The first day was spent by the crew – the owner Colin and, in alphabetical order, Bill, Dave, Me and Peter – clearing the deck, splicing spans on the gaff, bending on the mainsail, fitting two sister frames (!), adding two steel plates to the rudder and making the interior a quarter decent to live in. Things may have been simplified by the fact that she didn’t have a boom as that had been found broken some weeks before and a replacement was in the process of being made. The plan was, having made the boat ship shape, to take the midnight ebb down to Osea Island so that the boom, which was going to be put over the sea wall and towed out, could be picked up early the next morning. However the weather was against us as there was a moderately strong easterly wind and the only thing we had to help us, apart from the ebb, was two and a half horse power of outboards – not much to move 53 feet of boat weighing about 38 tons against the wind. The idea of a Saturday night departure was abandoned.

Sunday was a bright but still windy from the east with a force seven forecast but a tow was arranged down to Heron Point from where, as the tug had another job, we had to sail as best we could Bawley fashion – that is without a boom – to Osea and brought up off Maylandsea Creek. This was accomplished by deep reefing the mainsail so that the mainsheet could at least make a show of pulling the foot of the sail out tight. Surprisingly we managed to make Osea without much trouble as we could just lay both reaches of the river. In the meantime Dave had been despatched by road with an outboard and a rubber dinghy to find the new boom and to tow it out to us when we arrived. Everything went according to plan and, after some adjustments to the jaws so that it fitted the table and the fitting of a cleat, we had a boom again (albeit that it still had thirty two sides as there had not been time to make it round) and the mainsail was properly rigged. We were ready to leave and dropped down to Bradwell in the evening.

The next morning we were up early to a three to four southwesterly and we made a six hour passage across the Thames Estuary but with the wind falling light and the stream against us we stopped making any progress and anchored by the Quern Buoy off Ramsgate and rolled. When we could sail again we did so but at the South Foreland the southwest wind, which had come up strong again, together with the waves that were being created and dark coming on, inclined us to anchor for the night to wait and see what the morning might bring. We brought up off Kingsdown where it was, although we did roll a bit, a lot more peaceful than it had been off Ramsgate. In the night the wind died and the forecast for the next day was for it to go into the southeast.

The next morning we sailed at eight thirty and beat – the wind still being in the southwest – past Dover. Then we laid Dungeness as the wind went round into the east. The prospects seemed good as the wind was in the right quarter and the weather was sunny and warm. But the wind became lighter and lighter during the afternoon and we set our lightest sails and a water sail to catch what there was. We had taken a course into the bay to avoid the foul tide and maybe get an eddy so that we didn’t have far to go when, after dark, we ghosted into the shore off Fairlight and anchored.

Wednesday was a day of fine sunny weather. The plan was to rise at four o’clock but Colin was awake at three thirty and, as there was a bit of wind, he roused the rest of us and we weighed anchor at 03:45. I was quite impressed that we managed to get the boat sailing in fifteen minutes as we had packed her up the previous night in the dark and the start in the morning was in the dark as well. The light wind continued for a while and I turned in for a sleep. When I came on deck again we were approaching Beachy Head but I was told that we had earlier been making for Eastbourne to anchor as the wind had dropped away for a time. We made Beachy Head with the last of the fair tide but didn’t get clear before it turned. With the wind dieing again and a foul stream building up to 2.6 knots we anchored in twenty six metres of water using sixty metres of chain just past the lighthouse, half a mile off shore and left all the sails up to hang lifeless. Two hours later the worst of the foul stream had gone and there was a breath of wind from the southwest that could take us over what was left of the stream so we weighed anchor – a long job – which, unsurprisingly, came up with chalk on it. A beat. Most of the progress was due to the fair tide. Two of the crew went for a swim while we were sailing and had no trouble keeping up with the boat – they could easily have overtaken her. As dusk was approaching we put the dinghy over the side and with our total outboard capacity moved Telegraph from just east of Brighton Marina to just west of Brighton West Pier. A whole day and we had made less than forty miles.

We were now starting to run out of time. We were booked into a berth in Portsmouth as an invited boat in a dock whose gate would only be open at high water on Wednesday and Thursday. If we were not in Portsmouth by three o’clock the next afternoon we would be put somewhere but not in the berth in No 1 Dock that had been allocated to us.

