Excerpt from a book written by Captain Wingfield
I did a little sailing in Greece as a guest, but on return to the UK I bought a share in a 32 foot sloop called Calismarde. She had been amateur built, but was quite a successful example of glued strip construction. The owner, a Group Captain, said he had built her himself, but I think he had a lot of help from the RAF fitters at his last station. He was really more interested in fiddling about with the boat than sailing. In the short time I shared with him, we did a passage from Plymouth to Portsmouth. It was misty approaching the Needles and the Group Captain became very agitated. “We’ve missed the Needles” he said, “soon we’ll be in St Catherine’s Race. The only thing to do is to run her ashore and jump for it.” I had just had a glimpse of the Needles so I knew that we were on course. I told him that I thought our navigation was all right and that we would soon see the lighthouse right ahead, which of course we did. At that point I decided that we could not happily sail together so we dissolved our partnership amicably and I bought out his share.
I did quite a few cruises in her across the Channel to Cherbourg and the Channel Islands. She had no engine which was a disadvantage, particularly once when we got the tides wrong and swept past Barfleur. I had a young crew including my son, Richard, who were all prostrate with seasickness. There seemed no chance of making Cherbourg so I put the helm down and steered for home. After a wild dash across the Channel in rising winds we anchored with much relief off Seaview, Isle of Wight. I had been on the tiller without relief for 20 hours.