Wind, Tide & Oar
The film Wind, Tide & Oar, a celebration of engineless sailing, was shot on 16mm film to achieve an artfully grainy feeling.
Wind, Tide & Oar—Encounters with Engineless Sailing, directed by Huw Wahl.
www.windtideandoar.com. Running time 1:24.
A few years ago, I took my boat out for a solo spin and, shamefully, ran out of diesel just as I was raising the sails. It wasn’t a problem, because I was planning only to sail a few miles out and then head home, back up the River Dart in Devon, England. I figured I could easily sail back and moor alongside the fuel barge in Dartmouth to refuel. When I got there, however, the fuel barge was closed, and I was faced with a 3-mile sail up a narrow estuary, jam-packed with moorings, to get to my berth. Not only that, but the tide was ebbing and the wind was dying. What followed was one of the most memorable sails of my life, which not only made me feel extremely alive but also taught me a great deal about my boat (her cat-ketch rig really came into its own with a light following breeze). The feeling of satisfaction when I finally inched up toward my mooring on the last breath of wind was almost as good as if I’d crossed an ocean.
What I learned that day was the vast difference between maneuvering a boat under sail with the engine switched off (i.e., with the option of turning it on) and sailing with no engine at all. What I didn’t know until recently was that engineless sailing is in itself a “thing,” practiced by a small but spirited community within the traditional-boat community.