Harry King's Boatyard

The midday sun warms my back, whilst I lunch at the Butt and Oyster.

The day had dawned autumnal, misty and still.

A better day for walking than for sailing. Better still to exercise my recalcitrant back into shape. As I walk, the sun burns off the mist, banishes the foretaste of autumn and ushers in a languid, late summer's, day.

Now I sit drinking in the timeless view. Before me the Thames barge 'Cambria' spreads her sails to dry, in a zephyr of breeze. A delightful, anachronous, somnolent, dragon yawning and stretching its wings, before settling down to bask on the uncovering foreshore.

Behind me lies Harry King's bohemian boatyard.  The yard which built 'Peter Duck' for Arthur Ransome (author of Swallows and Amazons) and 'Thankful' for Denny Desoutter (the founding editor of Practical Boat Owner).

The yard is an organic cornucopia of boating dreams, boating projects. Some seemingly returning to 

mother nature, like this once proud Colchester Smack.

Others merrily making a, three generation, family affair of refitting for sea.

A renascent Peter Duck class ketch is nurtured to glowing health. Soon to exchange the verdant stillness of the upper yard for the undulating swells of the North Sea.

The tide is ebbing fast now. House boats joining the pastel painted cottages, their land-bound cousins, on terra firma - until the tide returns, to free them, this evening.

The sister ship to 'Thankful' - a bowspritted, clinker, Harry King built, centre-boarder - rests a weary shoulder against the weathered timbers of the pontoon and snuggles down contentedly among the sedge.

I watch as candyfloss clouds boil across the wide Suffolk horizon. Listen as the wading birds call, and the water tip toes softly away from the hard with its eclectic menagerie of craft . I scent the salty lure of new shores, carried in on that zephyr of breeze.

The wind is forecast to fill in tomorrow, somewhere between a south westerly four and a six, veering west later. My back has straightened and strengthened. All being well, we sail on the noon tide.