The Bris Sextant

Everyone knows about Sven Yrvind,  the brilliant,  crazy Swede who wants to be the first to sail around the world in a 10 foot (3 metre) boat of his own design and construction.

Fewer people know that he designed a small instrument for measuring the time at which the sun reached a pre-calibrated altitude.   This is useful for plotting a position,  with an accuracy of a few miles,  at sea.   He called this instrument a 'Bris Sextant'.

Sven Yrvind with his Bris sextant

It's not a sextant,  strictly speaking (possibly a fixed solar goniograph),  although it does a similar job.

'Bris' is the Swedish word for 'breeze':  at least one of Sven's boats was called Breeze.

Almost no-one,  it seems,  has built or used a Bris Sextant (or,  if they have,  they haven't written about it),  although there are some very learned discussions of its reflections and angles on the internet.

So here goes . . .

Humanure

July 2015

It might have started 60 years ago when George Humphris said something about "starving the drains of water".   Sewers need a flow of water,  at a slight angle downward from horizontal,  to keep things moving along.   There had been a drought for weeks,  and a radio personality,  Ted Moult, talked about putting a brick in the WC cistern to save water:  Prince Phillip had made a comment about using two gallons of drinking water to flush away a pint of urine or half a pound of faeces.

George Humphris was,  for a while,  a dairy farmer.   His cattle produced milk,  urine and faeces.   The first he sold,  of course;  there was a great demand.   But the second and third were not waste products:  they were a valuable resource which kept his land fertile and the grass growing.

At one time lavatorial flushing water was drained into the sea,  without any treatment.   Now (2015) it's settled to remove the solids,  oxygenated to remove as many chemicals as possible,  chlorinated to kill pathogens and then recycled as drinking water.   It has been said that the Thames passes through seven people before it gets to the sea.   (In Cambridge the effluent is pumped into the River Cam whence it drains directly into the sea.)

Even so,  we end up drinking chlorine;  enough progesterone (excreted by women taking contraceptive pills) gets past the purification process that record numbers of British men are being feminized,  partially sterilized and getting gynecomastia.

To paraphrase Joseph Jenkins "Why do we still defaecate into our drinking water?"

On a visit to Sweden in the 1960s John and Margaret were given tea by a young man building his own house.   He had built into the house a "waterless lavatory".   The concept struck a chord in two people interested in sanitation,  sewerage,  and compost! It's all about bacteriology.

Then,  fifty years later,  the "flushing" lavatory on the narrowboat began to give up.   In reality,  its waterpipes had become furred with limescale,  and it no longer rinsed the bowl properly.   If the pump pressure was increased,  the pipe joints tended to part:  if the pressure was reduced,  the lavatory would not rinse properly!

Its plywood plinth had begun to disintegrate and looked nasty.

There was no way to know how clean (or,  more accurately,  how unclean) the holding tank had become.   It was tedious to empty and to rinse.

The problem was not helped by a tenant who never learned to use it properly.

Surely there was a better way?

Several subscribers to the Wooden Boat Forum had begun to write about "waterless closets" and "composting toilets".

And then there was the Humanure Handbook by Joseph Jenkins

Chapter 8 (The Tao of Compost) described in detail how to build and maintain a waterless toilet,  and how to compost human manure and urine for use in the garden.

It should be noted that urine from a healthy person is sterile:  it contains no bacteria,  pathogenic or otherwise.   Shortly after excretion,  bacteria from the air contaminate stored urine and use the nitrogenous chemicals for their own growth.   The infected urine smells,  often strongly.

Faeces from a healthy person,  by contrast,  is full of (one might say almost entirely composed of) bacteria.   They have turned undigested food into a state suitable for elimination from the body.   Of the 400 or more species of bacterium present most are perfectly harmless in the bowels of the person from which they came,  but some of them are dangerous,  even deadly,  in the mouth and stomach of the same person or other people.

StJohn is a keen kayaker and canoeist;  he has been a keen climber.   He often camps in wild places,  and carries a small trowel to dig a hole for his faeces:  all wild campers do this.   Covered with a layer of soil and grass,  no faeces are visible to offend the eyes;  no smells escape to offend the nose.   More than that,  many of the micro- and mini- beasts in the soil enjoy the nitrogen and digest the faecal bacteria,  destroying the pathogens along with all the others.   These beasts include beetles,  worms,  fungi and soil-bacteria.   Within days the buried faeces have been consumed and anything which remains is humus;  that black gold for which gardeners build and maintain compost heaps.   By burying them,  StJohn and his wild-camping friends compost their faeces.  Their sterile urine simply soaks into the ground:  its fluid waters the plants and its nitrogen nourishes them.

