Around the UK at a leisurely pace
Voyagers: Mike and Mary-Ann Wren
Boat: Westerly Centaur, No Way
Cruising: Around the UK at a leisurely pace
And what about sailing closer to home? You don’t have to cross oceans to enjoy extended cruising, as Mike Wren discovered when he decided to take his Westerly Centaur around the UK at a leisurely pace. Before setting sail in 2010, he replaced the original Volvo with a Yanmar and had the bottom slurry-blasted then epoxied and Coppercoated, taking the opportunity to burst, sand and rinse the blisters that were exposed. He also had a go at resealing the windows, but admits that unfortunately ‘they leaked all the way round’.
Mike’s leisurely trip was broken by winter lay-ups in Wisbech, Whitehills, Arisaig, Glasson and Penarth, returning to the Hamble in 2015. At Whitehills he met Roger Taylor (of Ming Ming and Voyages of a Simple Sailor fame), who said: ‘If we didn’t go round Muckle Flugga we couldn’t say we’d been round Britain.’
Mike added: ‘The next year, the weather in the far North was perfect and we sailed all round Orkney, Fair Isle, the Shetlands, north-west Scotland and the Outer Hebrides.’ When I asked Mike about hairy experiences, he replied: ‘The idea of the trip was to avoid doing anything scary, so there are no dramatic stories of storms and rocks. Almost the whole journey was day-sailing, apart from an overnight returning from Shetland to Orkney. We would only sail if the weather was good. The purpose of the voyage was to see Britain from the sea – our version of Coast.’
He added: ‘We recognised that it would be unfair and potentially dangerous to rely on one person to navigate, so we worked out the navigating together every day – planning bail-out options and alternative ports or anchorages if we were faster or slower than planned. My wife, Mary-Ann, did all the close-quarters boat handling on the principle that it would be better for me to jump ashore, handle the lines and manhandle the anchor. I don’t think I parked the boat once. This reduced the stress levels, for me anyway, and probably meant less shouting.’ Maybe more couples should try this?
Go-anywhere boat
I asked Mike if he would recommend such a trip to others, and he replied: ‘Definitely. If we can do it, anyone can. The Centaur is a great go-anywhere boat. We were able to get into places that others can’t. This made a lot of drying harbours and anchorages available, making day-sailing feasible. It meant we could go right around the coast without missing stuff out.
‘We went up the East Coast rivers to Maldon, Snape Maltings etc. We sailed deep into the Wash, explored the small fishing harbours of the Firth of Forth and the Moray Firth, dried out in the Ouse, in Lindisfarne, explored Morecambe Bay, sailed up the Bristol Channel all the way to Gloucester docks and dried out in Green Bay in the Scillies.’
Mike’s recipe for extended cruising is truly civilised. ‘We rarely went to windward for very long,’ he said. ‘In strong winds and storms we would stay in port or at anchor.’ All of which goes to prove that you don’t have to bust a gut or cross oceans to enjoy a long and rewarding cruise in a small boat.