Post-war project boats
Fay Armstrong-Boyes, 87, reminisces about how Swallows and Amazons inspired three project boats and a life on the water
An 87-year-old recalls how Swallows and Amazons inspired three project boats and a life on the water
Personally, I blame Arthur! But that really isn’t correct. Responsibility, yes, but blame no. What I mean is Arthur was a supreme influence on my entire life.
Many of you will have guessed that the Arthur I mention was the creator of the Walker and Blackett families of Swallows and Amazons, author Arthur Ransome.
When I was the only (and a lonely) child of 11 years old, constrained by the privations of the Second World War, my imagination bloomed and I so envied these youngsters their freedom and joint adventures.
I wrote imaginary exploits for myself in an imaginary boat! However I lived in York and, as luck would have it, only ten minutes from the River Ouse. Despite it being wartime (or perhaps because of it) in those days children were expected to be much more self-sufficient than nowadays.
This permitted me to take my little dog for walks by the River Ouse nearby. Where there is now a bridge, was at that time a ferry. I became friendly with the ferryman, who taught me to skull, and even let me take his ferryboat back and forth across the river. My parents knew nothing of this – and today much of this would be considered as far too ‘risky.’
Some time later I’d saved my pocket money to hire a rowing boat at a local tourist company, Hills of Lendal Bridge, again without my parents’ knowledge – though incidentally I was quite a good swimmer so never thought myself being in any danger.
Flooded fields
Fast-forward to school holidays, it was the year of a sudden thaw after a very snowy winter, resulting in widespread floods throughout the city of York.
I’d become friendly with a boy who had built a little dinghy, using his mother’s clothes prop and a bed sheet as a mast and sail. We trailed said dinghy on a pair of pram wheels and sailed on the flooded Ouse Ings – the bordering fields.
But then some areas of York were cut off and my friend Jack and his boat were commandeered by the local police to ferry supplies to the stranded, making fame in the local press. My friendship with Jack blossomed despite his being away at boarding school during term time. Time passed. Jack and I left school, me to study, Jack to do his two-year National Service.
On his demob in 1949, he was accorded the statutory £25 gratuity, a good sum. The Second World War was at an end and the Royal Navy was decommissioning so many lifeboats and accompanying gear were becoming available.
We discovered that many of those vessels were for sale at Hull docks – not too far away from York. We both had push bikes but also, like so many other youngsters, we’d added motor power. Jack had the popular PowerPak fitted to the rear wheel and I had a Berini on the front wheel.
Lifeboat bargain
So off we rode to the docks to meet a dubious character named Ginger Lee, though in truth he proved to be completely trustworthy and accepted £18 for an 18ft clinker built, double-ended varnished lifeboat.
The fact the boat was varnished made it easy to see there was no rot or damage to the hull – indeed a bonus!
Next step – a couple of quid to a sympathetic barge skipper sealed a delivery deal to literally drop off our purchase outside the Guildhall in the centre of York. We’d procured a mooring opposite to the Guildhall so by arrangement we waited for Northern Light. Borrowing a friend’s dinghy, we rescued the vessel and tied her safely into her new, calm river waters.
Oh, how happy we proud owners were – but even happier when we discovered the pair of fitted buoyancy-cum-water tanks to be made of copper. To us, that was almost like gold. We promptly sold them for £12 – a small fortune to us.
This princely sum was to fund our initial essential outlays for wood, screws, tools and ever more redundant ex-naval surplus to begin our venture to turning an open hull into a neat little sailing ship.
At this time, we were members of the newly-formed Motor Boat Club, based just upstream from Bishopthorpe Palace, and the Yorkshire Ouse Sailing Club, based just upstream from Naburn Lock, gateway to the tidal Humber and Trent (through to Lincoln and the Wash), and not least out into ‘proper sea’ and after that as far as one could imagine.
Learning the ropes
We were to gain experience some years hence, braving the vagaries of the nasty short seas, shifting sandbanks, and heavy commercial shipping needing priority due to their constraining draughts. But those stories are some time in the future.
Meanwhile, we took advice from the more experienced members of YMBC and learnt to handle a lively Firefly sailing dinghy which we could hire for five shillings on a Sunday after cycling a few miles to the Naburn club.
We enjoyed racing round the buoys in the narrow confines of a river, sometimes capsizing in fluky winds but we gained skill, plus old-fashioned Yorkshire nous!
‘Jack’s first little dinghy, built using his mother’s clothes prop and bed sheet, was commandeered by police to help the stranded’
Practical project
Back to our boatbuilding: wood was rationed but you could buy £1-worth per person per month. That was OK by us, we couldn’t afford any more – remember we were still on student pocket money.
