Early in 1999 a friend of a work associate had a Mark 1 Corribee sitting on a trailer in a field in the middle of Norfolk. It had been out of the water for some time, looked a bit tatty and needed a few things doing to it. So we bought it. With a qualification in Yacht Design and Boatbuilding the prospect of refurbishing and selling on seemed reasonable.
So what did we get. A 21 foot boat on a trailer with a launching dolly, and several back copies of the Corribee Owners Association Yearbooks. From these we found that Sail Number 55 was called Dixie, was once called Bede, had been registered in the past and used to live at Morston on the North Norfolk coast. Unfortunately even the Owners Association could not fill in any more gaps, and the Registrar of Shipping at Swansea demands cash for a form to find out who registered it.
Still, we towed it home to West Norfolk, parked it next to the garage and spent the summer and winter of 1999 replacing bits of wood and stainless steel which were past their best, rewiring all the electrics and running the 6hp Vire 2 Stroke inboard with buckets of cooling water. Paint and varnish was applied, and one or two bits were refitted on nice new beds of sealant. Missing items like the anchor were replaced and extra ropes and fenders purchased. We even acquired a Tinker Star dinghy in excellent condition, complete with sailing kit and launching wheels for a good price. It's a bit big for a tender, but it was too good a bargain to resist. Bumping into an old colleague resulted in the acquisition of a seagull outboard as well. By the spring of 2000 all was ready for launching. I even started a web site for the boat.
As far as sailing experience goes we have only sailed on a flotilla holiday in Greece, although I've got the RYA theory Offshore certificate. With a shortage of harbours on the Norfolk coast and lots of moving sandbanks in the Wash, we finally picked on Wells Next the Sea for a mooring, as it has a large sheltered harbour and plenty of other sailors about. (And a lifeboat!). Because of the tidal range on the Norfolk coast this would be a drying mooring, accessible for about 2 or 3 hours either side of high water. We've got bilge keels so there was no problem there. A mooring was duly arranged with the Harbour Masters office. The annual fee? Next to nothing, especially if you compare it to a South Coast marina berth.
So to launching. A bank holiday weekend seemed ideal, but true to form it poured with rain and blew a gale. Arriving with the boat on it's trailer we parked it in the harbour compound and waited for a better day. First problem to arise is……how do you launch nearly a ton of boat into a tidal harbour if you've never done it before? The answer of course is that you ask someone who knows. We asked Bob, the Assistant Harbour Master, for advice and he turns out to be the finest person we've ever met. Not only was he keen to drive our four-wheel drive, but he was ready to help with the launching. After all, he does it all the time. Plus, as everyone knows, sailing people are amazingly helpful, so other boat owners who were about at the time joined in to help. In no time at all we were in the water and afloat. It turns out that two big strong men could probably do it between them if they know what they're doing. An ordinary couple and a teenage girl would have got nowhere.
And there we were, afloat for the first time on our own boat. Bob suggested we leave it on a visitors mooring and he'd move it to our mooring during the week. Fine by us, so we motored sedately down the channel to the buoy. With the female skipper driving because she's better at steering, the teenage skipper keeping a look out and the male skipper ready to pick up the mooring because he's stronger we arrived at the buoy outside the harbour office. There, in full view of the entire population of Wells, and every passing holiday maker, bird watcher and boat owner I completely forgot to have the boat hook ready to pick up the buoy. We went round in circles a couple of times, all good practice, and then tied up. Then the engine died. There's a little air vent screw on the petrol tank and I hadn't opened it, so the fuel just didn't get through. One more for the check list. We got the dinghy out, paddled ashore and bought chips. Then we sat on the quay to watch the tide go out.
About a fortnight later high tide was just right for a morning start, with the possibility of staying out all day and coming in again on the next high tide, if all went well. It was a glorious morning, with bright sunshine. Inshore the wind was light, but further out it looked just right. Not too windy and the weather forecast was favourable. Lots of other yachts were going out, some bigger than us, most the same size or smaller. We had a full tank of fuel, a working radio, lifejackets at the ready and a dinghy towed astern. The mainsail was on under its cover and the jib was all ready to get out and hank on. We started the engine, made sure the little vent screw was undone, checked for coolant flow and exhaust injection, released ourselves from our mooring and motored gently down the channel at about 2 knots according to the log.
