On Steeple Point – two images from Duckpool

17/07/2009 / Bill / 1 Comment

Two images from Duckpool.

The first taken last Christmas – the pebble ridge in winter:

This one taken in heavy rain at 1045 this morning – the pebble ridge in summer:

Lands End to St Davids Head including the Bristol Channel
Strong winds are forecast
Inshore waters forecast
24 hour forecast:   1900 Fri 17 Jul    1900 Sat 18 Jul
Wind    Westerly or northwesterly becoming cyclonic, 5 to 7, decreasing 4 in north.
Sea state    Moderate or rough, but slight in east.
Weather    Rain or showers.
Visibility    Moderate or good, occasionally poor.

This is this evening’s inshore waters forecast. It was right for the whole day.

The heavy rain has swollen the river and once again altered the shape of the pebble ridge, the same ridge that presented such a peaceful scene last December.

This is the weather that makes this coast exciting and invigorating.

The only problem is that this is July. Why can’t it wait until the Autumn?

For love of a boat – keep them alive

13/07/2009 / Bill / 1 Comment

Last week, I admired this boat in Padstow, Cornwall

and early last month, this one in Finikas, Crete

They are about the same size, both registered fishing boats.

One is built for fishing inshore in the Atlantic Ocean off Cornwall. the other in the Lybian Sea off Southwestern Crete.

To look at, these are totally different boats – but there are many similarities – similarities that come from their function and the work that is put into building, maintaining and running them.

Without a specific function and the people who use them, working boats become mere objects to look at (albeit very fine objects). Add in the people who built them and run them and they take on a life.

Someone decided to build them, lay the keel, add molds, timbers, planking, decking, an engine. Someone finished them. Perhaps the same people, perhaps someone else now takes them to sea, fishes from them, maintains them. These people have families, friends, fellow fisherman, customers – a community of people who know the boats.

Well, they have one other thing in common, they won’t last for ever. As time goes on, and fishing becomes more regulated, and plastic and metal construction finally takes over from wood, and universal design takes over from local design, and costs become more and more prohibitive, so these boats and those like them will disappear into history. Maybe this generation. And the skills that come with them will likely dissolve or resolve into some other field.

Celebrate them now, while you see them working.

Record them and share them

. . . and admire those who are working to keep those skills alive.

Try the boatbuildingacademy site – here, or Charlie Hussey’s marinecarpentry site – here.

Enjoy Mark Harris’ video on building the Isolde, then go to his woodenboatbuilding site – here.

On Steeple Point – a shared world

16/05/2009 / Bill

I was climbing the path to Steeple Point.

Towards the top, the land falls steeply away, rapidly becoming a cliff face that drops vertically to the rocks below.

With the tide in, these rocks are covered by sea – Atlantic rollers reaching their nemesis on the Cornish coast.

From up here, you watch those big swells roll in.

They build, curl and crash forward in a welter of foam, sparkling in the sunshine. Piling over the back-tow of their predecessors, they waste themselves on the pebble ridge.

There are intricate patterns of foam, constantly changing, highlighting myriad currents and cross-currents.

That morning, there was nobody in sight.

I was enjoying the aloneness. . . the warmth of the sun . . . the smell of salt in the air. . . the sound of waves on rocks.

The sea was still heavy from an earlier gale

There was a slight breeze, I remember.

And then this guy appears below me on a surf board.

The waves were sweeping in from around the Point. He had been hidden out there as I climbed.

So, it wasn’t my sole world after all. There were two of us – the one holding a camera and idly watching, the other intently doing.

It was so totally unexpected. I felt a little shocked – a bit put-out.

Then I felt admiration – what a great ride in such a beautiful place.

And then a change of mood – sudden concern because of what I could see from my vantage point.

A moment of doubt burst into this memorable day.

The concern was all mine, of course.

Whatever I saw, whatever I thought might happen, was way beyond my control.

