Tuesday 23rd April 1963: Yarmouth Yacht Station - Oulton Broad

17 miles
Wind: East Force 4
Cloudless sky - Slight haze

At 06.30hrs the Captain and Mate were roused by the Harbourmaster. They got up and took the Ship’s Dog into Yarmouth where cigarettes and hot tea were obtained at a cafe. They then returned to Vagabond and waited for Mr. Liffen who arrived at 08.15hrs in his boat Girl Evie, which moored just above Vagabond alongside a barge. Coffee and tea were made for everyone. Mr. Liffen was a typical Norfolk fisherman, quiet almost to the point of being taciturn until the talk got round to boats when he suddenly became completely alive and talked without any urging at all. His boat was like him - old, rough, workmanlike and completely dependable. The ebb had finished running now and the water was nearly slack, so the mast was lowered, moorings were cast off and at 09.00hrs Vagabond dutifully followed Girl Evie through the Yarmouth bridges and on to Breydon Water.

On Breydon Water Girl Evie left Vagabond safely moored to a navigation post and the crew set to, preparing for the day’s sailing. The coastal freighter Polly M., from London, passed by on her way to Norwich. She appeared to be pretty heavily laden and looked massive beside Vagabond. The sail was hoisted and there followed an idyllic sail across Breydon Water with a clear sky, a following wind, sunshine and that bluey- greeny hazy look about everything which seems peculiar to Norfolk and is part of its magic and charm.

Polly M passing Vagabond on Breydon Water

Breydon Water is the remnant of a vast estuary known in Roman times as Gariensis. It teems with water fowl and sea birds. It has been silting up for centuries but a deep wide channel is maintained right across its four miles length. Posts mark the edge of the channel and to stray beyond these, especially if the tide is on the ebb, is to invite stranding on the sand and mud flats until the next high water. Berney Arms mill was sighted at 09.30hrs - it is quite a landmark hereabouts. At 10.00hrs Vagabond reached the end of Breydon, the confluence of the rivers Yare and Waveney. At 10.15hrs Vagabond was moored at Burgh Castle Yacht Station. The Mate and Cook went into the village for provisions - milk and real oven baked bread - absolutely delicious and not so easily come by these days.

The Bottlewasher cooked the breakfast while the Captain shook out the reefs in the jib and the mainsail and then went for a walk with the Ship’s Dog to Burgh Castle. The castle was built in 100AD by the Romans and it was then at the mouth of the estuary Gariensis which stretched inland to Norwich, Beccles and Bungay. Caister on Sea is the site of the other guardian castle though little remains of it. At Burgh Castle the remains are most impressive. Walls and towers stand fifteen to twenty feet high and are ten feet thick or more, made of flint and decorated with courses of red tiles. The Romans certainly knew how to build. It would be surprising if some of the Jerry-built houses thrown up today last as long as Burgh Castle. There were two wherry skeletons rotting at Burgh Castle, one on the saltings on the west side of the river and one by the Yacht Station - shades of the Albion. At 11.00hrs the crew had breakfast after which, at 11.30hrs the Vagabond set sail from Burgh Castle, heading up the Waveney on the flood for St. Olaves. In Seven Mile Reach we saw reed cutters skilfully loading bundles of reeds into (or onto) their long, flat boat. The boat appeared to be a cross between a barge, a wherry and a punt from what little we could see of it under the immense pile of reeds. This seeming overloading of the boat is reminiscent of ‘the stackies’, Thames barges which used to run from the Essex rivers to London looking like sailing haystacks piled high with hay from the fields of Essex for the horses of London. How much nicer than the tankers which nowadays fulfill the needs for the fume-belching cars which are slowly strangling that city.

A Rough Plan of Burgh Castle

Gariensis in Roman times

At 13.30hrs St. Olave’s bridge was in sight and Vagabond was moored below the bridge and the mast lowered. Due to the peculiarities of the tides on the Norfolk rivers (explained in full on another page) the flood had now finished on the Waveney and the ebb was pouring through St. Olave’s bridge. As the Captain knew from previous hard won experience that it is impossible to quant a boat through this bridge against the tide more subtle tactics were called for. All the spare rope in Vagabond was tied together and it proved just long enough to reach from Vagabond, under the bridge and to the hard above the bridge. The Mate towed the line in a borrowed dinghy - this was quite a struggle as the ebb was going out at about three knots and a length of wet rope is quite a weighty thing to try and tow. It was finally through, and with lots of willing hands from a large motor boat Vagabond passed under the bridge and was moored safely while the mast was hoisted once more. Provisions - meat, fresh beans and lime juice (against the dreaded scurvy) were obtained from the village where the Ship’s Dog caused a slight diversion by paddling across a pavement of freshly laid concrete. The Captain and the Mate walked to St. Olave’s station which would appear to have come under Dr. Beeching’s axe even before he had decided to use it as the track was all torn up and the station was deserted. They continued their walk along through the sandy, pine-grown Herringfleet Hills to the river. The railway had passed over the Waveney on Herringfleet swing bridge but now all that remained were the very large brick-built piers which once supported it. The only sign of life seemed to come from an old railway hut from which emanated a series of buzzes and electrical whirrs etc. Could it have been an old time railway signalman, forgotten and left behind, and constantly trying to raise the next signal box on the deserted line? Both Captain and Mate returned to the Vagabond slightly saddened by what they had seen and realising that the vast network of railway lines built by Victorians to reach practically every village in England was gradually disappearing with so little fuss that it was only when one came across a deserted fragment of the system that such as St. Olave’s, and had time to wander and ponder a little, that the fact strikes home that a way of life is disappearing before our eyes. At 15.15hrs the Vagabond set off from St. Olave’s for Oulton Broad, against the wind. The support piers of Herringfleet Bridge took the wind from Vagabond’s sails and it was touch and go whether she made it against the tide - three or four tacks with very little wind were needed before the panic was over. The piers looked very hard and dangerous with the tide giving each one a bow wave of its own. Vagabond then carried on to Somerleyton swing bridge. This bridge has not come under Dr. Beeching - it was closed, ready for a train to cross, so Vagabond beat up and down the river below the bridge waiting for the train to cross and the bridge to open. Open it did and once again there was a slight panic as there was the bridge super- structure as well as the piers to take the wind - and the tide was still full against Vagabond’s progress.

At one stage the crew had visions of Vagabond drifting against the bridge and holding up the main line from Yarmouth, Norwich and Lowestoft. Once through, Vagabond beat towards Lowestoft. The wind was rising and as the sun went down it became very cold. It was a long hard beat for the last six miles from Somerleyton to Oulton Broad. The Cook and Ship’s Dog retired to the warmth of the cabin while the Bottlewasher remained, bravely, in the well - swathed, but still shivering in a number of blankets. At last Oulton Broad was reached and crossed and Vagabond brought up on her mudweight on the Broad while the mainsail was lowered. She slid into the yacht station under jib alone as the station was on a lee shore. The jib was lowered at the crucial moment and Vagabond moored at 18.45hrs. The ship was cleaned down and mooring fees were paid up after which a very welcome supper was eaten. A sea fog came down and everything was extremely shivery. The Ship’s Dog had what was probably his briefest walk of the whole trip and everyone was snugly bedded down by 22.00hrs.