Ice Cold with Alex
Alex? Who the !!!! is Alex?
This is not a story about a “Twister” winning against all odds, even though she suffers with a mast some 3 feet shorter than everyone else’s. This is really a “Twister” story as such, although the mode of transport was a “Twister”. (Even the name of the Twister is irrelevant, in this article I will refer to her as “The Boat”.) It is not an epic tale about a skipper successfully navigating his “Twister” on a voyage without going aground or hitting anything. This yarn does not even include gales, giant waves or exotic places, for it takes place on a beautifully sunny day with a pleasant breeze, and the destination was Brightlingsea.
This is Alex’s story.
Alex dreams of sailing to the Greek Islands
Alex had hardly ever been on a boat, but he had a dream of sailing to the Greek islands. He bought himself a 26 ft Invicta about five years ago and promptly became a live aboard. I first met him when “The Boat” was moved to Tollesbury to live.
Alex is a quiet, gentle chap with a beautiful nature and is a pleasure to sail with. With the “Twister” short of crew and Alex wanting to broaden his experience, it seemed the natural solution that we should join forces. So we did a few club events together achieving some fairly respectable results, with the ultimate goal of not disgracing ourselves at the Weymouth Regatta, if only we could get there.
We enter a pub fun race
This particular Tollesbury Cruising Club event had the word “race” in the title, so we had to enter as part of our tuning up process.
It had the word “fun” in the title which, hopefully meant that nobody else would take it that seriously, so we figured we stood a chance.
With the word ‘pub’ included too, it sounded even more interesting; on pubs we are definitely experts!
The “Pub Fun Race” was being run for the first time,
almost as an experiment, following an idea by some of the more
inebriated members of the committee, dreamed up over their long
winter
meetings.
The race instructions seem simple
The sailing instructions for the Pub Fun Race were simple. “Start from your marina berth, leave the Nass Beacon to Starboard and cross to Bradwell then cross back to Mersea Island before leaving the Colne Bar buoy to port on the way to Brightlingsea. Engines, sails and motor sailing were all allowed, a dinghy essential.
The rest of the Instructions said “at Bradwell locate two specified pubs about a mile or so apart and drink a pint in each. On Mersea Island find a further two hostelries and drink another pint in each. Finally go round to Brightlingsea and visit a final four pubs with pint in each.” Landing location at each place was at the discretion of the Skipper.
The small print said that although a pint had to be sunk at each pub, the pint could be split between any number of the crew and could be anything from water to beer. Also the names of each beer sold from pumps from the bar had to be written down as proof that all pubs had been visited.
At the start line
So to the start. The boats were “handicapped”, which meant that the race officer simply let the skippers leave the Cruising Club’s bar at approximately 5 minute intervals in order of size, smallest first. About six boats left the pontoons in all.
The first leg of the race
For the first leg we motored across to Bradwell. As it was a fun race and as we did not want to be seen to be taking it to seriously we only went at half throttle This gave us time to develop our cunning plan (or rather winning strategy.)
Our big advantage was
that Alex is infamous for being able to sink a pint in about
4.5 seconds. He also has the gift of being able to do it pint after
pint. The agreement was that Alex would do the pubs while I,
as
a responsible skipper, stayed sober to do the boat handling.
Alex felt honour bound to actually sink a pint of beer rather than
some
less potent concoction so he went straight into serious training
on the way to Bradwell by fasting while the rest of the crew
enjoyed a cup of tea with our breakfast.
The race officer had suggested (but not insisted) on the boats
anchoring at the baffle wall for the Bradwell jaunt. This seemed
not a lot of fun for the shore party as it added at least a
mile to the Green Man, on top of the second mile to the Kings
Head
in Bradwell village, To go all the way back to the baffle Wall
would be about four miles in total.
We motored straight past the Baffle Wall and up Bradwell Creek to the hard which is right in front of the Green Man pub (a little poetic licence here - its about a hundred yards). Alex leapt into the Avon and rowed ashore as we went past and was already legging it up to the village while we found a mooring for a pleasant hours sunbathing. A while later, having done his duty, Alex returned and, as he rowed out into deep water, we had already dropped the mooring and were motoring to meet him.
No one else seemed to come as far up the creek as us and Alex had met other crews still on their way to the first pint as he returned following his second. Our tactic had obviously paid off as by now we had a considerable time advantage.
The second pub
The trip across to Mersea was again under engine. The falling tide and the slowly shelving beach meant we had to stop a fair way offshore. We threw the anchor over the side in about 10 feet of water. This time the outboard went on the dinghy and having motored Alex ashore I returned to “The Boat” to check that the anchor was holding. The two pubs on Mersea were closer together, and half-an-hour later I was back ashore, just in time to meet Alex, a 59-year-old, who had actually run back along the road having just completed his fourth pint.
Two pints ahead
As the dinghy chugged back out to “The Boat” the first of the rest of the fleet was coming in to Anchor. After four pints we were already two pints ahead of everybody else.
The leg from Mersea to Brightlingsea was uneventful and we actually sailed all the way. The only problem that we could foresee was that as it was approaching low tide we may not have had enough water to get “The boat” into Brightlingsea Creek, giving Alex a much longer trip in the dinghy. As it turned out we got in without a bump and motored up to Colne Yacht Club’s jetty where we promptly did go aground some 10 feet off.
As we ground to a halt Alex made a heroic leap into the dinghy and was ashore almost before we could blink, leaving us to struggle off the mud and go around to await the harbourmaster’s instructions for a berth for the night.
Four pubs in Brightlingsea
There were four pubs to do in Brightlingsea and Alex had been carefully briefed on the location of each. Three were easy but I had never seen the Railway Tavern and we had to go on hearsay evidence. While Alex again did his duty, we had time to moor up, wash, have a cup off tea and then catch the water taxi.
We arrived at the jetty to find Alex standing there, swaying slightly, having just downed his eighth pint! Apparently it wasn’t the drinking that had slowed him down; it was the writing down of all the beer names. In one pub the landlady, smitten by Alex’s obvious charm, had even offered to write them down for him while he had a more leisurely drink. She even gave us the costs and specific gravity of each beer!
The final pub
We adjourned to the last pub on the list to await the other teams. Strangely, Alex seemed to be having a struggle with his drink at this point. We watched the other boats come into Brightlingsea and, without exception they all moored up for the night before coming ashore, wasting more valuable drinking time.
A two and a half hour win!
Alex finished the race before the next boat had even entered Brighlingsea, winning by some two-and-a-half hours. His triumphant finish was even captured on video as he ‘tacked’ down the road to “The Anchor”! Three or four other boats completed the full course and I believe that on a couple of those a single crew member managed the full eight pints. Those who heard the story were in awe of Alex’s achievement.
An unbeatable record?
At the prize giving the prize was definitely for Alex - the skipper and the rest of the crew were forgotten in the adulation he received. Appropriately, his prize was a bottle of `Millennium' beer, to be laid down and savoured, not knocked back, on December 31st.
The question on everyone's lips was can Alex's record be beaten next year? Our questions are will anyone else even try? Will Alex be "handicapped" out of the race with extra pubs or pints or will "the boat" be handicapped out with a start delayed so long there would not be enough water to even get out of the marina?
Andy Hobden: Tongue Twister