{"id":349,"date":"2018-05-31T17:46:22","date_gmt":"2018-05-31T17:46:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/racecoast.net\/omstest\/?p=349"},"modified":"2018-06-07T18:25:16","modified_gmt":"2018-06-07T18:25:16","slug":"lost-at-sea","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/racecoast.net\/omstest\/lost-at-sea\/","title":{"rendered":"Lost at sea"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bosham Channel in Chichester harbour, after the pubs shut, sometime in 1934: A young man in an enormous clinker dinghy rowed backwards and forwards in the pitch darkness looking for his boat.<\/p>\n

The young man was my father and this was a story that was told and re-told so that it became the stuff of family legend: He had set a riding light on the forestay so he could find his way back – but the light had blown out.<\/p>\n

In the end, out of exhaustion and befuddled by an evening of beer, he gave up and climbed onto someone else\u2019s boat, slept aboard, found some sausages for breakfast, left everything neat and tidy along with a note expressing his gratitude and sixpence for the sausages.<\/p>\n

The moral was always to go ashore with a compass and take a bearing from the quay. That way if darkness or fog came down, you can always row along the back-bearing until you found your way home.<\/p>\n

Swanage 80 years later and not much has changed: Samsara <\/em>is anchored in the bay and the crew (a full crew on this occasion with number five son Hugo currently occupying the other bunk) decide to go ashore and explore. There is a slipway for the dinghy and after a while the sun comes out to help this rather faded seaside down show off its best.<\/p>\n

A little shopping, a visit to the museum and heritage centre (a go on the antique \u201cwhat the butler saw\u201d machine) and a little excitement absorbed from the prospect of the town finally rebuilding its Albert Memorial to celebrate the bicentenary of the Prince\u2019s birth.<\/p>\n

Now it is time to return to the boat. Wait a minute: What boat? There is not a single yacht to be seen in the bay \u2013 just a uniform veil of grey: The fog has descended and visibility is no more than 50 metres.<\/p>\n

Number five son is full of confidence: \u201cOf course, we\u2019ll find her. We just putter backwards and forwards until we see her.\u201d<\/p>\n

The skipper is already seeing the next day\u2019s headlines: \u201cFoolhardy pair lost at sea\u201d, \u201cSearch abandoned for fog-bound father and son\u201d. This is just the sort of situation that could turn into a tragedy: Unable to tell which way is back, they motor in circles until the outboard runs out of fuel. Feebly they row in what seems like the right direction, only to be whisked by the tide out of the bay and into the path of the high-speed ferry. It was there only that morning on the AIS, doing 32 knots\u2026<\/p>\n

But what you need in this situation is a 15-year-old mind and a mobile phone. The AIS had only been switched off as we came ashore. Any ship-tracking app would still hold that plot for the vessel\u2019s last-known position. All that is needed is for one man to log in to FindShip, look up the destination vessel and navigate the \u201cyou are here\u201d icon until the two meet at the same spot. Then with one to call out directions and one to steer…<\/p>\n

\u2026except that in this case the one calling out directions kept saying: \u201cI\u2019m sure this isn\u2019t right. There\u2019s a moored boat, we were nowhere near the moorings\u2026more over this way\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

But sure enough, eventually, after a lot of \u201cleft-a-bit, right-a-bit\u201d, Samsara<\/em> appeared out of the murk dead on the nose \u2013 at a range of certainly no more than 50 metres.<\/p>\n

\u201cTold you so,\u201d said the man at the helm.<\/p>\n

His grandfather would have been proud of him.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The Old Man<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bosham Channel in Chichester harbour, after the pubs shut, sometime in 1934: A young man in an enormous clinker dinghy rowed backwards and forwards in the pitch darkness looking for his boat. The young man was my father and this was a story that was told and re-told so that it became the stuff of … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[26,35],"class_list":["post-349","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-ais","tag-swanage"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/racecoast.net\/omstest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/349","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/racecoast.net\/omstest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/racecoast.net\/omstest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racecoast.net\/omstest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racecoast.net\/omstest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=349"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/racecoast.net\/omstest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/349\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":377,"href":"https:\/\/racecoast.net\/omstest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/349\/revisions\/377"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/racecoast.net\/omstest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=349"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racecoast.net\/omstest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=349"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racecoast.net\/omstest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=349"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}