Exploring the east coast in the sailing barge 'Thalatta'

By Hervey Benham.

'It really is another world...'

The first glimpse of THALATTA shows her lofty topmast soaring over the riverside cottages as the school bus nears the quay. How huge she seems as we come aboard! Shall we ever understand still less handle this tangle of heavy ropes, these great brown sails? Below decks in the spacious hold the hammocks swing from massive deck beams as we stow our gear in our home for the next five days. The engine starts, the mooring ropes are cast off and coiled down on the hatches, and as THALATTA moves off down the tideway we are still only passengers. But now we are called to set the topsail. We tail on to the topsail sheet, and as we heave and heave again we see the canvas creep out to the end of the great sprit. Right, that will do! Now the halyard. What a lot of rope there is and how heavy it seems as the head-stick climbs to the topmast head, where our big house-flag flutters proudly in the wind!

More like sailors

The mainsail and foresail are less exhausting for they have to be dropped down from aloft instead of being hoisted, but by the time we have hove on the main sheet till the last crease is out of the mainsail we feel puffed and ready to sit down on the hatches. We have red ochre sail dressing on our hands and clothes, but already we feel less like passengers and more like sailors. Now the engine can be shut off, and we move silently between the channel buoys, red on one side and green on the other, past yacht moorings, and little trawlers working under a swirl of noisy gulls. Now our ship begins to bow and curtsy to the open sea. Perhaps we are bound south to visit Burnham and lonely Paglesham village, or across the Thames estuary towards Rochester.

An afternoon's sail

Perhaps we shall head north towards Harwich harbour, an afternoon's sail along the Essex coast. These Harwich wharves are on the site of the shipyard where Pepys's Navy was built - as indeed was our own THALATTA. Pilot launches and tugs bustle across the tide to the giant cranes of Felixstowe docks, lightships lie here peacefully refitting, and we see North Sea ferries arriving and bright-painted container ships from all over the world.
Maybe we'll sail further along the shingly Suffolk shore to enter the Deben or the Alde, or make a shorter voyage to the backwaters of Walton - Artuhur Ransome's "Secret Water" - to anchor in a creek behind a marshy island shimmering with blue sea lavender.

"Strangely content"

It all depends on wind and tide, for this new world is ruled by the tidetable, not the clock. The waters we are sailing move everywhere, one way with the flood and one way with the ebb, and we must get used to moving with them. As THALATTA sails into her anchorage the mainsail is hove up to the mast. The foresail is dropped on the foredeck and finally the toopsail is let go before the big anchor plunges to the bottom with a roar and a rattle and Thalatta is again at rest. When we climb into our hammocks we are tired with the strong air and hard work but strangely content and full of the excitment of a new experience.

Deserted Islands

Next morning it is time to start our projects. Maybe we shall go ashore in the ship's boats to study plant life on the shingle banks, or the salt-marsh birds; perhaps we shall be asking local villagers for their memories to record the changes in life since thier childhood. There are docks bustling with foreign ships and all sorts of cargoes for us to study, old forts and deserted islands waiting to be explored. Then our ship must be away again, and this time, as well as setting the sails, we have to man the windlass and expend any spare energy on cranking up THALATTA's anchor.

Memories to last a lifetime

The five days pass all too fast. No two are alike, for sometimes we are at sea in a strong wind, which is thrilling and even a river in a silent calm, which is so lovely that we would like it to go on forever. When we get back to port we are no longer passengers, but THALATTA's crew. All that rigging is no longer a mystery but soemthing we are proud to have handled - though we still treat it with respect, and wonder however it was all managed in trading days by two men. As we take our gear ashore and climb back into the bus we realise we have been to places and seen and done things unlike anything we have known before. We have enough memories and experiences to last a lifetime. For we have indeed had five days in another world.

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