Stewart Miatt

Acres of trees have been felled and gallons of ink have been spilled by different people writing about the north Norfolk coast. It regularly appears in glossy magazines like Country Life, where well meaning celebrities like Steven Fry wax lyrical about the villages and towns that lie along and just behind the coast. These people will be paid oodles of cash to write about little known pubs that serve local food, or how wonderful the same villages are that will then become the next place to be seen in.

I did not hear of Norfolk and its delights in this way, but I suppose that I first heard of it through a good friend of mine when we were playing as our fathers were racing against each other at some Open Meeting in the north of England. As young children growing up in the 1960s and 70s we always went for two holidays in the summer: one was to my Grandparents in Plymouth and the other was Burton Week. Long before I sailed in Burton Week for the first time a good friend of mine, one Martin Jones must have mentioned the fact that his parents along with the rest of the crowd of 12s sailors from Tynemouth used to go and sail at this place called Norfolk each year. I guess Martin must have told me about this, but it was such a long time ago I have completely forgotten what he may have said. If things are then fast-forwarded several years, toward the end of his life; I crewed for the Flying Doctor several times in various races at several venues. It was when I was sailing with Robin that the whole thing about Norfolk reared up again like a sleeping dragon. He waxed lyrical about Norfolk and its delights. Then before he died, Robin asked me if I would like to have Witchwhisper to sail. How could any self respecting 12s sailor in total awe of such a person like Robin turn that offer down. So shortly before his death around Easter time I went up to his house to collect the boat. Robin’s house, garden and garages were full of boats, sailing memorabilia and motorbikes: but that is a story for another time.

The boat was brought south to my parents’ house, many evenings after work were spent retaping seams and trying to sort out any prospective leaks to the boat. To cover a multitude of sins, I painted over the varnish on the boat. This was done purely to cover the difference in colours of the seams where new tape had been applied and the scarfing of pieces of wood where it appeared necessary. All this work was pushing towards one aim: to sail at Norfolk Week and actually find out what it was like after all those years of waiting. Eventually it was the first week of the school’s summer holidays and Norfolk Week was upon us. All I had to do was get there.

To anyone who has been to Norfolk Week they will always remember the large roundabout just outside Kings Lynn, but being a Norfolk Virgin I was unaware of the problems it posed. I had been warned that there were often queues to get round it, but I thought that it could not happen to me, I was immortal, and I was a 12 sailor about to embark on my first trip to Norfolk Week. You can guess what happened when we eventually made it to Kings Lynn; yes we queued and queued for about forty minutes just to get round the roundabout: but once round it was game on and Hunstanton beckoned. Thank heavens that the roundabout has been redesigned and the queues are a fraction of what they used to be.

The actual week of sailing at North West Norfolk is spent at different venues each day having to get up at silly o’clock each day to sail on the tide early in the morning, or else sail in a drunken stupor as the race will be in the late afternoon. Hunstanton is always the first port of call: except for 2007 when it will be at Brancaster. As Tricia Wood once said to me this was NFN or Normal For Norfolk which at the time I did not understand, but having done Norfolk Week a few times since I completely understand now. Obviously, as with any large venue there are always several characters who appear year after year. The majority of these appear to be 12s sailors who provide the largest fleet, thus the largest amount of characters like Patrick Elcombe who has been sailing Norfolk Week for years and years. More will be mentioned about Patrick later. Away from the 12s fleet there are others. Pearl and Dean who sail a Mirror Miracle and have that perma tan colouring that comes from too much time spent in the sun. Due to the slowness of their boat when the sailing is at Wells where there is a long haul to the sailing area that runs alongside a sea wall towards a lifeboat station; they can be seen launching three quarters of the way along the sea wall. Method to their madness or what. Then there is Captain Pugwash, no not our former Chairman Nigel May, but Adrian Tebbutt who is the Secretary of the whole week. A stout chap with a full beard who actually looks more like Black Jake from the Pugwash series, but the name does not fit quite as well. Finally there is Mrs. Plum. No she is not one of the players from Cluedo, but a fruit farmer who must be well into her sixties and sails a Laser. If you want to buy a fruit tree, she is a good person to talk to, but please wait until she gets back from her motorbike trek through Africa.

