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July 2020 July 2020

eventually found. Fortunately my brother Jimmy was not in as the chimney had
fallen on his bed and smashed it.
The following morning we were shocked and devastated to see how much
damage had been caused to our house by the storm.
The house could not be saved as it was cracked from top to bottom , we felt very
lucky to get out unharmed.
The neighbour’s houses suffered damage to their roofs, but ours took the full
force. It is something that I will never forget.
By the then Pat Barnes now Patricia White

THE BIGGEST CHALLENGE FOR THE

‘CRUISING COUPLE’

In last month’s Parish Magazine we looked at the delights of safer sailing using a
storm trysail, I touched on the fact that the average coastal sailing vessel is
designed to allow the crew to stay in the cockpit and avoid the hazards of
working on the foredeck whilst ‘making way’.
Modern ‘roller reefing’ of headsails and the reefing (reducing the size) of the
mainsail can be operated from the safety of the cockpit. Design changes in the
underwater profile of modern coastal yachts also allow easier manoeuvring when
under power in marinas.
Electronic navigation aids, GPS and effective means of communicating with The
Coastguard Service also add (most of the time) to both a better awareness of
one’s position at sea and an enhanced feeling of security.
All of these improvements allow two people (the archetypal ‘cruising couple’) to
go to sea in coastal and offshore waters with relative safety and with the
knowledge that one does not need to be in one’s prime of physical condition to
participate in the delights and challenges of leisure sailing.
All good things, however, usually come at a price. Sailing is no exception.
Three areas that create potential danger to ‘cruising couples’ are fatigue, failure
to recognise the need for having similar, rather than complementary skills and a
lack of awareness of declining physical strength.
When doing a 100-mile drive to see family and/or grandchildren, the journey
would normally entail a stop in a lay-by for a ‘cuppa’ and a 10-minute ‘zzzzz’.
A 75 mile sail from Weymouth to Dartmouth is a good 12 hours in a kind, offshore

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