Yachtsmen's role in the Great Flood

A train was stopped when it collided with a bungalow planing down a breaking wave

- DICK DURHAM

Hundreds of laid-up yachts were holed, crushed or simply dashed to kindling in the Great Tide which flooded both sides of the North Sea 70 years ago this year, drowning 2,401 people in the Netherlands, Belgium, Scotland and England.

The death toll included seamen aboard small coasters, fishermen and passengers aboard a capsized ferry.

The worst hit place in the UK was Canvey Island in Essex, the low-lying Dutch-reclaimed marshland in the Thames Estuary, where today a towering concrete sea wall dwarfs the houses below and shuts out the creeks on the seaward side where my gaffer Betty II is moored.

Here 58 either drowned or died from hypothermia as they huddled on the roofs of their pre-fab bungalows.

Yachtsmen from clubs including Thurrock YC; Colne YC; The Royal Burnham YC; The Royal Corinthian YC; The Island YC; Dovercourt and Harwich YC; Leigh-on-Sea Sailing Club and many others were called upon to help.

My father, Richard, was one of many sailors who volunteered their dinghies to help in mop-up missions as soon as daylight came on 1 February and the coastguard, police and other emergency services realised what had happened.