( http://www.getjealous.com/getjealous.php?go=ninaplumbe) There are other characters, but they pale into insignificance compared to these people already mentioned.

Back to the sailing. Hunstanton is on the east coast, but faces west, so when the sailing is finished, you can either sit outside the club discussing tactics (or why you did not win) and sip your pint of Greene King or eat fish and chips on the village green overlooking the Wash and watch the sun go down. Nor having been paid a wheelbarrow full of money I cannot recommend a fish and chip shop that is any better than the others that abound along the front at Hunstanton, they are all good. Likewise, all that I am going to say about the beer is that at the sailing club it is handy, comes in pint glasses and is wet and tasty. The sailing here along with Snettisham is proper open sea stuff without any banks to get in the way. Hunstanton is a Victorian seaside town and therefore has beach huts or more correctly beach chalets. These are situated very close indeed to the club and are a boon to anyone who arrives armed with kids and the clobber they bring with them. Instead of having to decamp to wherever you have decided to stay for the week, if you have been clever and have rung the town council and pre booked a chalet for the weekend you can easily set down your children. Then you can unpack their bikes, kites, buckets and spades, windmills, Frisbees or whatever they decide they want to play with whilst you are away sailing and recovering from the stressful journey at the roundabout at Kings Lynn. The chalet is also a useful place to put down your sailing bag as it is odds on that you got stuck in traffic at Kings Lynn and the changing rooms at the club are full.

After the weekend’s sailing or more likely following Ian Gore or Steve Sallis round the cans, it is time to pack up the boat and the whole caravan moves on. The venues for the rest of the week as mentioned previously are fixed, but the order in which they are sailed is not, so in no particular order I will attempt to describe them.

Kings Lynn, ah the home of that famed roundabout is the only true river sailing that is done all week. That having been said, Steve Backley would be hard pressed to throw his javelin across the river at the home of the Ouse Amateur Sailing Club. The caravan arrives and parks in an area of a pay and display car park that has been cordoned off. Boats are rigged and there is the usual hanging around to be done. If the race is due off early (anything from 6 o’clock in the morning) people will no doubt have come prepared and may well have changed already. If not then it is onwards to the sailing club. This involves climbing over the sea wall at the end of the car park, past a couple of channel buoys of the type you would not want to hit if they were being used as a mark of a course and across the back lawn of a pub. Then hop across another wall and precariously walk along a narrow path looking down at the mud before you come to the club’s balcony. Once inside the club you think that it is small, but like the Tardis it has hidden depths. If you venture into Ouse Amateur Sailing Club, unless you had taken the Pledge you would not be amazed at the amount of different types of beer that are on sale. From behind the bar itself which is not much larger than a serving hatch that was oh so vogue in the 1960s Mine Host will be able to make you part with your money for up to a dozen different types of beer. The sailing club at Kings Lynn is the only one that I am aware of that has been awarded CAMRA prizes for it selection and standard of the beer it sells. That should be enough to make anybody sit up and take notice, but there is more. During Norfolk Week when the sailing takes place in Kings Lynn the bar appears to be open all the time. Game on I hear from the back, but there is even more to wet your appetite. If you are only going to have one more cooked breakfast before you die, I would suggest one of the places to have it would be here. So what, you may have to wait, but there is always the convivial atmosphere of chatting sailors, good beer and a view across the Great Ouse. Eventually your breakfast will arrive and apologies to any vegetarians that may be reading this, but the plate are loaded with meat and cholesterol. Eggs, bacon, sausage, mushrooms, beans, it is all there and it only appears to be missing the black pudding to top it all off.