Compost,  and its main constituent,  humus,  are valuable resources.   If our faeces and urine can be turned into compost why do we use drinking water to flush them to waste?

Perhaps the answer to the narrowboat question was a dry toilet,  similar to that described by Joseph Jenkins?

August 2015

A single 25L plastic bucket arrived from Amazon.   £8.55

The instructions say that 4 are needed,  but let's start with one.

The seat came from B&Q.         £12.50

Needed to be chosen carefully,  as not all seats are flat underneath.

None of them have supports which can be twisted.   Cut off one of the pins and turn them.

The hinges also came from B&Q.

Plywood from Ridgeons. 3/4" (18mm) birch exterior ply.    Wow!     £86

It arrived on Friday,  and was cut into the right sized pieces within an hour or two.
More than half left over for another project,  so,  say £30?
Construction ply would have done the job and would have been cheaper.

A flour scoop came from Amazon (actually,  from China).

It took two days to assemble and paint.

Sawdust is not easy to get,  but compost (astonishingly) is free.   Nip up the A10 to Amey Cespa's recycling place,  turn left at the first roundabout,  then right at the second and help yourself!

Margaret volunteered to try it in her bathroom.
She said it was very comfortable:  just the right height.
She used it almost exclusively for five days.   No offensive sights or smells,  and no flies.   The only smell is the slightly earthy,  natural smell of the compost.
When the bucket was full,  it was emptied into the outdoor compost bin.  Then the whole thing was moved into the instigator's bathroom.   He,  too,  found it comfortable and easy to use,  and used it exclusively for over a week.

Only when both Margaret and John are happy will the system on the narrowboat be changed.

Rosie

Fifty small children,  two narrowboats and 16 'teachers'!

Peter had been approached by the school to take the tots for a trip on the river.  He'd organised it well.  A couple of gazebos and six tables on the bank gave them a place to draw and colour their drawings.  In small groups they were given pots of bird seed and allowed to approach the water and feed the ducks,  geese and swans.
The pub had agreed to let them use the facilities.

Groups of 10 were kitted out in life jackets and herded onto Rosie and Little Rosie. 
"Can I leave my bag with you,  Miss?"
"Please Miss,  may I sit next to Rachel?"
"I'm going to climb through the window!"
"I don't like boats.  I'm scared!"
"I can't swim!"
You have to admire primary school teachers:  they are organised,  caring,  thoughtful,  patient.

Two parents or mothers to each boat with the hopeless task of keeping them seated and keeping their arms and legs inside the gun'l'.  The safety briefing is always fun:  there are three fire extinguishers which you won't need (even if you know how to use them!); please don't let them fall in the water;  and everybody must test the whistle on the life jacket to be sure it works (but don't use it again unless someone goes in).  It seems cruel:  blow the whistle when the skipper says so,  but not when you want to.
Each child was issued with a list of likely sightings (swans,  fishermen,  moorhens,  horses) and a pencil to record every sighting.  This seems to be good educational practice.  Whenever one sees organised groups of schoolchildren they have checklists.

Away from the mooring,  winding in the river,  and down toward the lock.
Lots of ducks,  many moorhens,  several horses,  a pair of swans and a heron.
Joggers,  fishermen,  single sculls and a double scull.
Winding again before the lock and back to The Plough.
And the Dragon Boat race had started!

Three times for Rosie and twice for Little Rosie.
The children squealed with joy and excitement;  the Dragon Boat paddlers sweated and struggled;  the teachers worried and coped;  the boatmen steered and moored.

What a wonderful morning!

For the two narrowboat helmsmen the extra factor was the Dragon Boat race taking place at the same time and in the same piece of river.
So,  fifty small children,  16 mothers or teachers,  30 corporate day-outers,  five boatmen,  two narrow boats,  two Dragon Boats and one safety boat.  Plus,  of course,  the First Aiders for the sweating Dragon Boaters.  Could this possibly end well?

It started well.
The children embarked and disembarked safely.  None of them fell into the water.  All of them went away with a ticked checklist (although none of them saw the heron) and most handed back their pencils and crayons.

It progressed well.
The youngsters squealed and laughed all the way there and back.  The helmsmen enjoyed the half-hour voyages.  The teachers and parents seemed happy.
Someone won the Dragon Boat races.

