This vessel was a marvel of engineering, with a thick, heavy skin made of five laminated layers of canvas and plastic. It took several steps and some time to put it together, though. When the bags were opened, and the pieces laid out, I watched my father pushing the V-shaped helm section of the hull into the front end of the skin. He did the same with the transom end, pushing that to the opposite end of the skin. Finally, having put the necessary pieces together to form a rim round the gunwales, we could press down onto the central part of the structure, which was still standing erect, rather like a tiny pyramid, such that it sank into place, locking in position whilst also stretching out the skin to perfection. If we wanted to sail as against row, we had to strap on the keel and add the two masts and their three sails. A rudder could be attached, too. The rudder, if added, was operated by one of us who would pull on two lines running along the bottom of the hull. It was a masterpiece of design: a boat in a bag!
Our sea-faring sailing trips didn’t last for long, though: just the once, in fact! It was hard work to get the boat out into the ocean, pushing our way through the incoming waves, which did their best to upturn both us and the boat, sending us all back onto the beach. Eventually, we managed to get far enough out so as not to be a danger to any swimmers. I went with my father and my brother, but I didn’t feel safe. We didn’t have PFDs in those days, and the boat was rocking all over the place, as wave after wave crashed over the hull. I was terrified, thinking that we would all drown, weighed down by the water filling the boat. I could see my mother on the beach far away, and I can but imagine that she, too, was frightened to see what was happening to us. We were afloat, but my father couldn’t cope on his own in the sea. My brother and I were not a great help, not knowing much about how to sail. I realized that my father didn’t, either! Sailing on a calm, flat, land-locked lake, had not prepared him for the vagaries of the Indian Ocean. We were relieved to be on dry land once more.
However, it didn’t take me long to notice that my mother was anything but happy. She was upset, declaring that she had been scared that she was going to lose all of us to the ocean waves. She was quite desperate to persuade my father not to venture out there again, and because my father adored my mother, and didn’t want to cause her distress, he must have agreed. One thing, for sure, I can never recall taking the boat to Beira again. From then onwards, my father’s sailing was confined to Lake Mac, as we called it, where he could fish to his heart’s content, and from where we all knew he would return safely.