Wells harbour has a channel which moves with the tides but which is well buoyed. From the lifeboat house there is nothing between Wells and the Arctic ice sheet except the North Sea and a large sandbank called Bob Halls Sand. This covers as the tide comes in to quite a depth and is reasonably protected to seaward by a ridge of sand which doesn't always get covered, so it's quite comfortable, if you discount the wrecks on it. Outside of this bar is the North Sea proper. All the other yachts have by now passed us and gone outside the bar, while we are still inside. We raised the mainsail but the wind had gone very light so we kept motoring, hoping to find a bit more wind. Then the wind just vanished completely. And the engine stopped. This left us drifting eastwards on the tide towards Holland, except for the big sandbank just offshore and downtide of us. After checking everything the engine still wouldn't go. Suddenly sailing had become trickier than our experience had so far prepared us for.
Lack of experience may be one thing. Admitting it is no problem. So we dropped the anchor and sat there for a while. At least we weren't going anywhere. At worst we'd be left high and dry when the tide went out, since we were directly over a drying bank. Then we called up on the radio, just to announce that we were stuck there. Before we know it three other yachts have turned up to help. With only about 10 feet of water left under us the biggest of these was running short of room to manoeuvre . Since there was no wind left and everyone else was going back in we ended up being towed behind a 17 foot yacht back towards the channel. The log was now reading 4 knots, while being towed by a boat with a 5 hp outboard, which suggested that we had other problems with the engine anyway. But we arrived safely back at our mooring and tied up. Our neighbouring yacht, which had stood by all the way in, tied up as well and it's crew offered suggestions as to the cause of our engine trouble. The reason, as it turned out, was a weak mixture setting which had caused local overheating.
As the tide went out we took the opportunity to explore the channel in the dinghy, so at least we know where everything is. It was a lovely day as well, and Wells is such a nice place to be. When we refloated on the afternoon tide we tinkered with the engine, reset the mixture and ran it for a while. Naturally it ran perfectly, but still didn't seem to have much push for a 6 hp engine. On the way home we called in to a place round the coast and picked up a nice second hand 4 hp outboard at a reasonable price on the belt and braces principle. This now lives on a bracket on the back and pushes us along at 4 knots when we use it, which still beats the speed we get from the inboard.
Since then we've been out on various weekends, still only inside the bar, getting the feel of everything. We've sailed up and down and round and round. We've tacked and gybed, we've hove to, and we've raised and lowered sails. We've sailed close hauled, which this boat does brilliantly, and we've sailed downwind without crash gybing. Sometimes things go really smoothly, other times we just amuse the tourists with circular manoeuvres. We've practised the rules of the road and seen others ignore them. We've watched other people sailing with grace and effortless ease and we've seen others get into the same tangles we do. We've seen some people end up on sandbanks for the day. But we've never hit anything, we've never run aground and we've never got stuck again. Sometimes we just sail around in the dinghy, sometimes we just sit there drinking tea and eating bacon sandwiches and we catch shore crabs from the back of the boat. We've found that the round the boom reefing doesn't work, so we'll have to sort that out and the cockpit doesn't drain very well when three of us sit in it. But we've enjoyed ourselves no end and have learnt a great deal.
At the end of the season came recovery time. Because some of the wheels on the launching trolley suffered from rust and decided they didn't want to be round anymore they needed to be replaced. This delayed recovery till early November. Unfortunately the channel in Wells harbour moves and one day the boat sat down on the edge of it, resting on the rudder and bending something. How do you move a boat if the rudder only goes to port? Once again, Bob the Harbourmaster comes to the rescue. He towed us back to the slip and helped us get the boat back onto it's trailer. And naturally another boat owner working on his boat stopped to give us a helping hand.
Now the boat sits on it's trailer by the garage. The rudder is out with a 5 degree bend in the last inch of the shaft. Whether this can be straightened or whether it needs to be rebuilt remains to be seen. The propeller appears to be too small for the boat, which may explain the slow speed. The varnish needs to be tidied up and there are one or two little bits that need adjusting or modifying. There are genoa tracks on the side decks which we don't use and which just get in the way, so they'll be off. A pushpit round the back would be nice, allowing full length guard wires. The engine needs checking out again to make sure it's running perfectly and something must be done about the reefing system for the mainsail. Maybe we'll even work out why there are large extra lumps of lead in the bilge keels. But apart from that we're more than happy with our little boat and expect to sail it for some years to come before we go bigger. Come the spring we'll be back in the water, raring to go. And this time we'll be better at it, and may even get out past the bar.
Do we have any pictures of Dixie sailing? No, not yet. To get a picture of her sailing someone has to stay ashore while the others go sailing. Surprisingly no one will volunteer.