Author SP

The Parting of The Ways.

In the early 1970’s I owned a small sailing boat, that I kept moored in a tidal creek on the South Cornish Coast. It was an idyllic place not found by many people. Access was by way of a track that wound its way for half a mile from the nearest road, and opened out onto a small stony beach on the northern edge of the creek, which was about two miles long and half a mile wide. There was only the one beach and it was just a few hundred yards long. At either end trees came down to the waters edge. Looking across to the southern side, fields sloped down to the water. A hundred years before there had been a small jetty at the upper reaches, where sailing vessels from Norway used to trade timber for Cornish tin. However, as the creek silted up the trade died off. The only indication that the trade ever was, is a Public House called the Norway Inn, which is now full of plastic tables, piped music and the greasy chip brigade.

My boat was a class called Silhouette. She was only 18 foot long, with two berths, and was in essence no more a dinghy with a lid on, but I was extremely proud of her. She had looked after me very well for a number of years, and had managed to keep us both safe. Unfortunately I was not so kind to her.

When I had first arrived in Cornwall I had visited the local harbours looking for a mooring. All the Harbour Masters had the same reply, they had waiting lists of at least ten years, and I had begun to despair of ever finding somewhere.

Then one day I went out on my motor bike determined not to return home until I had found a mooring. It was a lovely spring morning. There was still mist in low lying corners of fields and dips in the road, however the sun would burn it off before too long. I had decided that an hour’s journey to go sailing would be acceptable. So I rode to a point on the south coast about an hour away, got the map out, and started to look. I went to every boatyard I could find. Everywhere it was the same. Not a mooring available. By mid-morning it was a lovely day, and I was enjoying riding up and down the Cornish lanes, if not too happy with my lack of success. By late morning  I had reached a large estuary with a town at its mouth. There was no point in going into the town, so I had another look at the map. It showed a couple of small villages tucked away that looked promising. However my query at the boatyards there met with the same response, nothing available.

It was now passed mid-day and passed Opening Time. I came across a small pub on a minor road that ran next to a narrow creek. I ordered a pie and a pint. The Landlord asked what I was doing in the area and I explained my quest, commenting that even though I was not having any success I was enjoying the ride though the countryside.

‘Well, M’Dear.” he said, in a deep gravelly voice, “You go and have a word with Bob

Pizey, he’ll fix you up.”

Bob Pizey, he explained, owned a small boatyard half a mile down the creek.

“Mind you it’s not one of them posh places where every one wears yellow wellies.”

It was all I could do to stop myself from rushing off there and then. Dare I hope that my search was over? I had a drink with the Landlord and then got back on my bike. As I rode down the road the creek started to widen out. After half a mile I stopped, there was no boatyard, then I noticed a turning half way up a hill, but it was going away from the water. However, I had been down so many dead ends what was one more. I drove into the turning and saw that the road sloped down and turned back towards the general direction of the creek. The slope became a hill, and then there, at the bottom, was a boatyard. The road cut right th rough the boatyard, and disappeared up the hill on the other side. On the left of the road there were three large sheds lazily leaning on each other. Coming out of the middle shed, and crossing the road, before disappearing into the water, was the boat slip. Beside the slip was a Motor Torpedo Boat from World War II, which was now doing duty as a jetty.

I went into the middle boatshed. Inside there was a keel boat on blocks, and about ten feet above me in the cockpit, sat three men having lunch. There was total silence. Nothing was said, although it would be fair to say I was getting the vibes that I was interrupting their lunch, and this was in the days before we ‘got vibes’.

“Excuse me is this Bob Pizeys’ Boatyard?”, I asked.

“Yes.” Said a voice from above.

“Is Mr. Pizey here?”

“Yes.” Came down.

“Can I see him please?”

“No.” Said the voice.

“When?” I asked, slipping into their language.

 “After lunch.” It was now a quarter to three.

I felt I had pushed ‘them above’ as far as I could. If I went for the difficult questions, like, when does lunch finish, they might become violent. So I withdrew outside into the sun and sat down. It was rather pleasant looking out over the water at the boats on their moorings. Having spending several hours on the bike and had a couple of pints, I dozed.

I was woken by something pushing into my side. Opening my eyes I saw man holding an oar, with which he was prodding me. He was dressed in very old trousers that had once been blue but now were a riot of colour. Obviously all the different shades of boat paint available. His jersey was navy blue but linked together with a series of holes. On his head was a black woollen hat, and he had a large black beard. He looked extremely fierce. I woke up very quickly, expecting to be told to be on my way.

“Hello, I’m Bob Pizey, how can I help you?”, said a very gentle soft voice.

Over the years I came to know Bob very well and I was always amazed me how he could look so different from the person he actually was. If anyone deserved to be called a ‘Gentle’ man it was Bob. I enjoyed his company and found it very entertaining to watch someone meet him for the first time. They would look at Bob and you could see the caution come into their eyes.

