Enterprise 50th Anniversary English Channel Crossing

On the Enterprise 50th Anniversary two Enterprises crossed the English Channel as happened 50 years ago © Janice Bottomley / www.sailaway.me.uk

On the Enterprise 50th Anniversary two Enterprises crossed the English Channel as happened 50 years ago © Janice Bottomley / www.sailaway.me.uk

On the Enterprise 50th Anniversary two Enterprises crossed the English Channel as happened 50 years ago © Janice Bottomley / www.sailaway.me.uk

To boldly go...

Fifty years ago E1 and E2, the two Enterprise prototypes emerged from Jack Holt’s Putney workshop and were sailed across the English Channel on a cold, windy January night. They went in January to promote the new dinghy during the boat show at Olympia, and two of the sailors hadn’t even seen an Enterprise before. They went at night to break the news for the next day.

On Saturday 10 June, two more Enterprises repeated the feat, except that this time they not only sailed to France, they promptly turned round and sailed back home again. However, there was no chance of making any news bulletins – this was the day of England’s World Cup opener against Paraguay, and the whole country was looking the other way as two small boats ploughed their way across the world’s busiest shipping lanes on the hottest day of the year so far.

Fifty years ago the 21-mile one-way trip took 7hrs 20 mins (from 3.29am till 10.50am). The birthday crossing took 4hrs 15mins from Dover to Calais and a gruelling 6hrs 30 to get back. OK, so those hardy pioneers thought they had it tough, but at least they didn’t have to listen to the football on a tiny transistor tuned to BBC Radio Kent (complete with helpful traffic advice about a snarl-up on the A2 near Gillingham).

When 12 men and one woman gathered in a car park next to Dover Marina at 8am on 10 June, it was the culmination of 18 months planning and cajoling to ensure that the 50th anniversary of the birth of the Enterprise was celebrated with the appropriate historical trimmings.

The original idea belonged to Paul Young. At an Enterprise Association committee meeting early in 2005, talk turned to how our beloved dinghy’s 50th was going to be properly marked.

‘What did they do 50 years ago?’ asked Paul. ‘Sailed across the channel? Then that’s what we should do.’

Reports of a laser sailor being threatened with arrest on landing on a French beach didn’t help matters. People who were approached about escort vessels didn’t maintain interest. Others thought that as the Enterprise was not classified as an offshore dinghy a crossing would not even be allowed. Even the RYA questioned the wisdom of the venture.

Three people kept plugging away – Phil Kirk, Paul Young and Keith Tyler. Paul and Keith offered their Enterprises (E22901 and E22322 respectively) for the trip. And then they got lucky. Keith found a company on the web which, for upwards of £1250, had provided escorts for hundreds of cross channel swimmers, plus assorted canoeists, kayakers and windsurfers who wanted to make the trip (they’d also attended an attempt by a bouncy castle with two outboards on it, but it barely got off the beach!).

Several Enterprise sailors were responding to an ad in the Association diary – this was one trip some of us wanted to be a part of in whatever way we could. Apart from Paul (Midland) and Keith (Grafham Water), those who came aboard were Graham Kirkup (Grafham), Charles Morrish (St Mary’s Loch), Martin Bottomley and Ray Bell (Emberton Park), Larry Gray (Yorkshire Ouse), Russell Woodley (Burghfield), Chris Crosland (London Corinthian), Jim Strother and myself (Aldenham). With the boats only intending to sail one way, Glen Cole (Island Barn) volunteered to take a double combi trailer over to Calais to bring them back. Janice Bottomley signed on to take pictures.

As the boats were rigged, Keith and Paul outlined the plan. They and their crews would start and finish the crossing, with the rest of us taking turns to helm and crew. Those not on the Enterprises would be close by on Mike Oram’s pilot boat, Gallivant. Glen, meanwhile, would hitch up the trailer, catch the 10.50am ferry, and meet us in France where we’d have a nice Moules, Frites and glass of two of ‘Vin de Table’, maybe catching the England game, before everyone would return to Dover on an afternoon crossing.

So, after stowing everyone’s kit aboard the Gallivant we wheeled the Enterprises on their launch trolleys down to a slipway on Dover beach. Paul and Charles launched first, with Keith and Graham straight after. Official start time 9.16am. In a stiff SE breeze, force 4 or 5, two planed away towards the harbour entrance escorted by Gallivant’s rib with Janice aboard snapping away, as the rest of us made our way back to the Gallivant to meet them offshore.

As we cruised out on Gallivant the breeze was stiffening – and on the nose - and the sea was getting lumpy. Suddenly, beating to France in an Enterprise didn’t seem such a romantic notion. We caught up with the others about four miles offshore. Charles said later they’d had an exhilarating plane out for a couple of miles, before starting to point up on a heading of around 140 degrees. With the tide initially expected to push us west of Calais, the plan was to maintain this course before tacking as the tide turned to help us back into Calais on starboard tack – handy if we needed to pull rank on a ferry!

It was also planned to take two-hour stints, but after 90 minutes, Mike announced that they were making such good progress that the boats could be in Calais before everyone had had a go. It was time for the first changeover and Martin (helm) and Ray took over from Paul and Charles, and Russell (helm) and Chris from Keith and Graham.

Good progress was made in a gentler swell, with both boats able to free off a bit as the wind backed more easterly. A further uneventful hour and a half passed, by which time the French coast was looking nearer than the English one. The next changeover saw Larry helming 22322, with Graham crewing. After another change over and a further ill-judged attempt to swap places ended with a splashy capsize, we finally made landfall on the western end of Calais beach, about two and half miles west of Calais harbour, at 13.31 exactly.

By this time it had been decided to go for the double crossing and I’d like to say the return leg was exciting and full of incident. But it was a bit like the England game we listened to aboard. Alas, the fell away dramatically, and the last two miles took a miserly two hours.

It was painstaking progress as the Enterprises tacked along the shoreline. Even so, it looked as if Paul and Charles had at least 30 minutes advantage over Keith and Graham. But as E22901 slowed even more near the beach, E22322 took a more offshore line into better wind and was gaining rapidly as the two boats finally rolled out of the gentle surf at 8.04pm – six and a half hours after leaving Calais.

Russell summed up everyone’s feeling from the last couple of hours: ‘When you’re a mile offshore with the faintest of breeze, it’s frustrating, but when you wake up the next morning it will have been worth it.’

We’d all been part of something special, a nostalgic adventure, but with a character of its own. We’d not only crossed the channel one - way, we’d crossed back over again. We’d set out to remake a little bit of history and had ended up creating a new slice of Enterprise folklore all our own.