coasts and harbours

For love of a boat – Carrick Roads, Cornwall

/ 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

Pass it on

/ Bill

In book-sailor mode, I found the following – the first paragraph of the preface to Deep Sea Sailing, by Erroll Bruce:

In 1950 I enjoyed an exciting sailing race across the North Atlantic and was soon afterwards sent for by Lord Fraser of North Cape, then First Sea Lord at the Admiralty. He asked many questions about the handling of the yacht, and finished by saying, “What you have learnt of the sea in small craft is not your private property, so I trust you will pass it on to others.”

I warm to the phrase ‘pass it on to others.’

It stands back from ‘teach’ or ‘tell’ or ‘inform’. It somehow has less of the tinge of intention created by a modern trend that seeks to ‘improve’ everyone.

It says: “I have done such and such. This is what happened and this is what I learnt. You can pick it up and use it or you can leave it alone. Either way, our ideas meet for a short while and then move on.”

The importance is in the communication. The effect is up to the recipient.


Book sailing

/ Bill

We have been watching the rugby this afternoon – England losing to Wales, and the conversation got round to sporting academies and how young people seem to be protected these days and, as a consequence, are expected to survive major tests before they have built the practical experience they need to cope with them – before they know what it’s like in real life. At least the old-fashioned apprenticeship pitted the apprentice against the real world almost from the start.

My mother-in-law who comes from a farming family said that, when she was young,  they used to describe people like that as “book-farmers”. They know everything on paper . . . but not much in reality.

I, like many other people who sail, devour books on sailing and the sea and could be described as a book-sailor by anyone with more experience than me. (I have just added yet another of my many books to the boatblog book shelf).

It has got me thinking: I wonder if people could be described as “blog-sailors” or “DVD-sailors”. I believe there are thousands of “virtual-sailors” currently ‘racing’ in the Vendee Globe. Perhaps they are “laptop-sailors”. or ‘pc-sailors’

Whatever . . . it is good to be interested – but the only real way to learn  is  to be out there on the water.

So, I wish you a favourable tide and a fair wind

Squall over Eddystone 2007

but not too favourable or too fair . . .

because how else will you learn?

On sailing a Folksong – rudders 3

/ 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”

/ 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.


For love of a boat – in Messinia, Greece

/ Bill

Aghios Nikolaos, Messinia, Greece 2007

If you are reading this on a blog feed, there is a link on the main site to the series of posts on inshore craft.

Inshore fishing boats are changing  from working boat to leisure craft in ever greater numbers.

Looking through this series of posts, (images taken for the love of the boat rather than for any academic purpose), we can glimpse that change.

To pursue this further, I highly recommend the links in the ‘For love of a boat’ category on the main site, starting with Captain George’s video clip. Thank you again to AA for drawing my attention to it.

For the origin of this series – here