I have been on or in a boat of some description every year since the age of six. My sailing started with my parents on the Norfolk Broads - initially in hire cruisers. For a time my summer holidays were spent camping on a farm in Thurne and sailing by day in an Enterprise. Our family broads cruiser followed - Mancuna, built in Wroxham in the 1920s.
As the broads became more and more popular and more crowded, we moved to an estury cruiser - Ardeola, a bilge-keeled MacWester, and then to a motor-sailer - Porsana a Fisher30. Porsana took us across the North Sea and around the canals and into the fishing ports of Holland and Belgium.
During my latter days at school I was involved with Boy Scout trips on the Norfolk Broads, canoeing trips on the Thames and elsewhere and once at Avignon where we canoed down to the Mediterranean. I had a 'year out' before college and worked on a Salters Steamer, doing the daily scheduled run from Windsor to Kingston for lunch and back in the afternoon. Handling a 80 foot steel pleasure steamer into and out of the locks was a new experience which would come in useful later.
While our children were young, sailing was restricted to day trips on my parents' open boat out of Walton Backwaters, offers of day trips on Thames Barges were eagerly snapped up. Once both children could swim we took a holiday on a narrow boat on the Grand Union Canal.
The whole family took to it like ducks to water [...sorry!] and canal boats are now one of our favourite relaxations. As well as the Grand Union, we have ventured onto the Shropshire and Llangollen canals, the River Lee and the Regent's Canal.
2004 saw us back on the Thames. A hire cruiser from Datchet took us down to Hampton Court and up to Windsor, the reason for the trip as it had been many years since either Pam or I had been to either Palace.
Over the years I have been a member of the Yare Valley Sailing Club, the Cruising Association, the Royal Harwich Yacht Club and the local town club - Wivenhoe Sailing Club.
