Dick durham

Dick Durham

  • August 20, 2015

Some sailors leave me feeling distinctly uncomfortable; they leave me with a sneaking suspicion that I haven’t sailed far enough, that I’m too comfortable in home waters, that I’m a…

Dick Durham

  • June 26, 2015

There is a cartoon drawn by Mike Peyton that sticks in my mind. Two boats are sailing abeam from an anchorage in light conditions. The helmsman of the one nearest…

Dick Durham

  • June 3, 2015

“Bittles was no sailor, but he knew a good idea when he saw one” Exactly 90 years ago this month, Yachting Monthly conceived an offspring, Yacht Sales & Charters. The…

Dick Durham

  • May 1, 2015

“The ooze had swallowed my boots. I was stuck in a quagmire of East Coast mud, 300 yards offshore” It’s an isolated spot, just a few cows grazing on marshland…

Dick Durham

  • April 5, 2015

“Scraping a burning surfaceinchesfrom your face while, lying on your back is a kind of torture” By the time the weather’s good enough to launch your boat, the novelty of…

Dick Durham

  • March 5, 2015

“As night-time storms rattled the slates, I dreamed of that one length of studding holding the boat upright” We’re very close to saying goodbye to the gales of winter. I…

Dick Durham

  • February 2, 2015

“Whoof! Up goes the paraffin in a stinking yellow flame” Gas. The very word is sinister, and I have body-swerved this particular state of matter in various galleys over the…

Dick Durham

  • January 19, 2015

“The Island Yacht Club, of Canvey Island, is like a recycled town” I’m on probation. Every Saturday morning I am obliged to join a community service work party to help…

Dick Durham

  • January 9, 2015

“The operating manual is smothered in oily fingerprints and smells of diesel” What were two men doing zig-zag- ging across a theatre forecourt as light summer rain began to soak…