Ship Inn

One of the compelling qualities of Southerly yachts such as ‘Hejira’ is the ability to access shallow, rarely visited locations and dry out, upright when the tide recedes. It is then possible to escape the ‘hubbub’ of yachting activity and enjoy more natural surroundings.

Every time that I have driven across the bridge onto Hayling Island towards the mooring in Northney Marina, I have been intrigued by the dock outside the Ship Inn pub.

Apart from the occasional rib, I have never seen any vessel moored there but I have strong mental images of how the wharf must have been before it became so choked with silt. Research has thrown up some pictures of the Langstone dock as it was in times gone by.

Inevitably, for me, it became a compelling challenge to visit the redundant dock before the winter lift ashore and the necessary ‘off season’ jobs. The selected crew would need to be those who would relish a challenge and enjoy the benefits of being marooned at low tide directly outside an excellent pub selling my favourite HSB real ale!

There were a number of potential issues which had to be addressed, planned for and briefed in advance of our ‘mini adventure’. Thankfully I have reconnoitred the location at various states of the tide while the kernel of a plan germinated.

Firstly, would there be enough depth to negotiate the passage to, and moor at the wharf?

At low tide, would the bottom be clear of any debris, flat and suitable to ‘sit on’?

Would the high tide be so high as to make the fenders unable to protect the hull?

At the high tide would we be able to access the mooring rings set into the dock wall and under water at the highest tides?

Most of my reservations had been assuaged, and a call to the Chichester Harbour Office and a chat with the pub staff gave an encouraging ‘green light’ to the plan.

The crew were Richard, who had sailed with me back from the Med, up to Orkney in 2024 and through the Netherlands in 2025, and Peter Morton who is a friend from a very long time ago. He has a yacht and apartment in Northney Marina and he kindly helped with my Northney mooring application when there was a waiting list. He is also excellent company, so he qualifies in spades on all fronts.

‘Toad’, my next-door neighbour and a committed beer quaffer, had been pencilled in for our entertainment, he made all the right noises about joining us but, typically, at the last minute he was otherwise committed.

Needing a spring tide and thinking that sunshine trumps cold, we studied the conditions for a suitable couple of days. Monday the 5^th of January ‘ticked the boxes’, and we assembled in Northney Marina to make the very short passage to the Ship Inn dock at Langstone. The channels would inevitably have challenging depths so I was keen to have a rising tide under us in case we ‘touched’.

So, we managed to negotiate the channels up to the Langstone dock, registering no less than 2.1m on the depth sounder. We need a minimum of one metre with the keel fully raised but I like to leave a little ‘hanging out’ so we can get an early indication of impending trouble with the ability to raise the spare and float off.

Mooring up and confident that all was well at the top of the tide, it would have been irresponsible not to sample the HSB and enjoy a light lunch with the Hejira webcam, hopefully registering a new location for the first time since the installation.

We had rigged a breast line to keep her close to the quay but considered it was a trip hazard in our absence, so we left it coiled on the dock while we went for a pint. The intention was to pull Hejira back alongside before she took the bottom.

This is where things started to go wrong…

Peter (Morton) writes:

We had been given our orders by the captain, Nick Mines: a bold and perilous mission to take on the vast adventure of travelling some 400 yards from Northney Marina to the quayside beside the Ship Inn, just the other side of the bridge on Hayling Island.

There was snow on deck when we boarded but it was a beautiful, crisp, sunny day, despite it being a spring tide there was a certain amount of concern about depth, even with the lifting keel. I felt I really ought to have been stationed at the bow, heaving a lead line over the side and calling out solemnly, “By the mark, two metres… by the mark, two point two.”

Nevertheless, we rounded the corner and tied up to the quay without drama. All was going swimmingly. That is, until we got cosy in the pub and four pints of HSB later, we failed to notice that Hejira had blown away from the dock, settled on the bottom and was over six feet away, out of reach. This was not a scenario we had envisaged.

As the youngest member of the crew, I briefly considered a heroic run-and-leap manoeuvre onto the boat. However, this would have left Captain Haddock and his trusty shipmate Richard stranded ashore, which felt both unseemly and potentially very lonely.

After diplomatic discussions with the pub, a solution was produced in the form of a piece of wood. It was exactly two inches long enough. Any shorter and we would have been paddling.

With the plank delicately positioned from quay to ladder, and with two great bold steps, we made it aboard – amazingly, all three of us – without injury, immersion, or major embarrassment.

Now safely on board, the heater pumping out deliciously warm air, all is once again well with the world. The whole episode was made even better by passers-by stopping to take photographs, clearly unused to seeing a boat of this size tied up on the quay.

That was not the end of the drama. As Hejira settled and sloped away from the dock, the planks fell off and no longer reached. Thankfully, the pub came to the rescue again, producing the floats from a raft which were long enough to span the gap and allow us to, once again return to the pub.

That we’re all here smiling is remarkable. That we managed it after four pints of HSB and a narrow plank is nothing short of miraculous.

Richard writes:

We slipped our lines from Northney Marina on a chill winters day  for an epic crossing of the Hayling Straights, some of the most dangerous waters in the world, with vicious tides, currents, whirlpools, shallows and sea monsters to try and reach the safe haven of the Ship Inn Quay, which is, well, just over there! As we rounded Cape Certain Death, just by the first port hand mark, the current grabbed the good ship Hejira, dragging her inexorably towards the stinking mud flats. If anything went wrong now, we were doomed.

Luckily, the skipper had been planning this adventure, down to the very tiniest detail, leaving absolutely nothing to chance, for the last six months, so, in no time at all, we were in the warm welcoming embrace of the Ship Inn bar, HSB in hand.

Three or four pints later, we decided to get back on board. But something was badly wrong. A chasm had opened up between Hejira and the quay. But the publican came to our rescue with a 6 foot long, 6 inch wide plank. The gap was about 5ft 10inches! imagine this. Three blokes who had had a drink, trying to cross a rickety plank across a 10 ft deep chasm over black, stinking mud.

We made it but, inevitably, the boat settled and the planks plunged into the depths, leaving us stranded – again!