Sunday 21st April 1963: Potter Heigham - Horning Ferry

9 miles
Wind: South East Force 5
Clear sky - Sunshine

The Mate roused the Captain at 04.00hrs remarking that the wind had dropped. In reply the Captain said ‘How about a cup of tea then?’. The Mate snored loudly and the boat slept peacefully on until 08.00hrs, when the Mate finally got the cup of tea. Breakfast was at 09.00hrs and then the Vagabond and her crew lay at moorings until 11.00hrs . . . . . . . .

. . . . . drying out clothes, ex ercising the Ship’s Dog and lowering the mast in preparation for quanting through the two bridges at Potter Heigham. At 11.00hrs moorings were cast off and with the Mate steering, the Captain started to quant Vagabond through the bridges. A friendly motor boat offered a tow which was immediately accepted and all went well until the towing motor boat was within fifteen yards of the road bridge . . . .

. . . . when another very large cruiser suddenly appeared coming the other way. Vagabond’s tow, being smaller, wisely steered away but forgot she was towing Vagabond. She put her engine into reverse and stopped rapidly, but Vagabond carried on and the bobstay from her bow to her bowsprit carved a neat channel in the gunn’l of the towing boat and nearly decapitated one of her crew. The bridge was eventually safely negotiated and so ended another panic all round. Below the bridge the mast was hoisted and the reefs shaken out of the jib. The mainsail was left with one reef in and Vagabond was ready to set sail at 12.05hrs. It was a hard beat out of Potter Heigham down the Thurne, past Thurne Dyke to Thurne Mouth and then a swooping running and reaching sail up the Bure.

While running in Old Staithe Reach we met ‘The Albion’, the only sailing wherry left in Norfolk in sailing condition. She is owned by the Norfolk Wherry Trust and is used as a sailing holiday centre for young people in the Summer and as a trading wherry engaged in the the traditional fetch and carry work of the wherry during the winter months. The wherry originated from the keel, (keol) a Saxon boat which survived until the 19th Century. The keel had a square rig but eventually the fore and aft rig was imported from the Low Countries. The keel’s mast was stepped forward, its high stem and poop were flattened and the wherry was born. The gaff rigged wherry was soon found to be handier in confined waters than the square rigged keel and the latter became obsolete. The heyday of the wherries was in the 1890s when it was estimated that three hundred of them were working the Broadland rivers. G. Christopher Davies, in his classic ‘Norfolk Broads and Rivers’ (1883) says: ‘No Broads scene would be complete without the presence of a wherry, which is perhaps the most picturesque and graceful of all sailing goods-carrying craft and certainly the swiftest and handiest of all which voyage on smooth waters. . . . . To see one coming before the wind down a narrow channel . . . . or creeping along the weather shore with her sail sheeted home, going closer hauled than any yacht and doing all her steersman knows to slip through a ‘scant reach’ without tacking - she is a picture of grace and strength.

By means of these wherries there is a large and constant traffic carried on these rivers. They are sailing craft of from twenty to seventy tons burden, long and shallow, having one tall mast and a huge sail, the rig being on the principle of that known as Una rig except that there is no boom. They are sailed by two men, or a man and a boy, or his wife or even by only one man . . . . There are a great number of men employed in this kind of navigation . . . . a great weakness of theirs is a fondness for tea . . .’ Perhaps the Captain of the Vagabond was imbued with the wherryman’s spirit when he asked the Mate for his 04.00am cup of tea! Horning Ferry was reached at 15.30hrs. by which time the crew were more than ready for lunch. The Ship’s Dog was walked and the Captain and Mate walked into Horning village to obtain an efficient bilge pump as the high winds and hard driving were making Vagabond’s timbers work and she had made a deal of water.

A pump was obtained from Ernest Woods’ boatyard, and after twenty minutes solid pumping she was nearly dry. The pump was returned and the whole ship’s company went into Horning for stamps, milk, ice-cream, dog-food etc. Supper was at 19.30hrs after which the Captain, Mate and Ship’s Dog retired to the Ferry Inn for one two quiet noggins. They returned to the ship at 22.00hrs with supplies for the crew and all eventually got to bed at 23.45hrs.

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