[To THE EDITOR Or TER "SPECTATOR."] SIR,- - In October last I
was in a boat on the Stour at Christ- church. An oar touched a post in mid-stream, and in an instant the boatman and I were in the water. We caught the overturned boat and clung to the half inch of keel, so we got some breath before the boat went quite over again and floated away. The tidal current was very strong, and we had to swim some distance before we could grasp the reeds on the river bank and rest. Two men took us off in their sailing punt. The first sentence in your valuable article (Spectator, July 11th) is confirmed by many things in this experience. A coxswain of any kind would have seen the post. An oars- man in practice would have unshipped his oar when it touched the post. One of us, if unable to swim, would probably have drowned the other. Forgetfulness of its ten- dency to turn over, even when a boat has a beam of five or six feet, made both of us rest on the same side of the keel. Heavy boots interfered much more with my swimming than did my complete suit of cloth clothes. And, lastly, I think no man should enter a light boat, sailing or rowing, unless he has kept up his swimming, even at the age of seventy-one.--I
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