STERNPOST

When delivery trips go right

A trip on a temperemental trimaran ends up on the beaches of the Algarve for Dave Selby

May be it’s just me, but in my personal experience I’ve found that there are few more desperate sea creatures than the delivery skipper, as virtually everyone who has ever asked me to crew on a delivery has turned out to be desperate, sectionable, certifiable, self-medicating and quite clearly unhinged. After taking these qualifications into consideration I then ask searching and pertinent questions such as “will it sink?” and “if we don’t, will we stay in nice marinas with showers and nightlife nearby?” Come to think of it, the second question makes the first one redundant, but if the answer to the second is the least bit equivocal or does not contain key words like “Saint-Tropez,” I normally turn them down flat.

Anecdotally, this scientifically proves that the only sea-dwelling organisms more desperate than the delivery skipper are delivery crew, certain limpets and me. However, when my mate Max asked if I fancied crewing for him on a delivery trip from Portugal to the UK I spared him the inquisition and simply said “yes” – once I’d ascertained that Portugal was in the Algarve. You see, crewing is a leap of faith and there’s no delivery skipper in whom I have more faith than I do in Max. What transpired was the most successful delivery trip I’ve ever been involved in.

You see, Max’s track record speaks for itself. Years ago he sailed his own concrete boat to the Caribbean where, upon lifting it ashore, a great big lump of Essex mud dropped out of the hull to reveal what is known, technically, as a bloody great hole. Max, ever the optimist, and a keen environmentalist, is continuing his experiments with Essex mud as the sustainable boatbuilding material of the future.

Moreover, Max has made a career out of delivering suspect yachts that other skippers have turned down. On countless occasions he has handed over leaky boats to the astonishment and disappointment of very well-insured owners who’d already filed their insurance claim. It’s a matter of great pride to Max that most of these boats sank within two hours of hand over. And when they discovered the wreck of the Mary Rose in the Solent, Max put in a very competitively priced tender to sail it into Portsmouth. That would have saved English Heritage a fortune in salvage fees, not to mention a percentage of the income from day trips Max proposed. In short, Max floats boats, and if he’d been on the Titanic it would have been the iceberg that sunk.

And so to Portimao in Portugal, where the sardines are lovely and everyone speaks English, because even the Portuguese struggle with Portuguese. The other thing about Portugal is that it’s in Europe, and we’re not any more, which meant that Max had to stop ILLUSTRATION: CLAUDIA MYATT

eating sardines and get a 50ft (15.1m) trimaran out of Portugal in a bit of a hurry. Mere seconds after we launched one of the two engines in the outer hulls failed. In Max’s book this barely rates as a to-do, as he’s more used to engine failure on boats with only one engine, and with one left, he performed a series of elegant reverse spiralling pirouettes and triple axels to gently nestle in a 60ft (18m) gap alongside the fish dock, then said: “Sardines, anyone?” Halfway through my second sardine, Max poked his head into the saloon and said calmly “All hands on deck, we’re sinking,” so calmly I fact, that I had a third one before ambling on deck to find that we were indeed sinking. In no time Max put a stop to this kerfuffle, locating a water intake that had come adrift, and after several hours bailing we got the water out of the massive lazarette in the central hull. As we headed west into the Atlantic, further minor and routine teething troubles arose, including slack rigging, a swaying mast, exploding genoa cars, four steering failures as the hydraulic unions burst in sequence in 30-knot winds, and a perilous shortage of sardines. All of these, apart from the sardine crisis, Max fixed magnificently, but it was only when we ran out of hydraulic fluid that Max decided to return to port – for more sardines.

“Countless Like I said, it was the most successful delivery trip times, Max has I’ve ever been involved in because it was round about handed over leaky boats to then that quite by chance (Facebook) I rediscovered old friends who lived in the Algarve. So as Max got on with repairs I settled in with Karey and Bob and disappointed their two Westie terriers, swimming in crystal waters, owners who’d basking on golden sands, eating sardines and already filed an insurance watching the sun go down over the sea from their roof-top terrace for a week. In fact I might make it two. That floats my boat. claim.” More importantly, when I parted from Max I hugged him and said: “I know you better and like you more.” Isn’t that what sailing is about?

Judith R

Sale by Classic Yacht Management LTD

Built for a Hollywood movie mogul in 1935 and with connections to European royalty, ‘Judith R’ is returned to the market for sale. She has spent 10 years being restored by her current owners, only her third owners from new, and this is a rare opportunity to acquire a unique boat with stunning lines whose decks were graced with the glitterati of the movie business and American politics during almost 5 decades of use by her original owner. She has modern, updated systems and conveniences fitted under the floors and in cupboards but retains her “streamlined Art Deco” style both externally and internally so looks the same as when she was originally built. Judith R is 57’ (17m) on deck and 56’ at the waterline, with a 13’ (3.9m) beam and a 4’ 6” (1.3m) draft. She has a semi-displacement hull which makes her very stable in waves but allows her to achieve a high speed through the water. She is powered by twin Caterpillar C12 ACERT compact engines giving her almost 1,500 horsepower and allowing her to reach 30 knots in flat water which is not bad for an 85 year old!. She benefits from modern equipment for navigation, safety, air conditioning throughout and even a boiling water tap in her galley. Power is provided by an almost silent 22KVA generator. Available for viewing nr Marlow, Bucks just 45 minutes from London.