He didn’t care. He knew what he was doing. He was having a ball.

I could only watch, my concern pointless.

Let him get on with it.

He paddled out to catch another wave. I continued my walk.

Two separate lives enjoying the same space, viewing it through different eyes.

A World Of His Own

22/04/200922/04/2009 / Bill / 4 Comments

On 22nd April 1969, a third year student in London, I watched Robin Knox-Johnson return to Falmouth on television.

His feat made a lasting impression. Like Sir Francis Chichester, he represented a spirit of adventure born of individual skill and personal endeavour. The essence of the achievement? No large back-up team, no communication for much of the voyage, no modern navigational aids – one man running with the elements, (and often against them).

Nowadays, it is difficult to describe his achievement without dropping into the world of spin and hype. They have stolen all the superlatives. Too much has been attributed too often to lesser deeds.You have to read his story in his own words to understand the man and the task.

And, for the rest of us, whatever our sailing ambition, he will be one who went before.

Are there words that sign-post what he did that may work for us now?

Napoleon Hill showed a feel for it early last century when he wrote:

“Whatever you want, oh discontented man, step up. Pay the price – and take it.”

Sir Robin stepped up, paid the price with perseverance and stamina and took his prize – the first to sail non-stop solo round the world.

Because he showed the trip was possible, others have followed with increasing confidence – as well as with many, many more technical aids, and achieved successes of their own

Now, forty years on, general expectations are such that completing a solo navigation goes largely unmentioned – you have to be a record-breaker (or fail spectacularly) to get noticed.

But remember this: taking the prize may be the headline, but it’s the stepping-up and paying the price that’s the real challenge. And that’s the Knox-Johnson legacy.

All power to him this anniversary.

(Follow the links to see what others think – start here or here)

Book sailing: coincidence

02/04/200903/04/2009 / Bill / 1 Comment

Furthering my interest in local craft (For love of a boat), I have been researching Greek inshore fishing boats. I contacted the library at the National Maritime Museum Cornwall and Denise Davey, one of the library volunteers, took up my request and was extremely helpful.

She came back with scanned copies of one of the appendices to H.R.Denham’s “The Aegean” – Inshore Craft. Here is one of the illustrations.

You will instantly recognise the hull shape from images in earlier posts to this blog.

