Geoff Brown on Sea Scouts

When I was probably about 16/17 the group was actually, obtained some money, it was given a grant from somebody in their will and basically we had a boat built for us out at Forelands at Bembridge, 18ft long, Clinker which is wooden planks overlapping, both rowing and sailing.

It was a plank too high for rowing and it was also for sailing the centre board which the drop board…centre board comes down for sailing; it was too short (laughing) so it wasn’t a very good boat either way. We had that for a long, long time and we also bought a 12ft clinker sailing boat which we used to use as well. But you know, they were good fun, but it was enough to get us afloat and what have you and we’d take it in turns, and we used to go out weekends.

Never did at troop night, it was always done at weekends because being based in Cross Street it wasn’t easy sort of suddenly doing anything to get afloat on a 2hrs Wednesday night.

Both boats were kept afloat just off… opposite the Whitegates pontoon and we kept a dinghy on the pontoon lashed to the seat down there and just rowed out to it and they were on what was known as half-tide moorings which meant they sat on the mud at low tide and at high tide, after a lot of heavy rain, they were full of water so (laughing) yes, it wasn’t ideal.

And, then in the winter we used to bring them up the back of the Cowes Youth Club alongside Whitegates pier and they were left outside so by the time we finished doing them up in the Spring, it’s probably mid-summer and we probably kept boating ‘til about January or February.

It was lovely then, because the river was empty. And then, when we built this hall in ’77 we designed out boat workshop round the 18ft and the 12ft boat.

They went in there for about three months then we sold them both.