Oyster News 52 - Oyster Yachts

He grew up cruising with his father on the
Norfolk Broads, a unique system of shallow
"ponds" formed by the River Bure 20 miles
inland of Great Yarmouth, on England’s east
coast. This is marshy, flat land requiring
patience and cunning of sailors who race
graceful, over-rigged sloops in the light, shifty
winds that prevail. "My father had a 7-ton
cabin cruiser," Amherst recalls. "It was rotten,
having been too long in the barn. But it was
an instant hit with a young boy. I could sit on
the bunk and dangle my feet in the water that
seeped in. I thought it was great. My father
learned the mariners’ trick of sleeping with
one hand over the side of his bunk so he’d
know when to pump."
His father, also a Squadron member, built a
Contessa 32 at Camper Nicholson. Hugh
raced and cruised on the boat with his father
and brother from age 18. The Contessa was
a particularly popular class, with as many as
50 boats showing up for Cowes Week. After
their marriage, Hugh and his wife, Lis, raced
an IOD, and then a Daring, a 5.5 knock-off
built of fibreglass that well-known British
sailor Owen Aisher promoted as an Olympic
trainer. It was a hot class, and Amherst was
in the thick of it.
Racing around the buoys was fun, but it was
impossible for Hugh Amherst to resist the
lure of the open ocean. The four Fastnet
Races he participated in were more to his
liking. In the 1980s, he took leave from E.A.
Gibson to make Atlantic crossings under
sail. He’s done four all told, twice each way,
three as skipper. When asked about the
passages, Amherst indicates the more recent
ones he made in his Oyster Lightwave 48,
purchased in 1988, were the best kind of
crossings, "Completely uneventful, pleasant
sails, as indeed one would expect from an
Oyster." When pressed, he admits in his
understated way that the first crossing he
undertook a few months prior to the delivery
of his Oyster was a bit of an adventure.
When asked specifically about an article he
wrote about that trip for Contessa magazine,
he reluctantly handed it over.
The Contessa editor’s note reports (with
tongue in cheek) that Amherst "pawned
house, wife, and dog to buy a Moody 47 that
he planned to sell on his arrival in Antigua.
Amherst named the boat, Solent Venture.
The crossing began with a leg south from
Falmouth across the Bay of Biscay to Lisbon,
which turned out to be fraught with gales and
a close encounter with the great October
hurricane of 1987. By their third day out,
according to crew Carole Bigland’s report
(also in Contessa), "It was blowing a steady
force 9, showing 45 knots on the clock...by
evening the waves were 30 feet high...by
midnight the wind was screaming through the
rigging and the wind speed was off the
clock...at 0100 hours Hugh took the decision
to run before the storm back to Ushant." It
was a smart move. Venture went on to Brest,
where Optimist dinghies were being flung
around like potato chips when the gale hit.
Solent Venture’s crew feared the cleats might
pop off the deck.
Solent Venture’s passage to Antigua began
with moderate breeze and toasts for "our
cousin (an Admiral), the Navy, its traditions,
and the weather for respecting its traditions,"
Amherst writes. A bit later, during some nasty
going, Amherst made a discovery any skipper
would value: "If we played Handel’s Hallelujah
Chorus out of the cockpit speakers, Michael
(crewman Michael Ball) would drive singing
and shouting with delight, impervious to cold,
fatigue, pelting rain, or the seas now frequently
breaking over the stern."
Mainly the trip was plagued by light wind or
none at all. After 11 days they were still 1,100
miles from Antigua. Because of a failed
warning light, they had inadvertently used up
all 120 gallons of water on board. Then the
engine refused to start. Then the bad news:
no more cigarettes in the locker. But there
was hope. "Down to starboard lay the
blackest and most evil cloud imaginable
‘ It’s a very competitive
business, Peter Seal
says. You need a killer
instinct, because at the
end of the day you do
have to win.
’
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