This and more arrived earlier this week. I am very grateful to the NMMC. I had not heard of Denham’s book. I wondered when it was written, meaning to look it up on Google.

~~~

This evening I have been reading Hammond Innes’ “Sea and Islands”. published in 1967. Hammond Innes was one of the earliest authors I read – well before James Bond. In retrospect, I found his stories far more exciting, if less fashionable, than Ian Fleming’s.

The book was hidden on a shelf in my favourite used-book shop – Books by the Sea in Bude, Cornwall. Apart from the author and the subject, I was bowled over by the dated dust jacket. A whole different era.

In “Sea and Islands”, Innes describes various voyages in his Robert Clark designed, 42 foot, masthead cruiser-racer ‘Mary Deare’. He describes being dismasted in the RORC’s North Sea Race; a cruise ‘rockhopping’ in Scandinavia and then taking the boat to the Mediterranean and exploring the Greek Islands.

It is when he starts to describe the islands and the sea between them that the book comes alive. I am only half way through the book but the islands themselves have brought life to it.

That’s not all: “Apart for the Mediterranean Pilot Vol. IV, our Bible throughout was Henry Denham’s “The Aegean”. This sea guide to the coasts and islands of Greece was most conveniently published the previous year (1963), and knowing that I was bound for his previous happy hunting ground, the author has kindly sent me a copy. It is the perfect introduction to island landfalls, for it not only gives the port information necessary before sailing in, but also geographical and historical details in conveniently concise form.”

So now I know. I must get hold of a copy.

On learning to row

18/03/200919/03/2009 / Bill / 1 Comment

“Watch carefully, Bill.”

Aged about 12. We were leaning against the rail looking down at the water.

A small, elderly man was descending the wooden steps from the quay next door. He was dressed in a blue fisherman’s jersey, baggy grey trousers and canvas shoes.

Half way down, he nodded a good morning to us, untied the end of the frape and gently hauled his dinghy to the tiny landing stage beneath him.

It must have been about half-tide to have exposed this platform. Along this side of the harbour, dinghies were moored on frapes to allow the boat to ride the considerable tides and also to prevent them going aground at low water – (in all but the lowest of low spring tides), so that they were always ready for use.

He untied the boat from the frape, remoored it to the ladder and stepped neatly into the middle of the boat. It barely moved.

The thwarts were wet from the previous night’s rain. He found a cloth and dried them.

Then he raised a bottom board and bailed the small amount of water collected there. He sponged it dry.

Facing aft, he sat down on the middle thwart, shipped both rowlocks and then the outside oar.

Twisting round, he untied the painter, coiled it into the bow and gave the boat a gentle push. Now he had room to ship the other oar.

As the boat drifted further away from the ladder, he was able to pull on the port oar turning the boat towards its destination.

With barely a glance over his shoulder, he took the weight on both oars and glided effortlessly away to the quay across the water.

The oars dipped with barely a splash – an economy of movement that gave the sense of a single unit – man and boat.

Even I could see the natural focus, the self-possession and the strength of someone doing what they have been doing for decades – a master in his element.

This was Randolph Johns. He was probably in his late sixties. That seemed ancient then – I no longer think so.

Over the next two or three summers, there would be the occasional lesson in our pram dinghy or a few words on shore.

From watching and listening to him, I learnt how to row and how to handle a small dinghy.

There was never any formality in his teaching – just the passing on of knowledge and the acquiring of some skill by doing.

I will never forget Randolph Johns. I learnt from him what it meant to master an activity – to have reached a point where the movement itself ceases to be an aspiration and becomes part of your being. He wasn’t a man who went out for a row – rowing was part of how he lived. He didn’t think about it much.

Had I rowed every day since, I doubt if I would ever have been as capable of doing this deceptively simple task as well as him. Even in those days, outboard engines had taken the necessity out of rowing and were turning it into a leisure activity. There was now choice – the attitude behind it had changed. Most of the masters of rowing nowadays will have mastered a sport, not a means of transport.

At 12, of course I didn’t understand this. But I did begin to look at how other people did those things I wanted to do – and I did learn a little from doing this . . . and then a little more . . .

“Watch carefully, Bill.”

Fowey, circa 1959. I took the picture. See the number of moorings compared with today. The tug on the right is St Canute which later went to the Exeter Maritime Museum.

For love of a boat – Carrick Roads, Cornwall

22/02/2009 / Bill / 1 Comment

Carrick Roads, Cornwall 2009

We have spent the weekend in and around Falmouth.

Falmouth is one of the great natural harbours of the world, with its vast deepwater expanse of Carrick Roads protected from the sea.

From the water’s edge north of Mylor, we watched Falmouth Working Boats dredging for oysters on the opposite shore. These boats are one of the few in the western world still working solely under sail

Three workboats under reduced sail, a sloop passing up the roads and a working boat moored on the foreground.

I suspect the latter is one of the racing fleet of Falmouth Working Boats, like the one below . . .

Falmouth Working Boat, 2009

On sailing a Folksong – rudders 3

07/02/2009 / Bill / 1 Comment

I have been gathering information on rudders – see my posts here and here.

The following by J.D.Sleightholme in his ABC for Yachtsmen, is useful.

Published in 1965, original price 21 shillings, and bought in one of my favourite secondhand bookshops – Books by the Sea, Bude, Cornwall.

The question is what effect Blue Mistress’ rather heavily-built rudder have on her performance?

It’s one of those subjects that has several different answers depending on who you talk to. At the moment I’m gathering information and listening.

Blue Mistress’ heavily-built rudder.

Mr Sleightholme writes:

“A yacht should handle with the minimum use of the rudder (which slows her).

Deep narrow rudders are more effective than wide ones and have less slowing effect. As a rule, deep rudders are broader at the top due to difference in water density.

A steeply raked rudder exerts additional force in pulling the stern down when hard over.

In tacking with good way on, very little rudder is used at first, but more is applied as the speed drops – (never more than 30 degrees). Jamming it hard over may mean missing stays.

Power craft have proportionately smaller rudders because they work in the slipstream of the propeller. May be “balanced” with a small area forward of the rudder post.

Sailing craft may have 12 – 15 per cent of immersed lateral hull area in the rudder, power craft about 5 per cent.” (p.100)

This says more about shape and angles and less about weight, but it takes us in the right direction.

On Steeple Point – “Treachery at Sharpnose”

25/01/200916/05/2009 / Bill

Steeple Point

Jeremy Seal, in Treachery at Sharpnose, covers a story that I have wondered about since, as a small child, I first saw the figurehead of the Caledonia in Morwenstow churchyard. Somewhat taller than me at the time, holding cutlass and shield, she ignored me, looking blankly towards the sea.

Higher Sharpnose Point, February 2008

Higher Sharpnose Point is two miles north of Steeple Point, which I have written about before – here. I was christened in Morwenstow Church more years ago than I care to remember. This coast has deep meaning for me, just as it does for everyone born in the immediate hinterland.

The Reverend Hawker viewed our forefathers as ‘a mixed multitude of smugglers, wreckers and dissenters of various hue’. A colourful population in those days, obviously, but I wonder if this was the whole story.

Today, I am happy with the label ‘dissenter’, and I have done some casual wrecking in my life – (wrecking: a term used locally for scouring the shoreline for whatever washes shore – in my youth it was wood and various floating objects that had washed overboard from passing ships – nowadays it is plastic junk. Shipwrecks still occur but very rarely).

But ‘smuggler’? No.

