Flotsam and jetsam

Sam Llewellyn writes nautical thrillers and edits The Marine Quarterly. He is currently patching up a 30ft ketch

It was two in the morning in the latish 1970s, and we were sitting round a bottle-covered table in Ireland. A farmer two places down said he had a boat, and he wanted someone to navigate it along the south coast to his summer house on the west coast. I said I would, having temporarily forgotten that I