Creek Crawling

Tony Smith’s Modest Adventures in Traditional Sailing and Navigation Capture the Timeless, Unhurried Essence of East Coast Single-handing

- Tom Cunliffe

The Thames Estuary with its wilderness of creeks, channels and relentless tides has long been the subject of literature. Something about this place, half-land, half-sea, scarred by man, yet always bowing to natural forces, has stirred the souls of writers since before Maurice Griffiths made it famous to all sailors who can open a book. The latest in this line is Tony Smith who took on the 16ft gaff cutter Shoal Waters from her redoubtable owner, the late Charles Stock. Sailing so small a craft without an engine in such challenging waters demands a special sort of seamanship. In this extract from his book Sea-Country published by Lodestar, he describes a single-handed night passage from the River Blackwater to the adjacent Crouch by way of the drying, unlit Ray Sand Channel. Like Charles Stock before him, Tony does not trouble his GPS. Instead, he relies on a World War II landing craft compass, Admiralty charts with Ordnance Survey maps for passage planning, what he can see with his own eyes and what he can feel using his sounding stick. Things have changed since Griffiths’ day, not always to the benefit of the traditional navigator. Town lighting has multiplied and the extensive wind farms of the Gunfleet Sands and the London Array first confuse Smith as he works seawards, then reassure him once they are identified. As we leave him at dawn, it’s easy to make unfavourable comparisons with our own auxiliary-powered lives. Here is a patient man who shakes hands with wind and tide rather than groping idly for the diesel to assert the illusion of a man-made superiority.