A week on Faramir
By Daisy Keddie, Norfolk Boat grant recipient February 2025
Foreword
This was my fourth trip with The Cirdan Sailing Trust. Yet again, I have left with a heap load of great memories, some great new friends, and a greater love of seafaring.
The trust and their team do a brilliant job at giving young people new experiences in a challenging and out of the ordinary environment, and I feel very grateful to have had these opportunities too. Since my recent trip onboard the Faramir I have decided to pursue a career in Sail Training.
All of this would not have been possible without your funding, so thank you very much!!!
Please enjoy my “ships log” of our adventures from my trip onboard Faramir (it mainly details of the best and worst of a week’s worth of my cooking).
Daisy.
Monday 17th February – North Fambridge Marine – River Roach
Anxious expressions were passed around the saloon. We didn’t know each other, but that day marked the formation of a crew that would come to be known as ‘Jarvis’s Witnesses.’ Faramir slipped away from North Fambridge with the waning sunlight, and she was anchored in the River Roach by nightfall.
I put a lot of brain power into making a stir fry for everyone with my watch mate, Evie. At home, I am notorious for burning food, and throwing in as many juxtaposing ingredients as possible so it took a lot of noodle nurturing and self-restraint and, thankfully, everyone survived the night.
Tuesday 18th February – River Roach – River Backwater
High winds struck as Faramir motored gently into the North Sea. I felt a chill and went down to put on my scarf and jacket. When I got back, we were raising our first sail. Everyone was a fair bit tired from their watches the night before so conversation remained slight until the first lots of tea were made. Our skipper showed us a trick way of trying a figure of eight and I proceeded to spent the rest of the week trying to perfect it.
Lunch was an abysmal. I emerged from the galley after what felt like hours overwhelmed by stuffiness, nausea, and nine bowls overflowing with baked beans; and somewhere beneath all this, soggy sausage rolls. We anchored next to the Pirate Radio ship, and after taking too many pixilated pictures on my digital camera, I managed to claim back some of my dignity by helping the other watch make a rather splendid stew.
Wednesday 19th February – River Backwater – Burnham on Crouch
I should have swum back to shore when we had the chance. It wasn’t even noon when we (captors at this point) had to sit through a series of riddles and dad jokes that made me question all my life choices that had played their part in leading me to this moment. We were sailing on the genoa, mizzen, main and stay sails by late afternoon.
I watched the sunset and ruminated on my writing for a bit, until the “chalk drawing competition” began again. Considering the amount of coffee I had in my system at the time, it was no surprise that the entire deck was covered in my terrible little scribbles (however my masterpiece ‘Giant Head Jarvis’ won me half a toffee crisp in the prize draw).
Now in darkness, we guided Faramir towards her anchorage with the ships only man overboard torch (why this was entrusted unto me I’m still not entirely sure). I didn’t drop it; however…when we tried to guess what an approaching buoy was called, I said ‘Nathan’ and it turned out to be Fairway 13. It’s probably time to get my eyes tested…
What follows still haunts me to this day…
Red Watch cooked SIX PACKETS of spaghetti. SIX…
Our watch was on cleaning duties that night…
And as I tried to remove the remains of the pasta blob up from the saucepan, I remembered an fleeting moment a hour before when Red Watch had asked me ‘do you think that is enough pasta?’ and after I glanced at it just once, I had shrugged and said, ‘yeah, that’s about enough.’ It certainly was enough. But how did I not see that there were fifty million strands of spaghetti in there?!
I tried to be supportive, but my face could not hide my disgust…
Thursday 20th February – Burnham on Crouch to North Fambridge
We had to move Faramir away from the river bank in the morning. After raising the anchor, everyone was warmed up enough to eat my disgustingly cold scramble eggs. The weather was too harsh for us to go to shore in the tender or head out to sea so we motored back to North Fambridge and moored (which meant no more anchor watch!).
Our Bosun murdered me with the compass in the cockpit, but I managed to make enough rice to feed an entire country that night – which I then moulded into a snowman. We played spoons (my game is improving).
Friday 21st February – North Fambridge to the Doodle Ranch
Happy Hour soon turned into Unhappy Hour when we had to mop out the bilges. When we were done, we played some games (which seemed to include tossing pens at me and trying to steal my favourite sail tie).
I met my Watchmates little dog and then I killed the skipper on the tender with a wooden spoon (although he knew about it all along, disappointingly) Us Norfolk bumpkins had to take four trains home. I (coupled with a lot of caffeine) wound up our crazy labradoodles, then proceeded to annoy my family for the rest of the day.
