The Mighty Jeru

Peter McGrath of Project Beagle fame shared this with me. It's a painting of his Foxcub in Whitby Harbor. Read on. It's one of the best yarns about a boat I have read in ages. If you enjoy it, please donate a "Jackson" ($20) or a "Darwin"  (10GBP) to Project Beagle. Better yet, blogroll and/or link to him so that we can spread the word about this fanstastic endeavor Pete, you're a bloody good storyteller, mate!

The Foxcub 18 was designed by Uffa Fox, ex choirboy and all round 
iconoclast who designed and launched boats from a decomissioned ferry 
in the River Medina, Cowes, Isle of Man, which is sailing central in 
Britain.  He was a  terrific racer, who knew the heavily tidal waters 
of the Solent well.  He found inshore eddies, and dipping into these, 
hurling through arse-puckeringly shallow water won him many a race, 
to the chagrin of his competitors,  Until one noticed  how he judged 
it: his wife was seen up to her knees in water, acting as a human 
tide gauge and racing mark, watching her husband hurtle by.

Competitor, let it be known that he knew Fox's secret and come the 
next race, Fox was toast.  Sure enough, Mrs F was there, up to her 
knees in water, so the smart competitor went for the shallow inshore 
eddy.  And went aground in a welter of falling rigging, oaths, 
ridicule and ignominy. Then Mrs Fox got up off her knees in the ankle 
deep water while Uffa, with his usual 6 inches below his keels ailed 
to victory.

Mine, Jeru, is named after the name Miles Davis gave to baritone 
saxophonist Gerry Mulligan after the Birth of the Cool recordings.  
Growing up during the 70s, brains turned to mush by glam rock, I 
remember coming across an LP of four American guys outcooling the 
French in Paris, 1954puttng it on the family's mono record player and 
thinking, 'Now this is music.'   So when I bought the Foxcub, Jeru it 
had to be.

Whitby, on the north east coast of England is a frustrating place to 
sail, a great place to live.  The mobile date of Easter was decided 
here, as was the vexed question of priest's haircuts at the Synod of 
Whitby in 644.  It gave the world James Cook: yes that James Cook, 
the one who finished his life being eaten in the Sandwich Islands, 
and after his death it was said there were no terra incognita - no 
undiscovered lands.  He learned his sailing here.  So did I, in the 
rough, tidal, murky waters of the North Sea, and off Tate Hill pier I 
moored Jeru,bursting with pride and joy.

You see, Tate Hill Pier is where, in the book, Dracula landed.  
Forget Hollywood, Van Helsing, James Woods Vampires.  Dracula came  
into Whitby harbour  on the Varna, helmedthrough the storm by a dead, 
cross clutching man lashed to the helm.  Dracula, in the form a black 
dog leaped into Tate Hill Pier before embarking on his career of 
neck-munching.   Jeru's was a floating mooring, so I had to row out 
to her in a small tender ('Walkin'  Shoes', my fave Mulligan track), 
so small that when I got in her she had about 4 inches of freeboard, 
and my 400 yard row used to regularly bring the harbourside footpaths 
to a standstill, so precarious seemed my progress.

One evening, one sunset, force three evening I rowed down the harbour 
for a snatched dusk sail on Jeru.  The harbour was dead calm, the sky 
was that deep blue shading into gold that you can't describe, far 
less paint.  I was dazed with the beauty of it all, looking forward 
to my hour reaching up the coast as the sun set oner the Yorkshire 
Moors  Then a cigarette-roughened voice bellowed across the harbour: 
'Where yer goin?'  A - er - lady, 40's, stout, red faced with a pair 
of aged parents.

Me, rowing on, reverie shattered: 'I'm going for a sail.'
Lady: 'Tek us with yer!" (Us means 'me' in this context)
Me: 'Sorry, no room.
Lady: 'I'll show yer me tits if yer do!'
Me: 'Sorry, still no room.'
She pulled up her jumper and showed me anyway.  Grizzly.

Anyway, Jeru is a good little sailor.  I sometimes sail for a living: 
skippering 50 - 80 foot youth sail training ketches with peak and 
throat halyards, twitchers, topsails hoist and trimmed by entire 
fishing nets, four jibs requiring travellers, bead blocks, 
preventers, whole bloody snakes honeymoons of ropes. Lovely under 
sail, but o my god how complicated.

Jeru has one kicker, two sails, three sheets, two winches and one 
toppling lift. I can sail her on my own sometimes and give badly 
trimmed 26 footers a fright (thanks Uffa).    And, when the wind 
ain't bad, I can sail her off her mooring, usually with an audience 
of tourists standing on Dracula's pier.  And as I prepare to slip, 
back the jib and drop away from the pier before sailing into the 
offing that Cook saw, I just think, well, look at the header of this 
blog: 'There is nothing, nothing finer...'