All Aboard the Skylark

Surprise! It's me, Boating Bear Eddie again. I did promptly finish the canal boating posts as requested, but I have some other boating news to share with you.

Earlier in the year, we moved up in the boating world. For a while now, we'd been finding our Otter sailing dinghy, Tarka, lovely though she was, a bit too small on two fronts:

firstly, our minders kept wanting to come sailing with me and my fellow boaters, and they do take up rather more room than us bears,

secondly, the boat wasn't big enough to take an outboard motor and sails at the same time, yet we really wanted to motor out to the Blakeney Pit sailing area from Tarka's Blakeney Quay boating home, where we had to race, and fight, the tide.

After a fair bit of research, I decided that a Wayferer sailing dinghy would be just perfect for us. At the start of the year we came across a nice man who refurbishes Wayfarers and does a rather good job of it. The first boat we enquired about had already been sold, but he had another one coming in, and a modest deposit reserved it for me.

We had to wait a while for the renovation to complete, but as it was winter, there was no hurry. On one of the coldest days of the year, we went over to the St Neot's area to collect our new boat. It was a very exciting day and she looked splendid, but as it was still winter, we tucked her up in an elderly friend's garage.


We then had to find a good home for Tarka. We were all very fond of Tarka so wanted her to go to a family who would use her and appreciate her.

Fortunately, we found the perfect family fairly quickly, through a mutual sailing friend. The children had been on a sailing taster session and liked it so much that they had joined Hickling Sailing Club to learn how to sail. The parents thought they should learn too, and needed a simple family boat to take out on the Broad.

Fortunately Tarka fitted the bill, and not so long ago, they all came round to collect Tarka and to have a lesson in rigging her ...


I think I made it look sufficiently easy and they seemed to take it all in and were very excited to have their first boat. I had a tear in my eye as Tarka was hitched up and we waved goodbye, but it was great to know she was going to a good home.

It was now time to release our new Wayfarer from hibernation and to get her out to her new home at Morston Quay. The guys and I, plus our minders, have had a great few months, choosing a name, buying an outboard and getting everything bedded down during our first few trips: initially motoring out to see the Blakeney Point seals and, more recently, sailing.


Here we are rigging the boat for the first time; as you can see, we chose a rather fine day for it. I was in seventh heaven!

You'll be hearing lots more about our sailing adventures, but for now I will just let you know the name we decided on for our new boat. She is called Skylark as it is a seemed a good name for a Norfolk Boat and also because I just couldn't resist being able to say, "All aboard the Skylark?!''.

Back soon, lots of love Eddie xxx