The Book of Jalina - Part one

The story of my first little yacht

I'd been looking at buying a boat for a while, a search that started with narrow boats, instigated by too much noise from the neighbours in my flat and the realisation that even though I'm reasonably well paid, I couldn't afford a house that I would be at all happy to live in and indeed give the majority of my wages to do so. I can't remember how but I decided that living on a narrow boat, on the relatively quiet canals around Lancashire, would be a life perfectly suited to me. Well, perhaps not my taste in loud techno and rock, but I could have compromised a little.

Jalina - out on the River Rible

After much research and even viewing a few boats I depressingly realised that I couldn't afford it. The cheapest boat I saw was £16,000 and that was in dire need of expensive welding work and a partial refit. I simply didn't have that much cash lying around and the three years following my 18th birthday created a not so marine mortgage friendly credit history, so I reluctantly gave up that idea for the timebeing (I'll be back on it later in my life with more money!).

Still, the outcome of my barge hunting did plant a little seed in my head. I wanted a boat, no matter what it was. I looked at all sorts, from yachts to motorboats, but everything was above my budget, so eventually I was forced to the conclusion that boating is for either rich people, or those with a nice chunk of equity in their house.

Time passed but oneday while casually browsing ebay, I stumbled accross Jalina. She was a Leisure 17 sailing boat, and at just £900 was kind of n my price range. Well, actually I didn't even have £900 lying around, but had a £300 deposit and decided I could raise the rest oneway or another, so I bought her. I do things like that - live life on a whim and worry about the consequences later. It's really pisses some people off, who like to plan every little detail, and while it does drop me in the shit occasionaly, it does make for an interesting life, if not always enjoyable.

Having viewed the boat and paid the deposit I had one month to find the rest of the cash. Hmm, easier said than done. I had enough spare income to pay the remaing £600 in two months, but not one as the seller demanded. Actually, that's another one of my non-virtues; impatience. I can't wait for anything, if I've set my mind on something I have to do it right away, and so set about doing so. My girlfriend at the time hated my distaste for planning anything but was always up for an adventure or two, so with minimal effort I sold the idea to her and she graciously lent me the entire contents of her student overdraft and even drove up to York with me to pick it up - thankyou Sarah.

Great! I now own a boat, what do I do with it? Well, I towed her back from York to Preston on an unstable trailer that I later found out had partially siezed brakes, ran out of petrol on the M65, and eventually got Jalina to Douglas marine boatyard at Hesketh Bank, just outside of Preston. I spent the following two weeks sanding, painting, varnishing and anti-fouling until she's was finally ready for the water.

I was the happiest man alive on that day. I mean, I'm sure it's a fantastic feeling to take delivery of a £100,000 Benetaeu, but you've not spent hours in the wind and rain, scraping, cleaning, painting, struggling to put the mast up, rewiring bits of radio coax, and probably not spent every spare penny you didn't have to do all that. Nope, this boat was as good as any £100k cruiser in my eyes.

Now, before I continue with Jalina I'm going to head off on a tangent for moment. During my hunt for a boat, and even when I'd dismissed the idea as a dream, I was going out on sailing lessons with a chap called Geoff from southport sailing school. He's a marvelous guy, an ex school teacher who'd, in his retirement, ended up teaching people how to sail dinghys on Southport marine lake. I remember the first time I went out with him, which was the first time I'd set foot in a boat since partaking in an ocean youth club weekender when I was in school. It was blowing a force 4, and whilst Geoff was happy to take me out on the lake, he was a bit reluctant to let me on the tiller, because dinghys don't have keels to keep them upright, and Southport marine lake isn't the kind of water you really want to get a mouthful of. I think the wind must of calmed very slightly while we were out, so he decided to let me have a go. I was hooked instantly, this was great fun, and despite nearly dunking us both in the water after failing to let out the main sheet when a gust hit, I thought I was getting the hang of it quite quickly.

I went on to do a few lessons with Geoff, and basically now knew how to sail... obviously, sailing on a lake requires far fewer skills than sailing in the sea, and I'm not stupid enough to think otherwise, but I could sail in any direction the wind allowed and was thouroughly addicted to it all by now and wanted to gain some experience for myself by buying my own dinghy. Although I can't recall exactly, I think looking for a dinghy is probably what landed me on ebay when I saw Jalina, who's by now looking rather sexy (seriously, the Leisure 17 is a beautiful boat) tied to the pontoon at Hesketh Bank.

