A tot to celebrate rounding a headland

I originally published this picture last year. It shows a yacht, the MV Jane, washed ashore at Eastney and my original correspondent said it was owned by a Dutchman named Jan.
rw heritage from alan marsh pix

From: "'Alan Marsh' via Pictures@thenews.co.uk" 
Date: 29 Dec 2016 02:23
Subject: Heritage PPP-170401-144017001rw heritage from alan marsh pix

From: "'Alan Marsh' via Pictures@thenews.co.uk" 
Date: 29 Dec 2016 02:23
Subject: Heritage PPP-170401-144017001
rw heritage from alan marsh pix From: "'Alan Marsh' via [email protected]" Date: 29 Dec 2016 02:23 Subject: Heritage PPP-170401-144017001

Now another reader, Robin Fielder, has just stumbled across it on portsmouth.co.uk and writes: ‘I knew the owner Jan Loken (Uncle Jan) and his wife Elsie well.

‘My father Bert Fielder, who was a boatbuilder and marine engineer by trade, carried out extensive repairs when she was finally re-floated on a spring tide.

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‘Jan could not pay dad as he had not been able to earn for some months, but they became firm friends.’

Robin continues: ’I worked with Jan during a summer holiday when I was about 14 and lived with Jan and Elsie in their little terraced house near the Camber dock.

‘Jan would celebrate rounding a headland with a tot (large for him, small for me) and a few times I took the Jane into Portsmouth Harbour while Jan “rested” in the fore-peak cabin.

‘Jan did not speak a word of English although Elsie was a local girl he met while serving in the Royal Dutch Navy during the war. He hated Germans to an extreme and once got into trouble for refusing to pull a German family off Bembridge Ledge when they went aground.’

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Robin is semi-retired now and has his own yacht which he sails out of Chichester Harbour.

He adds: ‘I often think of Jan and the Jane as I sail past Portsmouth.

‘How do people find their way in without the power station chimneys to line up?’

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