Ripping Yarns

The sixth sense

This is a bit of a yarn that was relayed to me about 30 years ago by an old fisherman workmate of mine in Ilfracombe, North Devon, England. His grandfather used to run coal over to Ireland from South Wales in an old sailing ketch at the turn of the last century.  They had a crew of 2 men, a boy and a dog. To navigate a sailing vessel of around 100ft length in the unpredictable Irish Sea would have taken great degrees of navigating and seamanship skills and a good weather eye. The method they used to navigate was by setting a course and lighting a candle that they kept in a box by the binnacle. When the candle burned out, the skipper would be called up; he’d have a look around and order a new course to steer!

They were often in a bit of a quandary as to their precise position, which was also compounded sometimes by the presence of strong tides or thick fog. This being the case the old man would order the boy to cast a bucket into the sea and bring it on board. After gazing into the bucketful of seawater for a few minutes, he would light up the old clay pipe and ponder a while, maybe taking a few more inspections to confirm his opinion.

“We’re too far North!” he would bellow, “bring her off the wind 2 points.” And they would shape new course to always arrive at their destination safely.

There was a great deal of respect for the skipper and confidence in his intuition, a ‘sixth sense’ that we have either lost nowadays –or choose to ignore.

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