So, back to Jalina... Every night after work I'd head up the boatyard, just to sit on my boat and watch the ducks and the river coming and going. I even spent a night on her with Sarah and a bottle of wine. Even though it was only March at this point and still quite cold, I was happy to be out in the countryside doing something different, something constructive instead of sitting in the pub all weekend and feeling crap the following Monday.

The weekend after spending the night on Jalina, I planned to take her for a little trip down the river. The rivers Douglas and Ribble joined about a mile away from the boatyard, so I thought I'll wait for the tide, then sail down the Douglas and up the Ribble to Preston docks, where we could grab a quick coffee at Preston Marina before sailing back. I say sail but it was mostly under power because both rivers point pretty much towards the prevailing wind, so anything other than a dead run require way to much tacking or gybing to make it practicle, at least with my inexperience.

A couple of minutes after the bore hit the end of the pontoon, Sarah, me, and Jalina cast off on our maiden voyage. I pointed the boat in the right direction, and Sarah kept me plied with tea. We soon got to the Astland lamp, a marker at the confluence of the rivers, turned to starboard and began to head up the river Ribble towards Preston.

We were now heading almost downwind, so up came the Genoa, and we motor-sailed nearly all the way to Preston. It really was fantastic, I occasionally cut the engine to listen to the near silence as the boat cruised downwind, but knowing that I only had so much time to play with because of the tide, kept having to fire up the engine again to keep the speed up.

Actually, before I continue with the story I'd better explain Preston marina. The marina is built in what used to be Preston docks, a once busy shipping venue that's now bordered by large DIY and leather shops, supermarkets, fast food places and on the oposite side, posh (ish)flats. The marina populates about a third of the docks, and the rest is an open area for berth holders to sail about in as they like, regardless of the tide. To get into the docks requires the passage through the outer lock doors, accross the outer basin, past the debris boom and into the inner lock, wait for the swing bridge and then finally, into the docks proper.

So here we are, about 1/4 of a mile from the outer lock, which we could now see was open. Not long passed before we dropped the sails and motored in through the lock. Now, the following may sound entirely stupid to people who have sailed for years or indeed know Preston at all, but I really had no idea. Since this was just a day trip, the objective of which was a quick coffee then return to the Douglas, I turned left (sorry, to port) immediately after entering the outer lock, the intention being to moor up along the wall and walk to the marina for said refreshment. Well, it turns out that only a channel directly from the outer lock to the inner is dredged, and the rest of the outer basin is full of mud, hidden by a couple of feet of water. Needless to say, Jalina was aground. I quickly spun the forward only outboard around 180 degress and began to try and reverse the boat off the mud, but it wasn't working, so I turned the outboard from side to side to 'wiggle' her stern a bit, which did the trick and she was back afloat again. Around about that time, the outer lock started to close, which really confused me since I thought it was always open...see, there's the stupid bit. The only place that was left to go was through the now opening inner lock, so faced with little choice I headed into it and tied the boat up. Shortly after climbing up the ladders and out of the lock, a guy from the control building walked over and was obviously thinking 'what the fuck is this moron up to' but politely asked what I was doing and why I hadn't answered his radio calls. "Oh, it's not switched on" I replied "I don't have a license to use it". He looked a bit miffed, but was still very polite and explained he was going to move the swing bridge for me and let me into the marina in about ten minutes after the train crosses (there's a steam railway that shares the road bridge). Ten minutes passed, the train puffed it's way accross, and the bridge opened, which made me feel quite special, I mean, they stopped the traffic and swung open a 100ft bridge just for me in my little Leisure 17. Wow!

I moored up on the visitors pontoon and went to the marina shop to proclaim my stupidity. To be fair, they were really cool about it and gave me a coffee while I filled in the paper work to keep my boat there for a week... as it turns out, the lock doesn't open regularly until summer unless somebody prebooks it, so had I arrived on any other day at any other time, the outer lock would have been closed and I would have gone back to Hesketh without a problem. Sods law would have it that somebody else had booked a 'locking' on that day, and the guy in the control building had seen me heading up the river so held the outer doors open just for me, presuming it was my intention to come in - fair enough, why else would I be that far up the Ribble?

Since I was at work the rest of the week I had to book the lock for the following weekend and pay for a weeks mooring, which at that time cost as much for a week as a month did at Hesketh. Still, a lessoned learned, and I did get to spend a few evenings down on my boat at the marina, which was now moored next to some very expensive yachts and motor cruisers. I'm not sure me pissing in a bucket in the cockpit went down ever so well though.