Back to the sailing. Sailing here is easy, and it is impossible to get lost on the river as you can only go up or downstream. Oh, there is plenty of tide to contend with; and if you are a river sailor, the boats that you will call water for are just a teeny bit larger than you get usually, as they come from Holland or up the coast from places like Hull or Newcastle just in case you thought that it was all plain sailing here. As well as the usual race that would be expected for the week’s sailing, there is also an added bonus of a long distance race, The Queen’s Plate which will take you from the club in the middle of Kings Lynn to the edge of the Wash proper. Due to constraints of time and tide, this race is sailed on the end of the ebb to help you get downstream to the turning mark and allow you to come back up on the flood tide. But do not forget that saying NFN, because life is not all that simple. As you get closer and closer to the Wash the water levels get progressively shallower and shallower. Last time I sailed The Queen’s Plate, I was planing along with virtually no plate down, the rudder half way up in what seemed to be six inches of water. People in front were veering off in all directions as gusts hit, or being tripped up as they hit sandbanks. I remember seeing my brother capsize in front of me, calmly get out to right the boat and stand in water no deeper than his knees. That is the sort of race it is. John Sears tells a tale of how he sailed with Howard Steavenson in his 14 in this race. That would have been something to see if it was blowing. Imagine a 14 with several acres of kite roaring down the river with no rudder or dagger board and the crew twin wiring and wondering how they were going to negotiate the next gybe in the aforementioned six niches of water. I think dismount and turn the boat bodily round would be the best option in this case.

Once Kings Lynn has been done and digested it is once again time to pack up the boats and move the whole caravan on again to somewhere like Brancaster. At Brancaster we have the delights of two days of sailing in the creeks and lagoon of the north Norfolk coast. Getting out to the start here will involve you sailing through all the moored boats as the tide rips in again up the creek, but once you are out into the sailing area it is not quite as bad. Of course there are areas of the course where you will want to cheat the tide, and if this is when you are sailing on a reach or a run up to one end of the lagoon, it will mean that you will sail very close to the shore. So close in fact that it appears that the likes of Patrick will be sailing over damp grass. When I first sailed at Norfolk some of the 12s sailors had special short boards and rudders that they used here and at Blakeney and Wells. NFN again folks.

The first day’s sailing is likely to be in and around the lagoon, but on the second day there is a good chance that the fleet will be taken out into Brancaster Bay. For any spectators the sailing club is not the best place to view the sailing. Instead drive up the coast about a mile to the Golf Club and walk down along the beach. The beach is huge and there is space for all of Norfolk to come here and build their sandcastles and still leave room for Grandma to sit in her deckchair. This is a place to come once the sailing has finished for the day if you have kids who need to let off steam. The sky is full of kites, people are playing cricket, when the tide is out, intrepid explorers go and look for the sea it is so far away and others just sit and ear ice creams. The ice creams are sold from a caravan behind the beach along with all the other things that you may need for the beach but have forgotten to bring with you.

The beer is good at the club, but I am sorry it is not as good as at Kings Lynn. In its favour, Brancaster Sailing club does offer a different type of bill of fare from that on regular offer at Kings Lynn. The sailing club usually offers a seafood supper on one of the days that the Norfolk Week caravan passes through its doors. If as a hard playing National 12 sailor bacon and egg butties are more up your street then you will not have been forgotten. As soon as the racing finishes on both days the galley is hard at work cooking up eggs, bacon and sausages to be put into sandwiches and eaten as soon as money has changed hands. It is here and at Wells that you may see some strange but wonderful boats. These are the Sharpies. A gaff rigged twenty-foot long narrow wooden boat with an enormous metal centreplate that was sailed in the 1948 Olympics at Torquay. There are not many Sharpies in this country that are still sailing, but those that are still sailing appear to be based along the Norfolk coast. Maybe it has something to do with being close to Holland where there are fleets of them still racing. One joker re imported one of these boats from Australia where they had altered the boat in true Antipodean style. Gone was the regular gaff rig to one with a fully battened mainsail, and in was brought a trapeze as well to make it sportier. These magnificent beasts are something to behold when they are surfing down the waves that appear when sailing is held in the bay.

