CRUISING ENGLAND'S EAST COAST RIVERS

A solo, septuagenarian sailor rediscovers the joys, magic and mystery of England's East Coast rivers, sailing over four bars and under two bridges

- Anthony Newman

The East Coast is an acquired taste for sailing and, after fossicking about the creeks and swatchways of the estuaries over the past 65 years, I have acquired it. My personal favourites are the northern rivers in Suffolk – the Deben, Alde and Ore.

They are quieter and evoke the history and mystery of the area more profoundly than their southern neighbours. They are protected, too, by the shifting shingle bars at their entrances. These have always held a certain notoriety amongst sailing folk.

The Pilots’ Guide to the Thames Estuary, 1934, was not encouraging, suggesting that ‘a passage over the bar (into the Ore) is very dangerous, while with any sea the result might easily be disastrous.’ Modern pilotage books are more inviting, advising that ‘The bar and knolls shift frequently and the tides run in and out of the rivers very strongly indeed, these combine to make Orford Haven difficult, but no more difficult to enter than the Deben’. Many boats now cross these bars regularly and safely.

My family began sailing the Deben in the 1950s, chartering a Deben Cherub from Russell Upson at Everson’s boatyard, now Woodbridge Boatyard. 

A MODEST CRUISE