It ended well!
The lifejackets were all recovered (none used),  the children were reunited with their coats,  bags and friends,  the facilities were used and,  finally,  the bus was caught.
Peter and John took down the gazebos and returned the picnic tables.  The boats were tidied and closed.

It was a truly satisfying morning.

Rosie at Jesus Lock

Trees

The life of a Tree Warden is very hard.

The sun shone,  the birds sang,  the barley waved and the peas and beans rustled.   The jogger called a cheery “Good Morning!” and the runner nodded a breathless greeting.   The young lady dog-walker kept her eyes averted,  wanting to be solitary:  the couple spoke and waved from 20 metres,  petting the dog,  making a small fuss.   The milk cows grazed and gazed.   A fishing heron protested raucously and flapped ungainly into the air.   They have a way of flying away in a big circle and,  when the dangerous creature has gone,  settling again in almost the same place.   The pair of swans in the lode was too busy puddling duckweed through its pair of bills to notice.   But the mallard fled,  for worlds looking like an X-wing fighter,  straight out of Star Wars.

The fen goes endlessly to the flat horizon,  with its wind turbines and pylons,  growing quietly to itself.

Ah,  the trees.

A Lime,  in flower,  waiting to drip its sickly sweet smelling sap onto any polished car that might venture that far into the fen.

A Crab-apple,  its fruit swelling from the rain and the sun,  but not yet coloured.

A few small Oaks,  planted along the headland next to the drove;  and a magnificent old tree in the middle of a barley field at the head of a ditch.

A grove of Blackthorn,  grown into trees,  not hedgerows,  with the sloes swelling.   Jocelyn will want to know about these for her sloe gin later in the year.

Some of the hedgerows are wild,  neglected,  growing toward becoming trees.   Others,  along the paved drove,  have been meticulously trimmed.   Some people rail against the flail which the farmer uses to trim the hedges but,  used carefully,  and at the right time of year,  they do a good job.   By now,  early August,  the flailed hedges look very smart.

Fen Ditton

Boule is a very gentle game.
Or it might be pétanque.
References are vague on the differences between the two.

At the Plough and Fleece, in Horningsea, they play pétanque in a gravel rectangle bordered by old railway sleepers. They (they all seem to be very serious men) take the game very seriously. Do their lives (or their pockets) depend on the outcome?
In Fen Ditton it’s all very different. For one thing they are all very much older. They also seem to be so much happier. They play on grass, where the roll of the boule is unpredictable.

Perhaps the fundamental difference is grass and gravel.
In the gravel pit, accuracy of throwing is everything. The boule do not roll, even an inch (Sorry. Centimetre). Where you throw it is where it lands, and where it scores (or not). The result is greeted with dead silence; whether approval or scorn is impossible to tell.
The silent, serious men drink beer, from pint glasses. Beer: that ghastly brew, the sole purpose of which was to disinfect tainted water.

On grass you may be dead accurate as the boule leaves your hand, but then the grass and the ground take control. Players squeal with delight, or howl with anguish as the boule meanders around the imperceptible bumps and hollows.
The excitable pensioners eat fish and chips (the A10 chip van stops nearby, by special appointment to MargaretW) and mostly drink wine, from plastic glasses. Wine: that heavenly nectar, the sole purpose of which was to disinfect tainted water.

Then there are the jokes.
Just how many variations of a risqué joke can twelve retired people make on the word ‘boule’? And every one is so very, very funny.

Astronavigation

The art,  science or craft of finding one's position using a sextant and several books of tables.

A sextant is an optical device for measuring the vertical angle of the sun,  moon,  planets and stars above the horizon (the sea horizon,  not the hills).

It's a difficult and dangerous instrument to use.

Difficult because it requires a degree of knowledge and skill,  first to find the correct heavenly body,  and second accurately to bring the reflected image of that body down to the horizon.

Dangerous because if you get the light filters wrong you'll burn out your retina.   Seriously.   Literally.

In passing,  you might note that a cheap sextant costs twice as much as a decent hand-held GPS instrument.   A good sextant costs 10 to 15 times as much.   It's also 10 times bigger and weighs a lot more.   Astonishingly,  it's more easily damaged by salt water than most GPS sets.

Out of Brancaster

Brancaster is a little village on the North Norfolk coast. The staithe is a gravel track and beach onto a tidal channel which, at low water, dwindles to a muddy creek winding through the salt marshes.

