Sailing the Norfolk Broads

“Stop! Don’t go! Please don’t leave us! I do not have a clue what I’m doing!”

Those were my thoughts as the Rev. Neville Khambatta stepped off our boat onto a dory driven by his wife, Val, and headed back to shore, abandoning us to our fate. We had barely had 10 minutes’ training when I suddenly found myself in charge of a 29′ 2″ wooden boat with a huge gaff mainsail, navigating a narrow river while dodging a steady stream of traffic. The wind was blowing Force 4–5 (11 to 21 knots), a perfect sailor’s breeze if you know what you’re doing but downright terrifying if you’re new to a boat and sailing in a confined setting. For the first time in ages, I felt truly like a fish out of water.

It was the Easter holidays, and my wife, Anna, and I had decided to head to Norfolk on the East Coast of England, on the other side of the country from our home in Devon, for a change of scenery. Nearby was the vast network of marshes, reed beds (see sidebar, page 30), and inland waterways known as the Norfolk Broads. It’s been a popular sailing area since the early 1800s and holds a special place in the British sailing psyche: a place where families and Sea Scouts can charter small- to medium-sized boats for sailing or motoring without fear of meeting any big waves. It’s also famous for its big skies, bucolic scenery, and abundant wildlife.

On the spur of the moment, I contacted Hunter’s Yard, which since 1932 has been running a fleet of rental boats—hire boats, as the British call them—in the town of Ludham, on the Broads to see if they had a boat available for the weekend. In no time at all, we were aboard LUCENT, a beautifully built wooden replica of a type of craft that has been prevalent on the Broads for more than 100 years. Shallow-drafted, with a long, low-aspect fin keel and a spade rudder, a large gaff main and small jib, low headroom belowdecks, and a pop-up coach roof, the Broads yacht is an institution in itself.

To read the rest of this article:

Click the button below to log into your Digital Issue Access account.

Read the Issue

No digital access? Subscribe or upgrade to a WoodenBoat Digital Subscription and finish reading this article as well as every article we have published for the past 50-years.

Subscribe Now