many occasions when on the plane *** very unusual for a small sailboat of her length and displacement. Proving very popular, Sharks were in continuous production from 1960 until the early 1990s. Virtually all of the 2,500 built are thought to be still sailing – in North America and in Europe.
My limited sailing experience prior to buying the Shark was in my early twenties to have taken at modest cost, a one-week YMCA sailing course, accommodation and meals included, at Dartmouth on England’s river Dart in the southwestern county of Devon. Agatha Christie country. Every day we sailed past Greenway, her spectacular Georgian waterfront house complete with boathouse. Greenway was but one of eight houses she owned! We sailed thirteen foot one-design Enterprise racing dinghies and other dinghies of similar size. The excellent instructors were all volunteers, mostly ex and current military on leave, fun to work with and learn from.
Subsequent to taking the course, living at that time in central London’s Notting Hill Gate district, my further immediate sailing experiences were limited to renting for the modest sum of ten shillings an hour (half of one pound sterling) very small nondescript dinghies on Hyde Park’s also very small as lakes go, Serpentine lake. Conveniently the park was within easy walking distance of home. I sure learned a lot about tacking just by keeping out of the way of the often times surprisingly large number of other rental dinghies under way at the same time.
After enjoying three years of London’s frenetic pressure cooker living and working experiences, sharing space then with 7.7 million other residents (now 9.5 million) I married and we high tailed it to Canada. Within a month of arrival as planned we had settled in Vancouver and as alluded to, within six months had bought the Shark 24 sailboat, used but in very good condition having had just one previous and clearly fastidious owner. Saltwater moorage was then and still is, very hard to come by in the Greater Vancouver area. We were fortunate to find a slip in Thunderbird Marina in West Vancouver’s well sheltered Fisherman’s Cove.
Upon taking delivery of the Shark back in January 1968, close to the middle of winter in Vancouver, I took to sailing in my ski gear minus the boots! Needless to say, not many people including my wife were wild about crewing at that time of year. In fact for the record, it is snowing as I write days prior to Christmas 2022. Forty centimetres so far. Likely we will also have snow in January.
With limited cold weather crew member options, limited that is to say often times non-existent, I took to single handing. Not the safest way for a neophyte to operate a boat of any kind on the Pacific Ocean with an outflow, potentially sixty knot katabatic **** winter gale prone fjord (Howe Sound) just around the corner from my cherished and very sheltered Fisherman’s Cove marina slip. Not to mention also, in the periodic absence of those strong winter outflow winds, the potential for dense sea fog.
Sea fog ***** is most common during the winter and spring months when the water temperature is coolest. It forms when warm humid air crosses over cooler ocean waters and the air temperature is equal to or near the dew point temperature. Forming usually very quickly, it hovers as a dense cloud close to the water surface.
Often sailing solo and being new to ocean sailing, I was initially blissfully unaware of the considerable risks I was taking. It had not occurred to me for example that wearing a safety harness, it’s short and very strong line attached securely and mechanically via a spring-loaded metal hasp to the boat or it’s rigging, should always be de rigueur when solo period. Such a harness I eventually learned, is also strongly recommended for anyone aboard be they crew or passenger if they are likely to leave the relative security of the cockpit and venture on deck for whatever reason. Stumble and fall overboard unharnessed and solo in our very cold north Pacific Ocean waters from anything other than a small dinghy, if no other potential rescue boats are very close by, then that is almost certainly curtains, game set and match so to speak.
It is also no simple task to retrieve someone from the water even with crew aboard. Tragically a sailboat skipper was drowned in Vancouver’s English Bay not long after I arrived in town. Not wearing a harness, he had fallen overboard and his wife the only other crew aboard and also an experienced sailor, managed to maneuver the boat alongside him but was physically unable to get him aboard before tragically, he expired. Cold even in the summer, our waters afford no mercy.
Sailing the boat solo on one of my early excursions in winter, cold and in very light and dying winds not far from home base I called it quits, doused the sails, fired up the outboard and headed for the marina about two nautical miles distant. The boat would do about 5.5 knots under full power however to reduce the raucous noise characteristic of outboard motors, I generally cruised along close to four knots – about 4.6 statute miles an hour.
