Fran Gifford Talk at Tamesis Club
by John Dunkley 4 Feb 2011 19:18 GMT
Fran Gifford tells how she sailed round Britain in a Wayfarer © John Dunkley
Was it a coincidence that 72 people turned up at Tamesis Club, Teddington, to hear Fran Gifford tell the story of how she sailed round the UK in a Wayfarer dinghy in 72 days? Fran, who learned to sail at Tamesis in a Cadet, crewing for some of today's leading helmsmen at the club, attracted one of the largest audiences ever to attend a Thursday evening club supper and, after many questions, won several rounds of applause for her amusing, fascinating and sometimes alarming talk.
Fran said that in 2007 she was racing National 12s at Brixham when a fellow helm suggested it would be an interesting challenge to race from Brixham to Salcombe. The idea emerged that it should be possible to circumnavigate the whole of the UK in day sails of a similar distance. At the RYA Dinghy Show in 2009 a friend suggested she should visit the Wayfarer stand where they were selling boats which had not met the measurement requirements for racing.
She took delivery of a boat named Viper on 4 May 2010 and set off on 15 May on a clockwise rounding of the UK to take advantage of the prevailing SW winds. She had previously contacted sailing friends to ask them to crew for her and received over 60 positive replies. Arrangements were made for 22 to join her at varous destinations.
Starting from Waldringfield, Suffolk, and sailing between 25 and 30 miles a day, they reached Penzance by 25 May, rounded Land's End, called at Lundy Island, Wales, the Isle of Man, went through the Crinan and Caledonian Canals, along the east coast of Scotland and did not reach England again until arriving at Newcastle. Some days they were on the water for up to 12 hours and covered nearly 50 miles.
She spent 27 nights sleeping in the homes of friends or family, 14 nights in a tent, six nights in sailing clubs, three at RNLI lifeboat stations and one in a shipping container. She had a boom tent for the boat, in case she had to spend the night at anchor, but never had to use it. They sailed in up to 30 knots of wind and were stormbound in Peterhead for several days.
Her worst day was coming out of the harbour at Wells-next-the-sea in Norfolk at four in the morning with mast high waves coming from every direction. She would usually not go out it the wind was above 30 knots or if the shipping forecast was predicting a Force 7. Her next worst day was having her outboard engine stolen in South Wales. There were also difficulties when she discovered her boat's rear buoyancy compartment was leaking.
Money raised by Fran's voyage was donated to the RNLI and to the Sri Lanka charity Shining Life. She was introduced and thanked by Tamesis Vice Commodore Stewart Colley, and a collection was made for these charities. She willl also be giving her talk on both the Saturday and Sunday at the RYA Volvo Dinghy Show on 5 and 6 March.