Posted by Laurence Monkhouse on July 11, 2005 at 22:53:10 from 82.7.160.81 user Laurence_.
In Reply to: Re: Secret Water oddity posted by John Wilson on July 09, 2005 at 15:06:16:
1. Leaving the dinghy on a mooring when you go for a sail was and is the normal thing to do. Today I would as a matter of course leave my own dinghy on my mooring unless I expected to go ashore somewhere. I assume that Commander Walker would naturally have left the Imp there to use on his return, rather than going to the hassle of towing two dinghies to Secret Water. But in those days he did indeed have the other option of getting taken ashore by the boatman when he got back, a luxury we don't have today. He didn't have the option of using a wharf on quay - there wasn't and isn't one at Pin Mill.
2. Ipswich Port used to be just the Wet Dock, entered by a fairly small lock. Until quays were built outside the Wet Dock in the 1930s cargo ships of any size did have to lie to buoys below Pin Mill and unload into lighters. Again Ransome describes what he saw.
3. Goblin's anchor and chain certainly return remarkably quickly after John loses it overboard. But Commander Walker was taking up the post of Second in Command of H M S Ganges, the great training school for Royal Naval Ratings, only a few hundred yards from where the anchor was lost, and was clearly on good personal terms with the Captain - to the extent of getting him to send personal telegrams on an "Ask no questions" basis. What more natural than that a Petty Officer should at once have been instructed to carry out a 'training exercise' in the recovery of lost anchors!