Skipper Dawn trims the White Moth’s sail
FOR CENTURIES, PEOPLE HAVE EXERTED THEIR WILL OVER East Anglia’s flatlands. This was a land of pragmatic people – of reed-cutters, ferrymen, farmers, thatchers, eelers and mole-catchers – who drained the levels and carved out 125 miles of navigable waterways. Nowadays, the collectively named Broads – which spread across Norfolk and Suffolk – feel resolutely wild: a region of fens, reed beds and waterlogged woodland, where otters swim nonchalantly down tidal rivers, cormorants dry their wings on skeletal wind pumps and distant sails slice through the marsh.
Between the 16th and 19th centuries, the wherry reigned supreme. Slung low with bricks, sugar beet, coal and timber, these elegant cargo boats ploughed the waterways, until the railways brought their rule to an end. A handful survived, saved by enterprising owners who brushed out their holds to take Edwardian guests for a turn about the Broads. A few more were built in the old style, but for leisure this time.
The White Moth was the last of these wherry yachts, built in 1915. Restored by the charitable trust Wherry Yacht Charter, the 59-foot craft now carries passengers on day trips and overnight jaunts. Over four days, she would bear me on a slow expedition down the rivers Bure and Ant, from the lively Broads town of Wroxham to Stalham. The journey might take just 16 minutes by car, but with a host of sailing skills to master, and a landscape that deserves steady appreciation, there’s no need to rush.
THE TRUST RESTORES THEIR WHERRIES in a boathouse in Wroxham. In his annexed workshop, boat builder Dean Howard glances up shyly between hammer strokes. Having steamed strips of ash into hoops, he’s now beating in copper the giant curtain rings that attach a wherry’s ‘I went to college to train as a shipwright, and I was the last student to take the course,’ he says. ‘It gets a bit lonely, but that’s why I have Rufus.’ He nods at a mop-topped cockapoo worrying a broom head by the door.
When Dean joined five years ago, Wherry Yacht Charter owned three boats, none in sailing condition, so he set about replacing rotten planks and stripping varnish. ‘At one point, there were over 500 wherries on the Broads; now there are only eight,’ he says. ‘If we didn’t look after these last ones, no-one would.’
Leaving Dean to wrap up, I help the volunteer crew load White Moth with wheelbarrow loads of kit and cooking ingredients, then duck below to explore my new home. Opposite a galley kitchen, three double berths line her port side, each with a red velvet mattress, curved wooden ceiling and porthole windows behind tiny curtains. At the bow an ample saloon, with a five-octave yacht piano, converts to sleep another four.
Boat builder Dean Howard.
Once untied from the staithe (an Old English term for a jetty), White Moth gently lists into the River Bure. Dean is on the tiller, while skipper Dawn and volunteer Neil winch up the sail. With the tide against us, we make slow progress out of Wroxham, but as the river broadens, we begin ‘tacking’ – zigzagging from bank to bank to catch the wind. I’m given the task of unhooking the ensign (a flag at the stern), should we plough into overhanging trees. ‘We like to get close to nature,’ says Dean, ducking below a branch as leaves rain down on the deck.
A local feathered family goes paddling.