A peaceful moment on the Thames sailing barge that I spent an interesting weekend periods of peaceful contemplation was interspersed with shouted commands to “pull in the shrouds”, “drop the fossil” (or was that fo’c’sle?) and “free up the main block”, and we all had to help as the barge turned and the sails crossed the deck. This was all a bit technical for me, but I excelled at being the deck scrubber. I was allowed to drive (no, the chap in the image isn't me...), and instructed to point the bow towards a distant headland. As soon as I touched the wheel the headland floated left to right across the horizon, and as soon as I’d managed to point the boat at the new location the headland promptly floated back again. This moving target settled down after about 15 minutes.
