Dangerous Waters

The English channel is one of the busiest waterways in the world. I am not a sailor in any sense, but I have once sailed across this sea, in a six-berth sailing yacht captained by someone that knew what they were doing.

We had been invited to spend a week with a good friend and his two children, aged 9 and 11, sailing from near Ipswich in East Anglia to Calais in France, a journey that would build upon the previous Summers' sailing experience gained in the Norfolk Broads.

Our friend Martin is a writer, and after many years of living on very little but always writing, his adaptation of a children's book for television had been sold to Canada, and his share of the royalties from the BBC were substantial enough for him to pursue something remarkable.

He was in effect following in the footsteps of Arthur Ransome, of swallows and Amazons fame, and after cutting his children's teeth in a sailing holiday on the Broads, over the space of two Summer holidays he gave them the adventure of their lives, by first sailing to Calais, a journey that we accompanied him on, and the following year sailing to the islands off the Dutch coast, just as in one of the later books by Ransome.

We were not able to go with them on the Dutch voyage, because I had then just been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis.

My balance had been impaired, but we had already experienced the thrill of sailing across the Channel, three days for the return journey, two nights sleeping on the boat. Quite an experience.

The English Channel is a dangerous seaway for the unwary, but we had the services of a chartered captain, Captain John, and he was familiar with all of the hazards involved in crossing this busy stretch of water.

We would look in astonishment at the large container ship steaming past, rising six or seven storeys above our tiny yacht, but Captain John pointed to the horizon, and indicated a far off shape on the horizon, and explained that this was the danger.

The rules of the sea are clearly that power should give way to sail, but in reality a huge container ship travelling at 20 knots would in all likelihood never see a tiny sailing yacht before it had run it down.

It would be our task to sail swiftly enough between the brief intervals separating these Goliaths of the sea, travelling at our slow five or 6 knots.

Then we slept overnight at the berth where we joined the yacht, in order to catch the morning tide at about 4 AM. Berthed that night was an enormous three masted yacht, which Captain John said there was no official indication as to whom it belonged, but he hinted that it belonged to Richard Branson, from his conversations with the men he knew around his yachts berth. We never knew the truth.

We set off for the first leg of our journey, and I of course was the only one to experience seasickness. I would never make an adventurer.

We stayed overnight in Ramsgate Harbour, ready for the dash across the Channel. Whilst we slept in the harbour itself, the maroons were launched to signal the lifeboat being called, and the next day we discovered the reason for the dash of all those volunteers to the launching of the Ramsgate Lifeboat. On the news, it had been a substantial container ship, in some kind of distress requiring a lifeboat crew to rescue them. It reached the national news, which Captain John relayed to us between his catching of the weather forecast.

Never had the weather forecast taken on such a significance, but we were set fair for France, and the next day took the tide and commenced an extraordinary experience.

The sea was relatively calm, but there was sufficient wind to give us the speed we needed to dodge between the traffic on the Channel. I had never realised it would be like crossing a motorway on foot.

At one stage, we met a comparatively large fishing boat, sailing under power and retrieving its nets, and at one stage seeming to ignore us as it approached relatively quickly to retrieve some bouys close to the yacht.

For a moment, it seemed as if it would steam straight into us, but Captain John had obviously seen such things many times before, and remained calm as they retrieved what was theirs, and steamed away just as quickly.

The harbour at Calais is closed overnight, and so we had to wait whilst the boom opened. Then we could enter the protected calm of the harbour itself, where we could dock and use showers and facilities for boats just like ours.

We were able to walk into town, and practise our schoolroom French in one of the local restaurants. And feeling most superior that we had in fact just parked our yacht in the marina.

The next morning, we purchased a case of wine from a local French vintner, as if to prove that we had indeed made the journey.

And then we were once again out of the harbour, careful to avoid the Channel Ferries, and once again dodging the container ships on this busy shipping channel.

When we returned to the yachts' home berth, we felt had been blooded by the sea, windswept and fully adventured.

I have been to France many times, but never with such memories. This morning, I have just watched an extraordinary programme about the Queens of England, which has brought these memories back to the surface. It was that when William, King William the son of William The Conqueror, had sailed from Honfleur with his son and heir Henry following in another ship. Henry and the nobles abroad his ship were so filled with drink, but they didn't notice rocks approaching at the mouth of this harbour, at the time one of the most important French harbours.

The boat sank, and with it Williams's heir, creating something of a crisis for the English monarch, grandson of the Conqueror William.

Mathilde his daughter never became Queen of England, although at one stage she was announced in Westminster Hall to be the acknowledged heir to the King.

By the time the King had died, she had been already widowed herself from the Holy Roman Emperor, to whom she had been wedded, but lived to the grand age at the time of 80 years, not bad for the 12th century, to see her son become King of England as Henry I.

So, a timely reminder perhaps that the channel has always been a dangerous place for shipping, and not just in mediaeval times.