We cooked and ate and looked at the night life of Brighton which consisted of power boats, music and lights. Eventually the quick flash 2 on shore were identified as being speed camera. Colin did a bit of navigation – it was ten o’clock when he said that we should be underway again in two and a half hours!

Not a lot had changed while we had been asleep. The dinghy went over the side with an outboard again and it did not take much of a calculation to work out that we would not reach Selsey Bill, or even get half way there, before the deadline. After a couple of hours, during which most of the crew slept, a bit of a wind came up from the south, then a bit more, then we were doing five knots over the ground and we had to get the dinghy aboard as it was in danger of being swamped. The wind was not reliable and did go into the east but it did keep us going and there was enough to take us over the tide through the Loo Channel. The guard boat was called up on the radio and we told them that our ETA was two o’clock and we would need a tow. We were there within ten minutes of what we had said and were shortly afterwards alongside the Londonis to be taken into Portsmouth harbour. There was a hold up at the dock entrance as a square rigger was being manoeuvred into the dock but we, as we were under tow and were going alongside the wall, were told that we had priority to enter the dock. When the time came things did not go as they should as two large boats made a dash for the entrance at the same time as we were being taken towards it. The result was that one of the boats hooked her bowsprit inside our backstay and pulled it outwards. The rope was cut to save the mast but the chain plate had been bent a foot away from the rail. Words were exchanged!

Our tug laid us in our allocated berth, thirty feet from the transom of HMS Victory, and the dock gate was sunk in the dock entrance – we were shut in Portsmouth Naval Dockyard for the duration of the Festival. We had made it with only half an hour to spare after a passage of four days from Maldon. When all was secure and sails harbour stowed it was ashore for a shower and a change of clothes – afterwards the crew were not recognisable as the same people.

There were four days of the “International Festival of the Sea”. The weather was perfect except on one afternoon when it rained but by the evening it had cleared. On three of the mornings we did a bit of gentle work on the Telegraph which, on the first morning, including raising the topmast and hoisting flags. On other days we changed some blue robands for a more traditional colour, oiled the mast and did some maintenance to masthead blocks. In the afternoons and evenings we ran ashore.

There are about two square miles of Navy Dockyard and every bit of it seemed to be being used for something. There were square riggers and warships (perhaps twenty five of each) of various nations (including a Dutch one that could hold and disembark a whole army), RFA Argus (a helicopter training ship which has a complete hospital, including a CAT scanner, below decks), three of the four British Isles buoy layers, yachts of all sizes, army people and equipment, air force exhibitions and displays, the red arrows performed daily, helicopters flying about all the time and a daily pass by a nimrod as part of the demonstration by the Royal Marines saving some UN peace keepers who had been kidnapped. Music on three main stages all afternoon and evening as well as on other stages during the day, street performers, a theatre ship with two daily performances, people dressed up in period costume, stalls for goods and food, exhibitions, demonstrations, simulators and the dockyard church. There was all that as well as the normal museums, exhibitions and displays of the Mary Rose, HMS Victory and the Warrior that are a permanent part of the dockyard.

The warships and square riggers were all open to the public. I only visited warships and found the crews extremely friendly and informative and prepared to talk not only about their ships but also about their life in the navy and their expectations. The areas open varied from boat to boat but I am sure that if one had visited all the warships there wouldn’t be much in a warship that would have been missed. I fired five rounds from a 4.5 inch gun and sunk a ship before engaging a hostile aircraft and shooting it down with a missile (costing £750,000) – all on a simulator - and drove a real army anti aircraft missile battery – but they didn’t tell me how to fire it. Learnt about the illegal Liverpool wire splice from a PLA rigger and was shown how not to smuggle drugs by the Customs and Excise. Talked to a man from the Liverpool Maritime Museum who showed me how to get fir cones into bottles and talked to a woman who wanted to enlist my help and support in the building of a full size replica of the Sutton Hoo longship. Paid a pound for what I was told was a tot of full strength naval rum which also bought a raffle ticket for which the prize was a full bottle of the same stuff – but as they didn’t take my name or address and they didn’t tell me when it was going to be drawn I don’t think there is much chance of my collecting the prize even if I did win.

