As I snuffed out the lovely old brass gimballed oil lamp on the mast post and closed an old hardback copy of Maurice Griffiths’ Magic of the Swatchways, the twinkling stars shining through the hatchway gave me just enough light to savour my surroundings. The plush, deep burgundy bunk cushions, the mahogany slats on the cabin sides, the knees and frames and white-painted, tongue-and-groove cabin top filled me with wonder at the artisans who’d made Snipe of Maldon back in 1953.
my 23ft 6in (7.2m) 3½-ton Blackwater Sloop, was halfway home, called these pert Essex estuary cruisers that opened up a world of adventure, not exactly to the working man, but to a new generation of middle-class weekend sailors who weren’t baronets and earls and millionaire ‘grocers’ like Sir Thomas Lipton. The larger 3½-ton Blackwater Sloops, of which mine is just one of three known, cost around the same as a new Austin A30 or Morris Minor (about £500), so it was the likes of doctors and teachers who trundled up to the Dan Webb & Feesey yard in Maldon to place orders for a little ship of their own. John Yardley had been a teenager then, and I imagined that when I glided into my berth he’d be transported back in time and, with a misty eye, regale me with stories about how each boat he made was like a child to him, and mine was a particular favourite. Well, it didn’t quite work out like that.