Sailing is alive and well. The higher parts of the bank, not quite reached by the Spring tides, has rows of sailing and rowing dinghies. There is a yacht club, and the yachts are moored in the creek. Across the road is a well-advertised RYA training centre.

The Harbour Master is a laconic, friendly man who clearly knows the creeks and marshes well. He once knew, and sailed with, Frank Dye: that is testimonial enough for any sailing man. He gave the impression of ruling his littoral empire with a firm hand: he wasn't going to let Opal into his water until he was sure her skipper knew what he was doing.

She arrived fairly early, to a deserted staithe. As she was eased onto her trolley, her gear loaded and her mast stepped, sailors stopped to admire, to comment and to ask. The process of rigging takes twice as long at the water's edge as it does in her home driveway. Everyone takes an interest.

Eventually, with the car parked and the trailer padlocked, Opal slipped into the water. Her wheels were moved from under her keel and stowed above the stern locker. Her skipper made himself comfortable in the after seat, and she floated out into the moorings.

The Mirage drive is very deceptive. In calm water like this Opal glides along remarkably quickly. The muscular effort is far less than paddling a canoe or kayak.

East of the moorings, her sail was unfurled. Despite the absence of a boom Opal sails fairly close to the wind. Not as close, obviously, as a Bermudan rigged dinghy, but what she lacks in windward ability she gains in speed. Only in light winds need the sail be fully unfurled.

The channel at Brancaster curves in a long bend Eastward through Northward and then Westward, widening as it does so. North of the creek which runs East to Overy, the channel is exposed to the North Sea. At this state of the tide, about two hours before high water, the outer banks were covered; the wind turbines turned slowly in the haze.

A twenty-two foot Jaguar, under engine, turned abaft Opal's stern as she tacked to the North-West, the two crew calling a cheerful greeting.

A little gaff cutter with tan sails (perhaps a Cornish Shrimper?) followed Opal tack for tack, but falling behind. As Opal turned toward the West and over the bar, now safely under several metres of tide, the little cutter sailed N'East to play and tack under the lee of the banks.

Now clear to the North of the bar and the banks Opal began to feel the short swell of the shallow North Sea. She has a way of rising to the coming wave, climbing the face, cresting the ridge and then smacking half of her eighteen feet down into the following trough.

Roughly in the spot where the fairway buoy used to be, Opal's skipper noted the bearing to the Golf Club and its lighthouse, the angle of the approach channel and the breakers over the banks to the East. He furled the sail, broached the coffee flask and opened his packed lunch.

The early Autumn sun was warm, the breeze gentle from the N'East. The padded seat was comfortable, the motion soothing.

At the top of the tide a couple of yachts sailed in from the North and across the bar into the channel. Away to the S'East the tan sails tacked across the flat water in the lee of the banks. The wind turbines continued to turn lazily in the haze.

Smoked salmon and pastrami, with grapes. Black coffee. Cold, clean water. A chocolate biscuit. The sea curiously warm. The swell rising and falling like the heaving chest of a sleeping monster.

Lunch over, Opal turned South and East, bouncing over the short swell and then, in flat water, planing along, windward ama in the air, the hull and l'ward ama fast-skipping across the ripples. A crossing tack with the little cutter, Opal passed well ahead and hurtled onward. As the channel curved she bore away further under the N'Easterly breeze until she was running downwind toward the moorings. Reefing half the sail did nothing to slow her progress. Finally, down to a scrap of triangle, she cruised into her landfall.

Sail furled, Mirage drive out, centreboard and rudder up, and Opal scraped her bows onto the shingle. Her skipper stepped out into inches of water, hauled her dry and unstepped her mast.

Brancaster is a place to visit for a day on the water. Opal is easy to launch and recover, the staithe is quiet and friendly and the water is a calm expanse or the open sea. A perfect day out.



2 October 2015

In the August 2015 edition of Practical Boat Owner Andrew Simpson suggested using the Navionics WebApp for harbour planning.   It can’t,  he suggested,  be used for passage planning because it has no lines of latitude or longitude and none of the functionality of the full application.
It does,  however,  have a scale cursor which can be orientated North-South,  or East-West (or indeed any other direction).   Perversely,  it calls this orientation “Heading”, which it most certainly is not.
The bearing from Brancaster to Skegness is 311°T,  a little over 15 miles.   There and back might be a decent one-day cruise.