But from time to time a kind relative would treat us to a plank in exchange for babysitting services. Our first efforts produced uprights fixed to the gunwales and then we fastened homemade laminated beams to form a cabin top (base), the latter necessitating begging and borrowing clamps from Tom, Dick, Harry and any other chap willing to help.
Fortunately, at this time there was an abundance of ex WD naval surplus advertised at knock down prices in numerous yachting magazines (what, no ebay?). Our next purchase was a tarpaulin to stretch over the skeletal cabin and foredeck. And then we found a 1904 De Dion engine to give us some mobility. That engine was an education in itself; you could see exactly how it worked and why when it didn’t! If we’d kept it, today it would be worth a small fortune.
So now, our little boat could take us up and down the non-tidal Ouse, up as far as Linton Lock (under repair by the Inland Waterways Association) and downstream to Naburn Locks, our gateway many years later, to so many adventures.
Another purchase (new!) was a brass Primus stove. This was essential for heating our lunches on Sundays. We had only Sundays available for our river trips, which we did all year round regardless of weather. And as little was available in those days in the ways of thermal and waterproof clothing we needed some hot food and drinks to keep our levels of enthusiasm on top form.
Also, bear in mind food was still rationed – thank goodness for baked beans, Camp Coffee and Cow & Gate babies’ milk powder. Our little brass Primus was burnished like gold.
More polishing was to follow as we progressed with the boat, fitting brass portlights, ventilators, compass in a binnacle, stemhead roller and so on. We luckily found a friendly ironmonger who ‘discovered’ he had some old stock of brass countersink screws and sold us a huge supply for next to nothing. He said he needed the shelf space for new stock! Jack and I were lucky to find a lot of kind folk, who clearly admired our enthusiasm and enterprise.
As the weeks went by, our little boat gained a coachroof and a planked foredeck. So now she needed a mast and a sail. We found a redundant wooden mast from a sailing dinghy, which we mounted on deck in a tabernacle – or a lutchet, as it was also known.
This was essential for we needed a pulley arrangement in conjunction with our stemhead roller, so we could dip the mast (with the sail also rigged) to negotiate the many bridges very close to our mooring in the centre of York, plus quite a few more on our trips downstream past Bishopthorpe Palace to visit the sailing club.
We bought an old tanned sail from the old Grimsby firm, Co Salt and Tar Yard – no longer there I believe – I nearly wrecked Jack’s mother’s hand-operated Singer sewing machine adjusting it to fit our new mast.
So by now, by our own humble standards, we had a shipshape little vessel. Of course, she needed prettying up – fresh gleaming varnish, non-slip deck paint but also sound ropes and rigging, substantial fenders and mooring lines.
Our toilet was ‘bucket and chuck it’ which today would evoke censure from all quarters.
Next chapter
Back in our student days, of course, our parents would never have allowed us any overnight voyages, but by the end of all our work together we realized that we were quite sure that we had cemented a wonderful friendship and wished to spend
the rest of our lives together.
Our money was not in a bank but a boat, so after a couple of years work from start to finish (some of which we were able to actually enjoy on our limited river cruises), we saw the only way forward was to sell Northern Light and buy a larger hull, using the proceeds from that sale to do a similar conversion. We’d then sell that to finance our wedding and buy yet another boat to enjoy restoring and to actually sail for after all the work (and enjoyment) involved with our next project.
We luckily very speedily found a buyer for Northern Light and our sadness at parting was certainly eased as we clutched the crisp white £5 notes totalling £120. We almost ran the half a mile to deposit such a fortune into the safe keeping of Barclays Bank.
Back to Hull docks and another meeting with Ginger Lee. This time a 32ft double ended clinker built, but painted hull. Same delivery pattern to the centre of York.
My first job was to hacksaw through the hefty lifting hook at the stern to allow shaft access for the essential engine. It took ages! We now had experience to come to our aid and were able to pursue a similar and familiar path. By then Jack and I were both over 21 years of age and actually engaged. So once our huge (to us) vessel was completed, even with a small aft cabin, we planned to ask our close friends (also over 21 and engaged) to come with us for an exciting trip into the tidal waters beyond Naburn Locks.
Can you believe that, until we cast off our city moorings, we weren’t certain that any one pair of four parents would not veto our trip? And that was in 1952! So off we went, the four of us for our first venture into those very demanding waters.
Fuel and water don’t mix
We did indeed have some anxious moments. Our vessel, Mariner, was untried in tidal conditions, used only to the tranquil flowing upper reaches of the Ouse. But when we encountered short angry seas we had to have a very smart learning curve.
