Before we went on our sailing course, we practised knots - Jean, who's a member of Semi Colons, gave me a small book of knots - Jean goes sailing in her daughter's yacht - she's in her eighties, and her eyes are startlingly blue - she told me once that she was crewing on a yacht in Poole Harbour - they found themselves becalmed in the path of an Imperial Airways flying boat - they were towed out of the way just in time - the huge noble craft was bound for India -
I would sit at home, weaving the slim rope into shapes with strange names, listening to ghost stories on BBC I Player - I mastered the bowline, during a reading of Lost Hearts - I would tie ropes to chair legs - I secured imaginary fenders to armchairs with clove hitches or two half hitches -
Anne read somewhere, or someone told her, that a good sailor could tie a bowline in the dark - she perused, intently, Tom Cunliffe's Complete Yachtmaster -
Once on board Indian Wizard, however, we found that ropes could have minds of their own - when asked to coil a warp, I found that I was handling a willful snake, intent upon forming a figure of eight - clove hitches were an arcane mystery - no, Chris, Sue would say - the rope goes round the winch clockwise -
Yet rope by rope, and knot by knot, I did at last gain the mastery - a moment came when Sue said - Chris - quickly - secure those fenders with bowlines in the locker -
The yacht was leaping from turquoise wave to turquoise wave - the jib was reefed - yet I secured the white fenders - the bowlines were neat and tight -
Well done, Sue said - it was the most marvellous thing, to hear those two words -
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