A Easter Cruise

byE.G. Winterton

 

Only the brave venture out on the river at Easter. With winter barely over, however, Gordon will be packing his bag and his walking stick, and urging all lesser mortals to join a Green Wyvern Easter Cruise. Few are tempted.

It is a fact well known to all GW sailors that Easter is the time to sail, when the rivers are wide and boats, motor or sail, few and far between. The real Broadsman has his/her boat painted and in the water by mid March and if Easter is early and the Arctic high firmly rooted over Hickling, so much the better. The winds will blow from the North, North East or North West, and though it may snow or hail, it will not rain. Sometimes the first week with Springs, sometimes even an eclipse. So much the better: the setting is larger than life.
   

This year was such a year: it was cold, very cold, but the winds were good. Beating to windward was almost suicidal but the lovely runs to leeward with the sun shining on three of the days were well worth it. Once there was a staggering East Anglian sky, an azure dome from horizon to horizon with clouds such as only Easter sailors see. drifting with the yacht. With the aid of the wind, and no recourse to petrol, we covered a hundred miles, visiting Thurne, Upton, Rockland, Oulton. Everything worked and the Commodore’s plans, afterwards agreed by everyone else, were successful.
   

However there is a snag. The economic recession seems to have paralysed the usual hospitable nature of innkeepers. With two or three exceptions it was usually colder in the pubs than on the open river.  It was at times almost impossible to drink and most people picked up beer only to find their finger tips frozen to the glass.  Future expeditions of this kind should remember this and take hot water bottles and blow lamps into pubs in the interest of health. Who knows what damage was done to the kidneys, liver and bladder and other parts of the human offal?
   

Despite this, the cruise finished intact. No loss of personnel and no damage to boats.  New members were made, new mates and skippers promoted. To those of faint heart who think in terms of Oulton week as the beginning of the season, note this.  Sailors who survive and enjoy such a week will come and come again, but in decency they should have a week drifting to Dilham as a reward. Oh, and the food wasn’t bad either.

EGW, 1996

Storm over Oulton. George Matthews sailing Hornet with two reefs down.
(Photo: Eastern Daily Press)