‘Woolpack’ PHM is part way along the bearing line,   6 miles from Brancaster and about 10 from Skegness:  well situated at the centre of a GPS web for the little hand-held Garmin GPS.

Opal arrived Brancaster 0900 and was rigged and afloat by 0945.   Half a mile down the channel,  the skipper realised that the bungs were not tight and that the hull was taking on water.   He put ashore to drain the water and tighten the bungs.   Was this an omen?   A superstitious sailor might have had second thoughts.

Leaving Brancaster was easy:  East down the channel through the moorings,  North to the channel markers,   West to the golf club and then onto a heading of 315°T toward Skegness.
The presence of the wind farm made bearings and headings almost redundant. It was huge,  and it's presence dominated the Northern skyline.

The morning shone and the sea sparkled.   The slight state of the sea provided a popple which made Opal lively,  and the gentle Easterly breeze kept her moving at 4 to 5 knots over the ground.

A white patch on the horizon might have been buildings on the Skegness coast,  so was kept on a constant bearing.   It turned into a ship,  which was not moving,  but needed to be avoided.   In any case,  the SE corner of the windfarm was kept fine on the starboard bow.
The ship became Stril Explorer flying "restricted in ability to maneouvre" above and abaft the helicopter landing platform.   Either the tide was pushing hard to the North (bearings on a couple of buoys made this seem unlikely) or she was moving sideways to the South?
A crane on her port side was deploying something that might have been an ROV.
Opal passed her to the South,  having found 'Woolpack' PHM exactly where it should have been.
Then a heading of 315°M picked up the Special marker on the SW corner of the wind farm.

Calculation of the tides suggested that Opal should turn for Brancaster at about 1330.   In the event (perhaps a mistake) she  pushed on until 1400,  about a mile and a half from Skegness beach,  before turning SE close hauled.
Was this success or failure?   The objective had been to reach Skegness:  did that mean landing on the beach,  or was a mile away good enough?
The skipper didn't really care:  it was a wonderful day,  he was warm and the boat was behaving beautifully.

On the way back he kept the little boat close hauled,  steering between 120° and 150°M:  this kept Brancaster on a constant bearing of 140°T.   But then the skipper needed to pass water (again!).   This meant furling the sail and the complicated ritual with the dry-suit.   They drifted downwind,   West and a little South,  until,  when the sail was set again,  Brancaster had come to 120°T.   Close-hauled and with significant leeway Opal could not now make the harbour on this tack.

The North Norfolk coast is fairly featureless,  especially in the gloaming,  but a building on the shore looked very like the golf club.   The chart suggested it had a lighthouse?   At what time would the light be lit?   How far East should Opal go before looking for the channel?   Which would come first;  darkness,  the channel or the lighthouse?

As the golf club came abeam darkness fell like a slowly lowered blind.   Random red or green lights,  sometimes long,  sometimes short,  often absent,  hinted at the channel.   Opal crept forward,  against the faint breeze,  with the tide and controlled by her pedals and rudder.   The surf crashed somewhere to starboard (perhaps the shoreline),  and a long way to port (perhaps Scolt Head?).   Now the channel markers became more consistent.   Heading East gradually became heading South and then West.   The Staithe ran South from the East-West arm of the channel,  but the blind of darkness concealed everything.   A yacht,  moored in the channel,  wisely showed an anchor light at the top of the mast.   But it dazzled Opal's skipper and ruined his night vision:   the darkness was deeper than it need have been.
The Staithe could not be found and now Opal was too far West and the flood was running fast.    Turning East,  the Mirage drive made desperately slow progress,  and Opal turned into a pool amongst the marsh grass for a pause,  a rest and a meal:  time to think.   And to wait for the moon.   She would reveal everything.

As the last quarter rose from the Eastern horizon so did the clouds.   Nothing was revealed.

As the tidal stream lessened toward high water Opal again moved East,  searching for the elusive Staithe.   Five times she ran aground on the marsh grass exposed by the falling Spring tide,  and five times the skipper dragged her off into deeper water.   He was exhausted.   It was 1115,  and he had been awake and navigating,  by road and by sea,  for over eleven hours.
A mooring buoy appeared between the hull and the port ama:  he grabbed it,  and made fast the painter.   Time to rest.

The tiny cockpit of a Tandem Island is perfectly shaped for sitting.  The seat can be adjusted to sit upright or to recline.   From it the boat can be sailed,  paddled or pedalled in complete comfort.
It is the worst place in the world in which to sleep.