~~~

It is strange to read about your own locality. It never quite sounds like the place you think you know so well, and, although it is a pleasure to read about it, (like seeing your name in print), it is a shock to find that someone else sees it in another light.

~~~

Above Hawker’s Hut, February 2008, The rocks that swallowed the Caledonia.

What happened to the nine man crew of the Caledonia, from Arbroath, on 8th September 1842 was truly terrible. The recently restored figurehead in the churchyard is a poignant memorial to those interred there.

The author tells of his research and the journey he took to find the ‘truth’ of what happened. In the end he comes up with definite facts through which he weaves an interesting story. I found the research fascinating; I was disappointed at his apparent dismissal of Hawker, and felt the fictional account of the final voyage to be ‘film-of-the-book’ and tending to take the edge off it – (a clue to this is in the title):

“He laid a hand upon his brother-in-law’s shoulder. It had been nine months, he briefly realised, since he had laid his hand there, on their departure from Rio. Then the business of the ship was calling and their reconciliation was done.

……. An hour later, somewhere off Boscastle, the storm hit them.”

That’s not my idea of real history. One of the problems I have with the book is that, by interpreting the facts in this way, the author is straying into areas that he has condemned the eccentric parson for entering.

But do read it. It is a good tale. I enjoyed it and read it straight through – beginning to end.

Higher Sharpnose Point, February 2008 – a fraction of the sea met by the crew of the Caledonia.

Acknowledging the past

29/12/200830/12/2008 / Bill

On Boxing Day, at low tide, we walked on the beach.

Empty quay, Bude, Boxing Day, 2008

The weather was one of blue skies and crystal-clear visibility.

The views were amazing, but there is always more to a view than meets the eye – there is a history that rides with it.

Ceres, Bude

This is not a request to focus on the past, but to share it – to acknowledge that the past existed and that those who lived through it were no different from us.

They too saw the world change before their eyes and their old certainties lost to an unknown future.