How we sailed into the pages of storybook Britain

I am no sailor. I don't like fiddling with ropes or tying knots. I prefer to admire boats from the shore. And none of my children had ever sailed. So when the chance to take my sons on an Arthur Ransome sailing weekend on the east coast of England around Harwich came up, I accepted hesitantly. Ian Welsh and Jonathan Stickland are a couple of experienced sailors and enthusiasts who own a fleet of beautiful wooden yachts and dinghies. They founded the Classic Sailing Club a couple of years ago for fellow enthusiasts, as well as novices and their families. Ours was to be the first of their Ransome weekends, a dry - or wet - run.

Their boats are moored close to Pin Mill in Suffolk, where two of Ransome's books (Secret Water and We Didn't Mean To Go To Sea) are set. The idea was that we would sample the books before the trip. Time for a second confession: I've never been able to read Ransome - as a child, I could not swallow Swallows and Amazons. But this would be a good chance to overturn my old prejudice, or so I thought.

Have you ever forced a child to listen to a story? I tried my best, in the weeks before the trip, to make Secret Water an exciting read, but every time something threatened to happen, Ransome changed his mind: he is a virtuoso at false alarms. Yet he writes about landscape with slow charm and I absorbed the inescapable truth that the east coast, where we were headed, is defined by mud. Mud dominates the narrative and supplies some of its drama. In one of the more involving chapters, the children try to walk on mud in peculiar custom-built footwear - 'splatchers' - a bit like wooden tea trays with straps. (Ian is thinking of getting some made for future trips.)

As every sailor knows (but I had not properly taken on board) you can never be sure that a trip will go ahead. Ours nearly didn't. There were Force Six winds forecast for Saturday 12 April, and Ian, properly cautious, thought it unsafe to go out with a bunch of novices. So our weekend was cut in half. But the good news was that, on Sunday, the weather promised fair and it was decided we would sleep on the boat on Saturday night. The boys were looking forward to this. The crew consisted of Bernard and Os (11-year-old twins), Ted (nine) and their friend Raefe (11) - whose father sails. Raefe, at least, appeared to be mariner material, so that was something.