Furore over a jolly
The cruising community has been split by a 21st century quarantine. Since 4 July all restrictions laid down by Government to prevent the spread of COVID-19, which affected cruising and sleeping overnight on our boats, have been lifted, but the normally cohesive world of sailors remains divided over the regulation legacy. Whilst the advice was clear for those spending time ashore: namely to return home after your bout of exercise, shopping or from your place of work, it has been less so for those afloat.
Maybe a sailing vessel is a ‘home’ when she’s moored in a harbour, alongside a marina pontoon or swinging around a visitor’s buoy. But anchored in an isolated creek? No-one was absolutely sure.
Some boats remain laid up still as launching crews are unable to maintain the two-metre distancing required… re-stepping masts, moving blocks and placing strops. Others, like mine, which have wintered in mud-berths are not affected by this, but still break this regulation with helm and crew trimming sheets in restricted cockpit space.
I was speaking to a group of sailors on Maldon Quay in Essex in late June who believed they were not breaking any rules by sleeping aboard their craft. Yet another, based in Deal, Kent told me that as far as he was concerned he spent most of the summer aboard his boat and that while it might be considered to be a ‘second home,’ it was one which did not leave his own NHS area and therefore would not be denying a hospital bed to a patient who needed it.
‘I’m not doing a Dominic Cummings,’ he said, ‘and anyway I do a lot of night sailing at this time of year.’
Yet I spoke to another yachtsman who fell foul of this grey area after spending what he believed was an innocent Saturday night aboard his Sun Odyssey 40.3 with his wife, back in early June.
He had sailed the 10 miles from his mooring to the popular marshland anchorage of Stangate Creek, off Kent’s River Medway where the shoreline cannot be accessed, as it is bordered by saltings on one side and a bird reserve on the other.
But his one-night stay aboard caused an online furore which culminated in a visit from Essex Marine Police who ‘slapped my wrist,’ he said.
The police were alerted by a fellow yachtsman’s blog in which he stated he had been angered by the flouting of the rules.
The chastened sailor, said: ‘I felt so frustrated… at this waste of police time.’
The row spread, with several yachtsmen both sides of the Thames Estuary ringing me up and describing the blogger as a ‘grass,’ who contacted the Marine Police.
He even received threats to burn his beloved wooden yacht.
Another sailor from Lower Halstow Sailing Club was unrepentant about his own overnighting in the same creek: ‘I am in no way ashamed to admit to being one of those anchored in Stangate Creek. A day is 24 hours long and there was nothing in the Government rules or guidelines to say I had to stay awake during this time. The rules were not clear and were open to interpretation.’
So, what are the facts? Well, from 1-13 June, the law stated: ‘No person may, without reasonable excuse, stay overnight at any place other than the place where they are living.’
An Essex Police spokesman said at the time: ‘If a person were to stay overnight on their boat they would need to provide a “reasonable excuse” to make it lawful. It is our interpretation that staying onboard your boat overnight for leisure is not a reasonable excuse.’
The spokesman confirmed that it was an online blog which alerted them to the ‘miscreants.’
Hopefully, now that lockdown is history, our home cruising grounds will no longer be ruffled by anything more than a stiff summer breeze.
His one-night stay aboard caused an online furore, a police visit and arson threats to the blogger who ‘grassed him up’