Eventually the Burnham Day Boat was as ready as we could make it. It had been a superhuman effort to get this monster into an acceptable condition for sailing. The varnish and decking looked quite good and the wood had a nice reddish golden colour.
It was a pleasant summer evening when we manually dragged this 14ft. heavy wooden boat down to the boat club in Castle Cove. There was a neatly dressed gentleman (looked like a senior naval officer) standing on the pier. He was wearing a neat navy-blue suit and shiny black dress shoes. He was obviously a sailing type and became entranced by watching our efforts to rig this appalling gunter sail.
First we had to get the mast stepped. This was particularly interesting to the gentleman - who was actually the Castle Cove Sailing Club Commodore. He eventually succumed to the temptation of helping us; as we obviously didn't know one end of a boat from the other.
I think the Commodore became so immersed in our struggles with the ropes, the boat, the mast and all .. He completely forgot about his decent clothes and was up to his knees in the water, fighting and soaking wet with the rest of us.
I had read about the gunter rig but had never actually seen one. The Commodore showed us that the rigging ropes had to be threaded through the sail and around the boom. This took forever and was unacceptable.
However, we eventually had the sail up. The Commodore was behind the boat and pushing, the wind filled the huge sail. The Commodore stumbled over a rope and to my increasing astonishment and horror now fell into the harbour complete with his neat suit and medals. What a good-natured slightly crazy gentleman. The only person who seemed annoyed by all this was his wife. She arrived on the scene and was instantly telling him about cleaning bills and the price of dress shoes.
I thought for a week or so about the gunter rig problem. I bought lengths of brass curtain rail and sliders. My "sophisticated" man friend became my willing victim and had to fasten the curtain rails onto the mast and boom while I cut little bits of nylon cord to tie the sail onto the sliders. (The mast and booms were made of aluminium. All the rigging and component parts rang annoyingly against each other. Other small sailing boats at that time used wooden masts and booms. As we sailed around the harbour we could be heard for miles!) Drilling the holes for the curtain rails was a real challenge for my friend. However, he worked his hands raw on the project and this worked surprisingly well. The sail now slid quickly and easily up and down the mast and boom. (More about this later).
To be continued. Continue to next part of this story.