Catching me unawares I had not gone very far when fog formed very quickly as in almost instantly, the air temperature having rapidly dropped below the prevailing dew point. Within a few minutes I could no longer see our north shore mountains backdropping the rocky shore nor could I see the shore let alone the marina entrance. Totally enshrouded and having yet to learn always to have a compass course to one’s destination to mind at the first indication of fog forming, not only could I not see the marina entrance albeit quite close, I could not see any land at all. I might as well have been blindfolded. The good news if any was that a nearby lighthouse at Point Atkinson about a mile south of the marina had triggered it’s fog horn. At least I had an audible reference point – sort of.
Try at sea in fog to figure the direction from which the sound of a fog horn comes. It is not easy and sometimes seems to change. Couple this with close to zero visibility in any direction, and you have the situation with which the neophyte inshore ocean sailor that was me was faced. Add in early afternoon, 49th parallel North latitude ***** sunsets, winter’s long hours of darkness, a still falling air temperature and you have the full picture. Foolishly, I had then no marine VHF radio. Should I need outside assistance, short of the fog dissipating and even then, I was most likely out of luck. There had been hardly any other boats about while I was sailing.
My conundrum taking place in 1968, it was of course to be many, many years before the advent of cell phones and home computers. I used a slide rule at work for calculations and a nearby Chinese restaurant used an abacus to figure the bills. (I am not making this up they did). Darkness was encroaching and I was alone with a serious problem. I was also getting very cold indeed and likely soon no doubt to encounter hypothermia. More than a little apprehensive, I had to find the marina and soon.
Knowing at least where the foghorn I heard was located relative to the marina and assuming my take on the direction to the latter was correct, I headed north east for what I hoped would be the shore close to the marina. The water in the area is generally several hundred feet deep however close to shore there are a number of rocks some always above water others just below high water. There is also a small island on each side of and close to the marina entrance. Fog aside, some of the rocks are normally visible at all states of the sixteen feet or so maximum tides, others are below the surface at most or all states of the tide. Of course, non are visible nor are the two islands in even moderate let alone dense fog. Shades of the Titanic. Unlike her, I proceeded at a crawl the varying visibility having narrowed to about perhaps fifty to one hundred feet best case. Unlike the scene aboard the fog bound Titanic, an orchestra was not playing, not even me on my trusty harmonica.
Regardless of from which side north or south of the marina entrance one approaches, there are significant and dangerous obstacles. On entering from the north, the island there is very low-lying, small and to port (to the left of the vessel) and a much larger and higher island presents to starboard. A red lighted beacon is positioned past the islands and just beyond the quite narrow entrance. One must enter the marina by leaving the red marker beacon to starboard (to the right) and leaving it to port when exiting as there are submerged rocks immediately south of the beacon and the water shallows appreciably on a falling tide. In North America in salt waters, RED RIGHT RETURNING is a universal maxim not to be forgotten red of course referring to the colour of a beacon’s light.
In non-nautical terms one must be to the left of the red lighted beacon entering (i.e. returning to the marina) and literally be in the exact same physical situation to the right of it when leaving the marina. (Thus leaving it to port). I found this out the hard way once when I first had the boat. Fortunately there was no significant damage done as we struck the rock (the boat drew three feet) entering incorrectly to the right of the beacon thus wrongly, leaving it to port. In maritime parlance we inadvertently left the red lighted beacon to port (left) on entering instead of leaving it to starboard. Standing at the helm, I drew significant blood by hitting the end of the mainsail boom with my forehead as the boat came to an immediate as in quite literally instantaneous halt. After my collision with the end of the boom, I landed upside down on the cockpit floor. There was no damage to the boom or for that matter, to the cast iron keel.
Along with the fog in which I was still very much enveloped, my other concern was the rapidly looming onset of winter’s darkness. In less than an hour it would be pitch black. I turned on the running lights (as though anybody could see them!) and hoped for the best. Based on where I thought I was in relation to the blaring fog horn’s location, I made an ‘educated’ guess as to where I might find the marina entrance and slowly crept eastward in toward the shore and unnervingly, the rocks.
