Another Twist in The Tale

as you did not have more crew sitting down or kneeling on the glorified surf board, which was
then rather to crowded.
The other competition of course, was once the kids at school heard that we had this DC they
were always coming up to our place hoping to scrounge a sail and of course I could not refuse
it.
Some Sundays, once we had the DC we would make a hurried trip home after lunch, where
we had a super sail in the afternoon, and as the tide came in about 4 o’clock in the afternoon,
the breeze facing our property increased very, very quickly and then you could see beautiful
white surf breakers under a clear blue sky, with the sun beating down on you, not far from
the shore line and as you sailed into that wind, tacking all the time and then you jibed the
craft so you are now facing the shore line and the art was to ride these beautiful big breakers
and come roaring in towards the shore line, again at a fantastic speed as you now had the
wind directly behind you and the DC would really zoom into the shore line, making it a great
thrilling afternoons enjoyment.
Oh, I’ve just remembered this, one afternoon, the 3 of us had just turned the boat into the
direction towards our home when suddenly we all looked at one another as the DC was slowly
sinking, which was alarming for all of us, however, we were very lucky because as we fell into
the water (and no life jackets) which was criminal really looking back, we found that a big
large cork bung about 3 to 4in wide had come out of the stern of the DC but still attached
with a thick type of string and the sea had entered the hollow glorified surf board.
We remembered the previous week, we had to always remove the bung and let the water
escape from the hull, but this particular day we never inspected to see if the bung was in place
and of course it was not. So we are standing now up to our waist in water with the sails all
hanging over us, trying to balance the DC above us and tilting the DC so water poured out of
the hull and then replace the bung, then get on board again, trim the boat and sail back to
land, we were absolutely exhausted, accumulating in we had to be more professional in the
future, as it is so easy to make this sort of mistake if you are excited.
Over the years Peter turned out to be a fanatical sailor, always being asked to crew on various
yachts.
His ultimate goal occurred when I think it was a crew of 2 or 3, sailed from the UK to America,
which was a very hairy trip which tested his and the teams resilience to the limit.
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