If we move just a bit further east along the coast we come to Burnham Overy Staithe. Overy Staithe is located at the eastern end of the lagoon area that is sailed on at Brancaster. At both places there are tales of races that are between these two venues. Most of the time it is impassable other than by going round the seaward side of Scolt Head Island, but if you look at your Ordnance Survey map number 132 that you will have bought unless you have been to Norfolk several times previously you will see there is a channel between the two lagoons. If you have not bought such a map and intend to do Norfolk Week, I would suggest you go out and buy one. The clubs may all be on the coast and the coast road is easy to follow, but it is when you get into the towns that it really pays. Besides that it is much cheaper than a GPS for the car that does not tell you about one-way streets or sends you to completely the wrong place. Overy Staithe lagoon is much smaller than the lagoon at Brancaster, and it is for this reason that the whole caravan does not descend on Overy Staithe. The 12s are lucky beasts as we have our own special race, The Jenny Lee Trophy that is sailed for here.

When you arrive for the first time just outside the boathouse that used to double up as club house when Peter Beck was running the boathouse you will see this tiny stream with children wading across the ten feet of water to the salt marshes on the other side. Much scratching of heads will then ensue as you think that it is impossible even in Norfolk to sail on anything quite as narrow as that. Do not be fooled, when the tide turns and starts to come in, it is like what happened to the Ruhr valley after the Dambusters breached the dams. You can literally see the water coming in and the stream widens by the minute. As you are waiting for the tide to come in enjoy an ice cream from the van at the edge of the hard, or watch all the kids fishing for crabs of the edge of the staithe itself. Overy Staithe is truly a lovely place and it is easy to understand why people rave about this area of Norfolk. Once launched it is at places like this that the art of kedging comes in to its own. A paddle is a useful addition to your arsenal of items to have in the boat as it can save a lot of wading along the very muddy banks that line the creek. This is one of the areas that the double-bottomed boats fall down on at the minute. We have not sailed them for long enough to know exactly where to stow the paddle. In a single bottomed boat it is easy, a previous owner will have screwed in a couple of clips to hold the paddle in place. Failing that, it is usually tucked under the thwart, but that does not seem to be the right place in a double bottomed boat. Maybe it has something to do with the floor being flatter and a larger area, but the paddle just rattles around.

When the sailing is done, there is no bar to hang about in and discuss tactics. Moreover it is usually fairly late at night after you have packed up the boat ready to move on to the next destination, so I have always retired to a pub. There are plenty of them round here, and most of them seem to have something to do with Nelson. He was born a couple of miles away in Burnham Thorpe where the church still flies a white ensign of the type that was flown on ships at the Battle of Trafalgar.

The following day will see the whole caravan re convene at another venue. It will be either Wells or Blakeney, but for the sake of convenience I will describe Wells first. Having found the club at the end of a narrow road at the end of the quay, you will need to park by the old cockle sheds or on the disused railway (NFN again folks). Rig the boat, wonder where Pearl and Dean are: do not worry they have thought of this and are already rigged and ready to go over by the lifeboat station that you can just see on the horizon and then it is nearly, but not quite time to go. Wait for the tide to come in, do not be fooled by all the eager beavers who set off early. You will be one of them the first time you sail at Norfolk, but after a few years you will come to realise the benefits of local knowledge. These guys will leave it until it is just right and then set off, saving themselves from sweating buckets trying to get round the corner by the Town Quay or not falling down the invisible holes as you walk the boat along the creek in what seems like 15 knots of tide. As with everywhere along this coast the tide really comes in at one hell of a lick.  Once you are out in the sailing area you will have a fantastic time sailing round marks with names like Motor Car. Some joker took his car onto the beach and then could not get it out fast enough when the tide changed and started to come in. When the tide is out most of the sailing area is completely dried out. There is this rumour that Patrick Elcombe likes to walk the course the day before the sailing goes on there just to find out where the shallows are. This is part of his game plan and goes a long way to answering the question as to why he does so consistently well at Norfolk. Ask either of the Pukka Pie boys about sailing at Wells and hitting sandbanks; and what it can do to your rudder if you do not know where the shallows are to be found. I saw the course dried out this year and was talking to an old retired fisherman who asked if I had walked across the creek at low tide to get to the sea. My reply was no, and he then continued saying that he did it a couple of years previously and the return journey to the water’s edge took him four and a half hours. When the tide does turn it races across the sand and it would take at least a good brisk walk to keep ahead of it.

