'Kim' under sail

At long last I have a couple of photos of 'Kim' under sail scanned in, so that I can show just what she looked like. In the first one, Graham is at the bow, I am sitting just forward of the main mast, and Mum is also on the coachroof. This is also the sail that we took JC on, and he is standing next to the helm facing the camera.


Ahem, yes, well obviously the mainsail and mizzen had seen better days but Dad was a dab hand at repairs and didn't see why we needed to replace sails if they could be made good. We always used the storm jib because it was more comfortable for our day-charter guests, easier to keep her on an even keel and saved on rum punch spillages on the teak decks, which were a pain to scrub off.

'Kim' would fly along at 10 kts on a beam reach and to windward could still plough through the sea at 8 kts, though the automatic bilge pumps had to work harder when we had a good wind due to the downward pressure on the mast step, which was of course, below the waterline.

Occasionally when there was very little wind, we entertained our guests by lowering a long line over the side that trailed behind by 50' or so, and jumped into the sea, much to the consternation of our guests, who would assume that we had fallen overboard. Then we would swim like hell for the trailing line and get towed behind just for fun. Dad didn't like it much when we missed the line and he had to go about and come back and get us though.

When the time came for lowering the sails we had a system, I looked after the jib, and the boys did the mizzen, both sails lowered at the same time for style. Then Dad would lower the main and we three and mum would stow it tidily, whilst Dad returned to the helm to hold the course.

Tending to the anchor was my job. We had a 56 lb CQR on rope, and no anchor winch so I had to haul it up by hand, which was no mean feat. Graham would deal with the dinghy, (which unlike the rubber dinghy shown behind 'Kim' in one of the photos above, was a large cumbersome aluminium one with sharp edges, useful for ferrying our guests to and from the shore), to prevent it from denting the topsides as we went astern. If the topsides did get dented then it was one of our jobs as kids to fill the dents, sand them down and repaint, to keep the topsides looking as smooth as a fiberglass hull. We were proud of our handiwork and therefore extra careful with the dinghy.

So many memories come flooding back as I gaze at these photos, but I shall finish here with my favourite photo of Dad at the helm during our day-chartering days.