Shivering is good;  it keeps your muscles working and your body warm.   The time to worry is when the shivering stops.  They kept shining that light,  faint but soul-searching,  across his face.   Was this some kind of cruel joke to keep him awake as he tried to sleep . . . . ?   And that hideous screeching racket,  like seabirds fighting over scraps of fish and chips?  And the smell of stinking East Coast mud.

Two o'clock in the morning.   The seabirds were fighting over worms and shelled things in the mud.   The last quarter was shining through the thinning cloud.

With the tide ebbing,  and the banks exposed,  the Staithe might now be easy to find.
Sitting up and persuading cold,  cramped limbs to work was hard,  but ultimately successful.   Released from her buoy Opal responded to the fierce ebb,  being swept along with no chance of entering the Staithe,  even if it could be seen.   Which it couldn't.   Eventually she came to rest on a sandbank,  and the water became little chuckling channels which dwindled and dried. 
Back to the curled,  cramped,  confined cockpit.

That light is too bright,  but the air smells fresh and clean and the screeching has turned into vigorous honking.

Five o'clock.   The Eastern sky began to glow rosy pink and gold.   The sand was firm (in places).   A fisherman trudged across the estuary,  waded through the river and crossed the marsh on his way to his boat.   The tide probably turned at five and might lift the boat at seven-ish.
He dragged the Hobie into the river and began to haul it upstream.   Every hundred metres or so it had to be pulled across sandy shallows bedded with soft silt (quicksand?).
And finally dawn.   And then the Staithe,  clear and obvious with all the familiar land- and sea-marks to guide him in.

He pulled the boat up onto the shingle,  unstepped the mast,  collected the bag of instruments and guided his groaning legs to the car.   Removing the dry-suit (he'd worn it for nearly 23 hours) was a profound relief.   Comfortable shoes,  and then back to the boat.   Day sailors were preparing their dinghies and outboards.   A small group was helping a newcomer rig his Wayfarer,  and park his road trailer.   An efficient-looking sailor carried a bundle of boat cover from his dinghy to the clubhouse.   The Staithe was waking up to weekend watersport.

At the shingle he watched in disbelieving horror as the Hobie drifted up-channel on the tide.

A group around a Wayfarer confirmed that they had no safety boat to help and would not themselves be on the water for another hour.   Two men with an outboard dinghy pondered on where a drifting boat might end up,  and whether it would be accessible,  and that the channel upstream would be too shallow,  and that it might end up neaped on the marsh.   Perhaps it would float back on the ebb?
The efficient-looking sailor was just that.   He and the Hobie skipper embarked in the tiny dinghy and set off after the errant trimaran.   Twice they ran out of water,  and had to look for another way.   Eventually,  with the Hobie entangled in a mooring line just twenty metres away,  they stuck fast on a bank.   The skipper stripped off his shoes and socks,  jumped in knee-deep and ran toward his boat.   He was barely 5 metres away when it untangled and drifted off again.   And now he was thigh deep in a rising tide. 
The efficient-looking sailor had shipped his oars,  found a deeper channel and caught the runaway!
As he brought it back the skipper was waist deep and preparing to climb onto a moored boat.  Instead he boarded his Hobie,  and steered it behind the tiny dinghy back to the Staithe.   The efficient-looking sailor  brushed away the profuse,  embarrassed,  inadequate thanks:  "You'd do the same for me;  I know you would.   Anyone who wouldn't isn't worth knowing."

This time he dragged the boat out of the water completely,  and up the bank.   He ran to the car,  hitched on the trailer and hurried back to the boat.   It's stern was already in the water!   As he loaded it onto the trailer the Wayfarer sailors launched around him,  oblivious to the ending of the dangerous drama.   The efficient-looking sailor had loaded his passengers into the dinghy and was taking them down-channel to the boat.   Saturday morning,  and life was perfectly normal.

Back in the car park,  he secured the boat,  the trailer and the car for the journey home.   He was aware that,  in his exhaustion,  he had made dubious,  dangerous decisions.   Now everything must be checked and double-checked.   Every part and component must be touched and confirmed.   Today the sea had teased and then forgiven;  the road would not be as friendly.
Even so,  he had to stop after half a mile to fasten his seat belt!
At the little cafe the coffee was hot and strong:  he drank three cupsful,  and then sat in the car to get warm and to let the caffeine do its work.

The road journey was totally uneventful.