Ever heard of a bumsprit?
Marina manoeuvres at the sharp end
There I was sailing full and by and by and large having a rip-roaring time as Snipe of Maldon cantered eagerly into the estuary chop and breasted through and over the short, sharp seas like a thoroughbred chomping through its bit and effortlessly romping over the fences at Aintree. She forged onwards, racing the scudding clouds towards the horizon with a bone in her teeth and a chuckling wake that whisked her track into a froth of whipped cream over the undulating trifle of chocolate mousse that passes for water round her.
Sorry for getting all poetic, but never having owned a long-keeled yacht before I couldn’t rein in my wonder at how Snipe, my wooden 1953 Blackwater Sloop, surged forward and tracked like a locomotive over the rod-straight prairie rail tracks of America. So steady and sure was she that it seemed to me that when on the wind Snipe had as little need for a tiller as a steam train does for a steering wheel. Don’t get me wrong, but the sensation of forging forward in the direction you’re actually heading was rather novel, as by comparison my beloved Sailfish 18 is rather more adept at going sideways, so much so that I was never quite sure which bit was the front.
In fact, the same applied when I first bought Snipe, for she appeared to have a bowsprit which is generally a good indicator of which bit is the bow. The thing that puzzled me, though, was that the bowsprit thingamy was actually at the same end as the rudder, so in my thirst for knowledge and wisdom I sauntered to the Queen’s Head, where to avoid confusion the back bar is also known as the front bar, depending on which direction you approach it from. Turns out that the oracles in the back bar –or possibly front–mostly sail coracles which simplify matters even further by not having either a front or a back.
Nevertheless, one of the oracles peered intently at the image on my phone and ventured: “Reckon that’s a bumsprit.” After further discourse, I left the pub poorer but older. Now bumsprit is a term you won’t find in any nautical compendium, but aptly describes the weapon at the stern that is otherwise variously known as a boomkin, bumkin or even bumpkin. The last, I found, is most apt because once a marina manager spots a 2ft bumpkin on your 23½ft boat the price is immediately bumped up to 26ft.
That’s if you can get into a marina. For a bumpkin, which connects to the backstay to allow for a longer boom, is just as much of a liability at close quarters as a bowsprit. Neither is a long-keeled boat like mine as manoeuvrable as a Sailfish 18 which is as handy as a funfair dodgem under motor. On the other hand, longkeelers are immensely seakindly, as demonstrated by my friend Julian who sailed his beautiful Rustler 36 to Greenland. It’s horses for courses.
Front and back
Snipe has the same waywardness going backwards that long-keelers are renowned for and has other foibles besides, including a 4hp outboard motor that’s on a bracket and beyond reach from the cockpit over a 3ft stern deck. Its throttle control is a 4ft piece of plastic tubing that regularly slips off, the gear lever not much better than a wire coat hanger that’s just as likely to bend as engage neutral or reverse. Let’s just say that when I approach a marina berth I’m just as nervous as everybody who’s already there.
And so it was when I was counting down the berths to E22 in Bradwell marina and by some miracle spotted the opening and slipped in first go without any of the expensive calamities you read about in Learning from Experience.
Unfortunately, what I did learn shortly after was that I’d parked perfectly… in E24... and the berth holder was on his way in. What happened next involved every berth holder on D and E pontoons, as well as quite a few on C and F and most of the Sea Scouts… and a lot of what I can only describe as language. On the plus-side my bumpkin is still intact.
As for my friend Julian, who sailed his Rustler to Greenland, I later learned from a mutual friend that he was actually only attempting a three-point turn in Chichester Harbour; it’s just that it took him 1,800 miles to get the boat pointing in the right direction.
Who knows where he would have ended up if he had a bumsprit!
‘The bowsprit thingamy was actually at the same end as the rudder’