For a start, we had used the two water tanks, one understandably for fresh water but the other for fuel. In the quiet Ouse that was OK but we hadn’t taken account of the hard water deposits that were dislodged by our new experience of being ‘chucked’ about quite severely by the Barton Bulldogs and the Hessle whelps encountered in the Ferriby area. The tanks each had their shares of hard water deposits; OK for water but no good for fuel. Those nasty bits found their way into the carburettor of our hefty Ford engine, which didn’t like that at all! We established a fuel watch by the filler cap on deck and at the first stutter, whipped off the cap and blew hard! This proved completely effective but resulted in all four of us arriving at our destinations with a distinctive black circular moustache.
Navigation was quite a challenge. I had taken classes and was reasonably competent, but the sandbanks shifted and the safe channels could change in only a few months from one bank (Yorkshire) to the other (Lincoln). I loved the challenge and this led to a series of many studies of ‘proper navigation’ lasting to even studying at Britannia College in Dartmouth, many, many years later. I eventually had an Astro Navigation Certificate. Nowadays, not many professional seamen can use a sextant or take a noonsite to get a fix!
Back to our first trip down the Humber. In Hull we met a skipper of the converted trawler Montbretia, one Captain Oates. He befriended us and his job was to supply one of the Humber forts, Haile Sand I think it was, with supplies and he allowed us to sail across on board with him. It was quite an experience and some privilege.
Another of our problems, not encountered in tranquil waters, was ‘extreme cavitation’ as our propeller failed to ‘bite’ when it frequently lifted clear of the sea. We ended up by dismantling our heavy charcoal burning stove from the main cabin and lugging it aft into the back cabin to give the required weight to keep the prop immersed and so maintaining power. What fun! We were learning very quickly the demands of tidal waters and
‘Our ‘fuel watch’ system proved effective but resulted in us arriving at our destinations with a distinctive black circular moustache’
the relentlessness of the ‘cruel sea’.
But we loved it! We ventured out as far as Spurn Point to anchor overnight, taking turns to be on watch in case we dragged, but all was calm – how proud we were of our seamanship. On our journey back to the non-tidal Ouse we explored many creeks, also the then thriving fishing port of Grimsby, and up into the River Ancholme at South Ferriby. Much later, Jack and I were to explore the area more extensively, acquiring by trial and error ‘sea sense’ and I have to admit, a healthy respect for the challenge of open waters.
Project Boat No3
Time passed; our friends John and Jean married, relocated to Wales, where for many years they sailed their small yacht in the Mumbles area.
Jack and I also married and, as planned, sold Mariner for £350, using half for our wedding (and some household furniture) and half to seek out our next boat project.
It came to our notice that the Bridlington Sea Scouts had been given a lovely little centreboard cutter, built in Norway (by Henry Rasmussen) for the German Navy but became part of many reparation schemes. However, lacking funding, this pretty little vessel lay derelict for many months, abandoned on the hard of Bridlington Harbour, gathering fish hooks, sea shells, assorted rubbish, and suffered some structural damage to her hull.
We bought her for £25 and thus began an extensive restoration. I spent a whole week’s holiday removing all the debris and cleaning all the muddy sand from her planks. We employed a ‘proper’ ship’s carpenter to repair the cracked garboard strake and generally give Duet a clean bill of health.
One of the first things we did was to take a trip to Stuart Turner at Henley-on-Thames to take advice and then to purchase a brand new 8hp engine. What luxury. It had an impulse magneto (and a brass gear lever) so it was easy for me to start.
Almost a yacht
Once delivered, we installed it so we could go for river trips as well as working on the cutter’s transformation to become ‘almost’ a yacht.
One special project involved buying a tree – it had lain for some time so was well seasoned – stripping it and making a mast, a very taxing but interesting project.
Our usual conversion plans proceeded as in the past. But now we were married we could use our holiday times to explore beyond Naburn Locks, travelling up the Trent, through Torksey Lock and onto the Lincolnshire river and canals, through the lovely city of Lincoln itself, and a brief foray out into the testing water of The Wash.
As you can imagine, we had lots of adventures, more than we needed of anxious times, but what experience we gained, which contributed to our eventually becoming full-time liveaboard seafarers, lasting for 20 years.
I have records of our North Sea trips to Holland and Belgium (and their canals), we sailed almost all round the UK including the West Coast of Ireland. We traversed the French Canals to the Med, visiting many of the bordering countries.
Jack died on board while we were out in Turkey in 1998, but not before the pair of us had enjoyed 54 years of happiness together. What a life.
So to (mis)quote Arthur yet again. We DID mean to go to sea!