“Now we know what our parents went through during the Second World War.” Those were the words spoken by an acquaintance to a small group of us in March 2020, just as the full implications of Covid 19 were becoming apparent in the UK and elsewhere.

“Absolutely no comparison,” was my instinctive response and I have had no reason to alter that view since then. Ignoring (or at least partly so) significantly bigger issues such as bombs and bullets, let’s just make some sailing comparisons.

The inevitability of war in the days leading up to its outbreak on Sunday, September 3, 1939 resulted in the cancellation or curtailment of many of the UK’s scheduled sailing events: the National 12 national championships, Lowestoft Sea Week, Dartmouth Royal Regatta and Burnham Week, among numerous others. However, on Saturday the 2nd, various races took place throughout the country, much of which was enjoying pleasant weather with a light and variable southerly breeze. But the following morning a 12-Metre race in Torbay was abandoned when a launch approached each of the competing crews to tell them that war had been declared.

That winter, the yachting press regularly reported that many sailing and yacht clubs were planning fairly normal sailing programmes for the following season. “Recreation will be essential in order to preserve health and that balanced state of mind without which they [people serving in the Armed Forces] cannot put forth their best efforts,” wrote a Motor Boat & Yachting correspondent.

However, things changed fundamentally as a result of the Dunkirk evacuation in May and June 1940 when the threat of invasion became very real. The Vessels (Immobilisation) Order came into force mainly to ensure that hostile forces could not make use of any boats lying in tidal waters and, from then on and for most of the war, recreational sailing was banned in most of the United Kingdom’s coastal areas and in many estuaries and rivers. And if there was any doubt as to how seriously it was taken, the Commander in Chief of the Western Approaches, for instance, notified mariners that any vessels disobeying the rules “are liable to be fired on.”

Surbiton’s Minima Yacht Club racing at Easter.

Not surprisingly, however, many sailors were determined that they should be able to do some sailing. On the Thames, it was initially decreed that no sailing would be allowed downstream of Barnes Bridge including at Ranelagh Sailing Club. The club’s secretary, however, was having none of it and he somehow persuaded the Port of London Authority to move the limit downstream to Putney Bridge. This allowed Ranelagh, as well as London Corinthian SC at Hammersmith, to run an almost full programme of races throughout the war, although there was an interruption at the latter club in 1944 when the clubhouse was seriously damaged by a V1 flying bomb.

This was by no means the only club to be a victim of bombs. Several clubhouses were completely destroyed in bombing raids, including those of the Royal Ocean Racing Club in London, Essex YC and Westcliff YC in the Thames Estuary, the Royal Western YC and Minima YC in Plymouth, and Portsmouth YC. Among several others which received relatively minor damage was Cowes Castle, the home of the Royal Yacht Squadron. Various service personnel were residing there at the time and, although they escaped serious injury, a number of them had to go to the Gloucester Hotel for breakfast the next morning in their pyjamas, as their uniforms were buried among the debris. Dell Quay SC’s 17th Century clubhouse in Chichester Harbour had to be demolished after it was the victim of so-called “friendly fire” from an anti-aircraft gun. An AGM of the Tamesis Club had to be curtailed when V1 bombs were heard to pass overhead but not, it is said, before one of the members had complained about the state of the lavatories.

14s racing on the Upper Thames.

Although many other inland clubs were able to continue race programmes, there were mixed fortunes at others. Sailing at Minima YC at Surbiton came to an end in 1942 when the premises were requisitioned by the Ministry of Aircraft Production, but luckily the members and their boats were welcomed by Thames SC three-quarters of a mile upstream. Yeadon Tarn, where Yeadon SC is based, was just a quarter of a mile away from the Avro aeroplane factory – where 700 Lancaster bombers and 4,000 Ansons were built during the war – and, amid concerns that the tarn would provide a clear landmark for the Luftwaffe, it was drained in 1940. Similarly, Frensham Pond was drained after a German reconnaissance plane was shot down and found to have maps on board indicating that Luftwaffe bombers were using the pond as a navigational waypoint on their way to London.

On parts of the Norfolk Broads, obstacles designed to prevent enemy seaplanes from landing unfortunately had a similar effect on leisure boats. Not only were there similar hazards on the Thames at Staines SC, races were occasionally livened up by the threat of flying bombs. After one of them cut out “almost overhead”, one club member wrote that he and his crew “dived into the bottom of the boat as the bomb came down, falling about half a mile away.”

Many members of Clyde Cruising Club hadn’t agreed with the decision to take a lease on the land-locked 70-acre Bardowie Loch in 1932, but with the Clyde out of bounds they were now grateful to be able to use it for dinghy racing a couple of times a week. “Fresh water is not to be sneered at if the sea is out of reach,” wrote Norman Hinton in Yachting World.

Not surprisingly, sailing wasn’t allowed anywhere in Plymouth Sound, but in 1942 the Plymouth Officers Dinghy Racing Club was formed in order to run races on the nearby River Yealm which had a defensive boom across its entrance. A cruising dinghy sailor also found a way of getting afloat on the Yealm. “For as long as I am in a position to use it, I can look forward to sailing whenever leave comes my way,” he wrote in Yachting World, “and come back refreshed and revived by the finest process yet discovered.”

Boats from the London Corinthian Sailing Club tied up along the Thames at Hammersmith

Ranelagh Trophy Race underway.

Even when the war ended, it was many years before things returned to normal, with the need to overcome major hurdles such as mines, huge quantities of war debris around the coasts, petrol rationing and the poor states of repair of many boats which had had no maintenance for six years.

The organisation of high-profile sailing events such as the America’s Cup, the Olympic Games and the Vendee Globe would clearly have been unthinkable during the Second World War, and yet they have all taken place since Covid hit us. And on a personal note, in the UK we were only prevented from going afloat for recreational purposes during our first lockdown in the spring of 2020 and, while it may have seemed a long time, it only meant that I missed 138 days sailing; but after war was declared in September 1939 my father had to wait 2,411 days before his next sail in April 1946. BNZ

TROUBLED WATERS    
Nigel Sharp’s book Troubled Waters: Leisure Boating and the Second World War is published by Amberley Books.
Sailing at Hammersmith.