The fog thickened even more closer to land and visibility was down to almost zero on my approach to shore. I slowed the engine to barely more than idle, continued to head east and hoped I would see the shore and be able to identify exactly where I was before I engaged with outcrop rocks closer in to shore and/or those at the entrance beacon. Fortunately, there was no wind and thus no waves of any significant size. My eyes were glued to the depth sounder readings albeit even close in, the depth does not initially shallow very much. The danger was rock outcrops associated with the nearby cliffs and the submerged marina entrance rock on the south i.e. wrong entry side of the beacon. There are no beaches, sandy or otherwise, anywhere near the marina.
It was at this point that I heard to my considerable surprise, a brass instrument extremely loud and clear! I judged it to be a trumpet or maybe a trombone and from the full-on fortissimo volume reaching me figured it must be being played outside somewhere very close by. I was sure it was a live acoustic performance not a loud radio. I changed course forthwith to head directly towards the source of, it must be said, the melodic polished performance. Perhaps I could shout loud enough to get the performer’s attention to at least find out where I was in relation to the marina. I slowed to barely making way knowing I must be extremely close to the unseen rocky shore albeit I was still in quite deep water. Whether I was close to the marina entrance was anyone’s guess. At least I knew from the depth sounder that I was still in deep water if not yet deep trouble.
Focussing on both the sound and the seeming direction of the musical instrument it gradually became even louder as I made a cautious approach. Out of the gloom came a gazebo, yes a gazebo, a genuine honest to goodness open air partly glazed gazebo inside of which, I discerned a man playing a trumpet. He was all of only about a hundred feet ahead. Mindful of the three feet draft of the Shark, I quickly engaged reverse and brought the boat to a halt before I figured, I might run aground on the rocks being so close to shore. Recognising the specific gazebo of which there are more than a few fronting multi-million dollar palatial waterfront homes in the area, along with the requisite ultra large swimming pool, I knew immediately where I was. There was no need to shout ‘where are we’ to the skilled musician. No I was not miles north or south of Thunderbird, I was only about 100 yards north of it. To reach the entrance however, I would have to back away from the shore and round the still invisible small low laying island leaving it to port at which point the other, larger island at the marina entrance, would be to starboard.
Realising I was not yet out of the woods so to speak, nor potentially the rocks, I knew to reach the marina entrance I would have to round the island that ‘guards’ the northern approach to it leaving it to port and at the same time leave both the larger island at the entrance and the red beacon to starboard. Having noted from the compass the course on which I had safely and without incident approached the gazebo, I engaged reverse and backed out to sea on the exact reverse course for just a few minutes. I then made a ninety degree turn to starboard to head due south guesstimating I needed to pursue that course for about five minutes before a further 90 degree turn this time to port. If I had it right, that should point me towards the as yet unseen marina entrance with an island on each side and the red beacon dead ahead. I proceeded slow ahead and hoped I would soon see that welcoming beacon’s red light ahead and to starboard.
Sure enough the beacon magically appeared. I was safely on course for the marina and my slip. The trumpeter had saved my bacon. I proceeded slow ahead being very careful to leave the beacon’s red light to starboard. Still in dense fog once clear of the entrance I continued on at slow ahead turned ninety degrees to port and shortly thereafter made my last turn this time to starboard and was thus then in the fairway leading to my slip. Entering my berth required a last ninety degree turn to port by then moving very slowly indeed. Through the fog I could just make out my slip, eased into it reversing the engine to stop the boat’s forward motion, stepped onto my dock to starboard and tied up. I had made it.
* See my story Austin 1100 April 18, 2019.
** One design is a form of racing whereby all boats are virtually identical. They race each other without any handicap calculations. They start at the same time, the winner being of course the first to cross the finish line.
*** As more wind power increases speed, lift increases and the boat in effect rides over it’s own bow wave. This reduces the wetted surface area and thus drag. The boat is then said to be on the plane.
**** Katabatic wind (i.e. a strong mountain originating wind spilling seaward out from a sound aka fjord.)
***** Just north of the 49 degrees North parallel of latitude, Vancouver is in roughly the same latitude as Paris.