SPECIAL REPORT: CHARLOTTE HATHAWAY ON TRADITIONAL SAILING SKILLS

Can learning traditional boat handling skills make you a better yacht sailor? Historic vessel skipper Charlotte Hathaway explains why it can

- Charlotte Hathaway

I came to traditional sailing by accident, but now I'm here, I'm a convert. And that's because sailing traditional boats will make you a better all-round sailor.

Don't believe me? "I agree with the proposition 100% having spent my life voyaging, racing and teaching in traditional craft," says Tom Cunliffe. He literally wrote the book on gaff sailing and pretty much all other sailing topics as well.

Today I skipper the 104-year-old, 100-tonne, former Lowestoft fishing smack Excelsior, which operates as a sail training vessel in the North Sea and is still rigged and sailed authentically. I began sailing less than a decade ago when I dropped out of my previous life working in the arts and moved to the Caribbean, teaching English and eventually living on a little yacht.

I was mostly self-taught aside from occasional hops through the RYA syllabus, and eventually became confident enough to cruise single-handed in the Lesser Antilles. Initially I wasn't remotely interested in tall ships, nor carried away by the romance of an old wooden schooner; I just wanted to sail. But when a role came up on Excelsior as mate, just as I was fresh from achieving my Yachtmaster, the old hands promised me: "If you can sail Excelsior, you can sail anything."

They also sagely pointed out that, while the Suffolk coast could be seen as flat and boring, I'd quickly learn one hell of a lot of seamanship from navigating its tides and sand banks. At 77ft Excelsior can be a heavy and ungainly beast at close quarters, and a headache to manoeuvre, which is exactly why I've learned more sailing her than I have on any modern-rigged yacht.

SEAM'NSHIP SKILLS