‘I spent the next four hours winching her further and further up the mast’ – Pete Goss

Pete Goss recalls using tides to his favour - whether that be making better passage timing or tricking a watch partner

When I was a ship’s boy in the Royal Maritime Auxiliary Service, an old-timer once offered a piece of advice: ‘Make the tide your friend, boy.’ I’ve embraced it ever since, for it makes sense to work with nature as opposed to against it.

Not all, it seems, are this way inclined, as illustrated by an anecdote from one of the harbourmasters who buzz about in Guernsey’s St Peter Port, bringing order to the daily influx of various nationalities, sizes and abilities.

Recently, impervious to advice that a 1.7m keel won’t cross the sill with only a metre of water above it, a skipper imperiously pronounced that he was going in. Gunning the engine, he hit the sill at five knots. Not to be deterred, he backed up and had another go at it! Some people just don’t get it.

Tracey and I have been enjoying the Channel Islands on Oddity and find that with my recovering wrist supported with a sports splint, we can get by under engine and jib alone.

Alderney was our first port of call and as the tide fell it reminded me of an incident from my early teens on the sail training yacht Falmouth Packet. The crew were split between erks and those of perhaps more refined parentage. I, through being sponsored as a ship’s boy, not parentage, naturally fell into the category of an erk.

One of the public school girls was a caricature. Beautiful, sophisticated and smelling wonderful as she radiated youthful arrogance. Lofty opinions on the great unwashed were imparted with the absolute conviction of naivety. Her whining pitch when things didn’t go her way put everyone’s teeth on edge. An anchor watch was required and I know not why but I was volunteered to take the evening watch while everyone went ashore, and guess who I was paired with.

Blessed with an earnest demeanour, she took our responsibility with all seriousness and in this I spied an opportunity. Picking a bright light just above and beyond the harbour wall, I taught her how to use the hand-bearing compass and nefariously explained that the skipper expected a continual watch on said light.

Of course, to great agitation, the light soon disappeared below the wall on the outgoing tide. I spent the next four hours winching her further and further up the mast. Making the tide my friend gifted an amusing and peaceful watch!

Oddly enough, once the cat got out of the bag, we became the best of mates; it turned out she had a wonderful sense of humour. Indeed, her generosity of spirit taught me never to judge a book by its cover. I guess that’s what youth training is all about.

On leaving Alderney for Guernsey we decided to embrace the Swinge, which has a frightful reputation, with ten-knot tides and nasty standing waves.

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Despite it being neaps and doing the numbers a couple of times, it still induced a degree of trepidation as we were sucked in beyond the point of no return, particularly as standing waves started to breach the horizon. I knew it would be fine but there was no denying that I still felt a tickle of adrenaline. As friendly as you make the tide, it is completely indifferent to a sailor’s fortunes.

My final abiding memory of big tides in the Channel Islands is an epic pier jump in St Peter Port. It was while working on the Royal Marines Sail Training Yacht with a crew of novices, having rowed ashore at what happened to be high tide. After a lively afternoon in the pub, we returned to our little Avon dinghy and one of the lads was absolutely stunned that it was now 30 feet below.

What does a Royal Marine do with a belly full of beer and no idea how things are done at sea? It was like watching a disaster unfold in slow motion as my desperate grab brushed his sleeve. All I could do was watch his graceful launch. He hit the target dead centre and I shall never forget as the dinghy folded in half, with bow and stern rising to clap him on either ear.

It’s one of life’s little cameos that’s never left me, and no he didn’t go straight through. The boat simply opened back up like a flower with him chuckling in the middle as if he did it every day.

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