On the last night there was a party on board. I don’t know where everything came from but Telegraph filled up with drink, food and people. This was the night of the firework display but, unless I missed something, it was no more than one could put on in a back garden. The only part of it that couldn’t be was when, during a gap in the fireworks, a helicopter flew across the dockyard with a white ensign hung below it.

During our stay at Portsmouth Dave was recalled to Maldon as his wife who had hurt herself while on holiday needed his attention to look after her. Colin found a replacement in a shipwright he knew in the area called Russell who has another Boston smack – one which Colin persuaded him to buy and start rebuilding. This man, in common with many shipwrights and carpenters, had managed to loose fingers, in his case his thumb and first finger.

By the time we left on Tuesday morning I had only seen and done half of what there was to see and do at the festival.

Up at six o’clock to prepare to leave. The dock gate was floated out and all the big ships left first, some under their own power and some with the help of tugs. When all was clear the same boat that had acted as our tug to bring us in came to take us out again. Once clear of danger we cast off our tug and sailed the last bit out of Portsmouth Harbour. It started as a fine day with an easterly wind force three but the wind increased. As we wouldn’t be unable to sail through the Loo Channel and if we did go past Selsey Bill there would be nowhere to shelter Colin decided to anchor and see what the night and the next day might bring. With a local man on board we went into Chichester Harbour and anchored just inside the entrance. The six o’clock shipping forecast gave easterly 3 to 4 increasing 5 so we settled down for a night and did useful things like reeving a new peak halyard. The next day the wind continued from the east so we stayed where we were. Our shipwrights recaulked a length of covering board that had started to leak rather badly when water washed over it and may have been caused by the collision we had entering Portsmouth. Bill and Russell took a run ashore to buy extra food to top up our supplies. In the evening the wind went into the north and we slid out of Chichester. The northerly wind held all night and into the morning. It then died and I was woken from my off watch sleep by the sound of the anchor being lowered but, almost as soon as it was touched the bottom the wind came in from the west so we had it up again and continued on our way. From Chichester we sailed for thirty two hours and eventually anchored at three o’clock in the morning within two hundred yards of where we had anchored off Kingsdown on the way to Portsmouth because, after Dover, the wind had veered into the northwest and increased in strength.

The morning forecast for the next day was for northwest 3 to 4 possibly 5, 6 later. Bill left us by hitching a ride to Ramsgate on Elfreda, a Maldon boat who was also returning from Portsmouth. He was already two days late for work and was being missed. A customs boat anchored half a mile to the south of us and all the time we expected them to put an inflatable over to come and see what we were doing. In the early evening we beat from Kingsdown to Deal Pier and anchored again (having done all of 2 miles). The customs boat was still anchored and now they might have even more reason to be suspicious of us – but they didn’t show any interest.

In the night the wind went into the north and blew force 5 – not forecast. The counter slammed into the waves when the wind was against the tide and water shot up the rudder trunking in a fountain and also sprayed out fifteen feet each side. The boat rolled and gyrated so much that Colin was afraid of what damage might be done. The crew, the rest of them, got very little sleep and, to make matters worse, had to put up with my undisturbed snoring.

By the morning the wind had moderated and gone back into the northwest and, as it was forecast to go southwest, we sailed. We just laid the Fisherman’s Gat and worked our way through the sand banks ending up near the Old Gunfleet Lighthouse from where we beat against the ebb up the East Swin. Night came on, the tide turned and the wind went into the southwest. We saw three lots of fireworks being let off, each of them were better than the ones we had seem at Portsmouth. Through the Spitway, laid the entrance to the Blackwater and anchored below the Bradwell baffle. Things are not contrary all the time.

There was no hurry to get underway the next day as high water at Maldon wasn’t until after midday. But as we were weighing anchor a yacht came past on a run with the staysail boomed out and a woman at the help shouting for help as the other person on board had collapsed. There was little we could do except call the coastguard. I learnt later that Elfreda found the yacht and stood by her until the West Mersea lifeboat arrived and took the man off. They landed him into an ambulance that took him to Colchester hospital. The boat was taken to Mersea by the RNLI.

A beat up to Maldon and dropped anchor among the other smacks where Telegraph lives. Dave, who has left us at Portsmouth met us and took most of the gear and some people ashore. Tidied the boat and ashore for a couple of pints. I thought the four day trip down without putting a foot ashore was long enough – the trip back had taken five!