Yachting Monthly Article - April 1995

Some five years ago I achieved two of my ambitions - I bought a Folkboat and an Old English Sheepdog. I had never really considered how the two would get on together. Sure, Eric Hiscock sniffily advises against taking a dog cruising but Tristan Jones had one and he had a Folkboat as well. Perhaps we would do the odd UK cruise, and after all the Round The Island race has been described as the one where all the old seadogs take their best friends in their Folkboats for an annual race (with due reverence to first and second in this years race - both Folkboats).

I tried to train him as they do on the Dutch canals and have him jumping ashore with the warps. Instead he gets so excited coming into harbour that he totally obviates any chance of the nonchalant, controlled approach we all aspire to. The harbour entry routine is warps, fenders, trailing log and tie Sam to the mast below. I have made him a bed in the forepeak and he settles down between sails, ropes, fenders and oilies. That is his "basket". One day I forgot to clip him up and the whole harbour thought his name was "Basket" as I yelled at him to remove himself from the chaos.

Bodily functions are a real problem. When I have female passengers aboard (no, I am not moving that sail so that you can sit in the sun) we have to go through the washboards, hatch and whistle loudly bit. With Sam we have to moor up once a day and make sure that I can get an inner berth alongside a floating pontoon or the rubber duck to a slipway. I get dirty looks trying to encourage or carry him across a raft of boats, and ladders with 7 stone of wriggling fur are out. I have tried the rope trick. The idea is to get him to pee on a piece of rope, hence leaving it appropriately smelly, and then leave it on the foredeck - but he just wants to play tug with it. I swear that the Padstow inner harbour water level rose 6 inches when Sam finally reached the slipway from Penzance.

He has his charms. Padstow harbour is a goldfish bowl surrounded by bored tourists. He must have felt like Sally Gunnell bronzed by flashguns, sitting in the cockpit with the skippers hat on as the chap who had done all the work broached the celebratory fruit juice. Regretfully the young blonde lass who rowed across at Littlehampton wasn’t interested in a drink or even my boat - just Sam.

When I bought Skerry she was moored at Bembridge and I left her there for the summer. You know Bembridge? The harbour with the narrow winding entrance where a nervous singlehander leaves his fenders over the side until he is out of the buoyed channel because he daren’t leave the helm? Anyway the engine cut out by the bit where you are 15 ft from the paddling holidaymakers. I have never hoisted the mainsail as quickly since, jumped back into the cockpit and found Sam had something new to chew on - the engine stop control.

With a fifty year history of production, Folkboats come in a variety of configurations. Mine is the three bladed propeller, pottery toilet, brass portholes, booze-in the-bilges version (incidentally an automatic bilge pump fitted to a cheap motorcycle battery lasts all winter without recharging, doesn’t risk flattening the main battery and stops the wine labels coming off). Regretfully it is also the sort with varnished mahogany, and dog claws leave nasty scratches - particularly going past swans, funny shaped buoys or anything else equally exciting. I have tried boots made of canvas but not even four paw drive could give him any traction and he made short work of going barefoot again. I have ordered some custom made leather booties with rubber soles - please don’t laugh when you see them.

Dog overboard drill? We have done it three times and always at Yarmouth. The first was after his evening saunter to check the bird haven up the Yar. We were rowing back and a yappie Scottie on an old wooden ketch took exception. Sam reciprocated and I hauled him out still barking. Another night the lifeboat maroons went up and Sam left the forepeak, across the cabin sole in half a bound, into the cockpit and kept going over the stern. The last occasion we were both having our afternoon nap with Sam, feet in the air in the rubber duck as is his wont and me below as is mine, when he obviously decided that it was time for a snack and forgot the bit in the crew manual about holding the tender alongside as you board. Old English Sheepdogs look like chickens when they are wet and salty fur never dries.

At sea he wears a harness all the time with a clip point at the bottom of the cockpit. This follows an incident when I had gone forward to change down to the storm jib (i.e. a bit windy) and was myself clipped on and with my legs around the forestay, as one does, when the water on my face appeared to be accompanied by a familiar slurping sound. His lordship had woken up and come to see what I was doing.

Why not leave him ashore? One night it all went wrong. The friendly Start Point lighthouse disappeared in a sudden squall, I had too much sail up, I couldn’t read the compass because of the water on my glasses, Skerry was surfing at speeds off the log, the autopilot's deck connection had packed up and somewhere ahead an unseen large vessel was hooting presumably at me. You know - sort of scary. Sam was asleep on the cockpit floor as usual, woke up, looked at me, yawned and went back to sleep. That was as much as I needed to stop the rising tide of panic. He woke up again a few hours later as I started the engine in Dartmouth.

Does he enjoy it or will the RSPCA pick him up as soon as this is published? He barks in happy anticipation as we drive up to the boatyard, forgets all that "stay" nonsense as soon as the dinghy is afloat and is the first one aboard to check the boat. The final proof was when I blew the rubber duck up in the garden last autumn to wash it. Sam scrambled in and wouldn’t get out even when I put the hose pipe on it. He was going sailing.

If you see a Folkboat with an Old English Sheepdog bounding around and barking: don’t be put off coming alongside. He only bites harbour masters and people putting ropes on his boat.