Sailing finished it is back to the club, pack up the boat again and then it is a welcome beer and a bacon and egg butty. Both are recommended at Wells, but make sure that someone else is driving the car if you are on the beer after the sailing. Do not be fooled by watching the road traffic when you have finished sailing at Wells if it is in the morning. It is the early Rush Hour you are witnessing not the five o’clock one. It is for that reason it is a good idea that some non sailor drives the car, as you will soon be into that fourth or fifth pint before you know it and it will be barely 10 o’clock in the morning. (NFN again). If you have time to spare after sailing and have small kids go down to the beach by the lifeboat station. Fantastic and even bigger than at Brancaster. Ice creams can be bought in the town, but make sure they are well pushed into the cones as the locals get stroppy if your wife complains about this sort of thing when the ice cream falls out. She knows what she is talking about as her family is well into the ice cream making business. I would not fancy the idea of walking up with a couple of ice cream boots or a horses head in bed with me for crossing her family. The best ones are sold on the corner by the old lifeboat station at the town end of the sea wall.

Finally we come to Blakeney. Another impossibly small creek beckons and a paddle is a really good idea if there is not a lot of wind to get out to the sailing area. If for some strange quirk of the tide the sailing does not start from Blakeney town the launching area will be at Morston Quay. The creek is about as large as the one at Blakeney but it is about five times as far away from the lagoon. Car parking at both places is thanks to the National Trust on whose car parks the whole caravan descends. Blakeney is one of those places that appear not to have been touched by time since the 1950s. A word of warning about the parking. Remember that this area is tidal and you will be away from your car when it is high tide. Park the car away from the edge of the water it is so much cheaper on the insurance. I did see one poor unfortunate one year come back to his car and open the door and gallons of water came out. People of all ages fish from the edge of the road into the creek. If they are adults they are trying to catch some special sort of fish, if they are children it will most likely be crabs they are after.

Sailing on the lagoon at Blakeney is very much like sailing at Brancaster when the sailing is done in the lagoon. The main difference here is that you have to be careful of the boats full of trippers off to see the seals. As the seal boats go out on the tide, it will be most likely that your kids will get to see the seals at Blakeney Point before you do unless you choose not to sail at Blakeney.

Food is available at the sailing club, but if you fancy something a little different there is always the caravan parked at the end of the area where the boats are parked. Here you can (at a price) buy much more exotic sandwiches than you would expect at the sailing club.

Blakeney offers the last chance to sail on a lagoon before it is off once again to the open sea at Snettisham.

Snettisham suffers in that it is at the end of the week and until recently was held over two days. This generally meant that most people did not do the Sunday as they had given up their lodgings for the week. Sea courses are on offer at Snettisham, along with lots of Wash mud if you are late back to the shore after sailing. The courses are easier to fathom here than at Brancaster, Blakeney or Wells as they are simple triangles, it is working out where the buoys are when your eyesight is not as good as it used to be that is the problem. There is no problem launching here as it is straight off the beach, it is the return journey that is worse. Pulling the boat back up onto the rubber mats across the shingle is like to walk through treacle.

Trying to get to the sailing club gets harder the closer you get to it. Following the coast road is easy as is following the sign for Snettisham Beach. It is the road to the beach that is interminably long and then when you think you are there you have to negotiate the bumpy road through the caravan site that makes the bumpy road to Trent Valley seem like a well maintained motorway. Once you are there the final hurdle (literally) is the sea wall and into the dinghy park. It always seems to be hot at Snettisham for some strange reason, and as there is no cover at all as you are bang on the edge of the sea the only cover to be found is in the bar. Ice creams are a bit more difficult to find at Snettisham than at all the other venues of Norfolk Week to the extent that as yet I have not found anywhere that sells them within melting distance of the club.

Once the sailing is over here at Snettisham Norfolk Week is over for another year and all you have to look forward to is laughing at all those people trying to get round the roundabout at Kings Lynn.