I explained that I had a small sailing boat and was looking for a mooring to put her on.

“I’m sorry but I don’t have any moorings available, they are all taken.”

 An answer I was now very used to. I reached for my jacket and crash hat.

“However I could put a new one down for you, if that is alright.”

There was a long pause whilst the penny dropped. Bob explained that it would have to be further down the creek as there was no more room in front of the yard. This was good news as far as I was concerned. As all the moorings in the creek dried out at low tide, being further down stream meant my mooring would dry out for a shorter time. Also it would not be so far to the sailing grounds of the estuary, and the open sea. He then suggested I go on down the road and have a look at where it would be.

 

So I followed the road, and the road became a track and the track opened out onto the beach.

Within two weeks Bob had laid the mooring and I had my boat on it. I still have the bill. The total amount was £26.27. Two items catch my eye: “11/2 fathoms 1 inch black chain”, would Bob supply anything else and “3 cwt. granite block”. That block would cause trouble.

It happened about two years after I came to the creek

Usually, as I rode my motorbike onto the beach I would lookout onto the water and see my boat bobbing at her mooring. On this particular morning I looked out and saw nothing. My heart stopped. I could not believe it. I must be looking in the wrong direction. No, I was looking in the right place, but there was no boat. I dropped the bike were I was and ran down to the waters edge. Then I saw her, or rather I saw part of her, the tip of the mast. I felt quite ill. She had sunk. I was at a loss to imagine what had happened. There were no through hull fittings to fail. The motor was an outboard that bolted to a bracket on the stern (back), and the toilet was wooden board with a hole in it, that used the same bracket. Quite correctly, the makers decided that no-one would ever want to motor and go to the toilet at the same time.

However it was no use wondering what had happened as it already had. I rode back up the track to the boatyard to find Bob. He was sat in his office. I call it an office out of politeness. It was a large cupboard, full with boat bits, tins of paint, a very old swivel chair, and a lovely large wooden roll-top desk covered with bills, invoices, and boat brochures. Day-light last came through the windows about the time of the plague, and the pin-ups on the walls came from an era when the sight of a ladies ankle drove men mad. Bob was a picture of contentment leaning back in the chair, his feet on the desk, his black woollen hat pulled down to eye level and a very large mug of tea in one hand and his pipe in the other. The pipe was going like a small blast furnace, he took another puff and the cloud base came down a little further.

 “You look as though you have lost half-a-crown and found a tanner.” He said as I came though the door.

I sat down on a coil of rope and explained.

 

“Well you go home and I will give you a ring when we have her in the yard. There is nothing to do until the tide goes out this evening.”

About ten the following morning Bob called, saying the boat was on the slip and to come over. As I came down the hill to the yard I saw her, covered in mud and seaweed looking very forlorn. Bob came out the office, and explained that one of the twin keels had broken off, and that had caused her to sink.

“After I laid the mooring you did dig in the granite block like I said?” He asked.

I felt a chill. Yes I had gone down with a spade, but after taking twenty minutes to walk though soft sand out to the mooring, I had wondered if I was wasting my time. As a bright young man, I was sure that the tide movement, the weight of the block, and the soft sand, would do my work for me. Surely it would sink into the sand within a couple of weeks. I spent an hour digging round and as far under the block as I could get, and left it at that. Now two years later I was reaping my reward.

Later that day at low tide I walked out to the mooring. Originally it sat on the sand some 15 inches high, it had sunk, but not a lot. It still stuck up by at least 8 inches. It had not settled down as I had expected. What must have happened was that as the tide had gone out the boat had settled with one keel on the block and one off.  The keel taking all the weight had given up and broken off and then the tide had come in and slowly filled up the boat. I had failed, it was all my own fault. I had been told what to do but thought I knew better.

Bob repaired the boat and I was back sailing a month later. But we both knew, She and I, what I had done. She was never very happy with me from then on. Every time I went into the cabin I could smell damp sand, seaweed and mud, and we both knew, She and I, who was to blame. We began to fall out. I started to find fault with her little habits. Little habits that I had once found endearing.

When going about she used to lean over a little bit more than necessary before settling to the new heading. I had always seen it as her eagerness to get going, but now I saw it for what it was, a display of bad temper at changing direction. At the end of a day’s sailing, when coming up into wind to pick up the mooring, she used to come to a stop a little too soon in her eagerness to be home safe. Now she was doing it just to make life as difficult as she possibly could. More and more I began to see her true character.

We went our separate ways a few months later. She to a nice young couple with two children, me to a bigger boat. Neither of us found the parting hard.

Spike Parker.

Comments to:  info@ksprobus.co.uk

Date of Article:  29/05/2025

Submitted by: RBL