'Blue Mistress'

Back from holiday

/ Bill

 We have just returned from a holiday in Croatia – not sailing, but walking, busing and ferrying along the Dalmatian coast and through the islands – another opportunity to wander around small harbours, (some very small indeed), looking at boats.

Hvar Town

I am fired up with a new enthusiasm. In the face of some of the more elegant and expansive examples of modern yachting (of which more later), I understand why Blue Mistress suits me and have an inkling how to evolve with her over the next few years.

I come from the Robin Knox-Johnson first era – (his first circumnavigation, rather than his second), and, while watching (and enjoying) the more extreme examples of modern sailing, which a younger generation takes for granted, I am able to pause and wonder what are the things that are being lost in the rush for the new that would be worth highlighting.

There are skills and knowledge that grew over time (because they took time to grow) that will be lost in half a generation. Some are obvious, and some we do not need any more, but there are others that we will miss when they have gone. And they are less obvious than you would think.

Blue Mistress’ lines were taken from the Folkboat, (which was designed in the 1940s), but she is not such a classic boat that we can’t put some new materials and innovative ideas into her – and still have a fine boat. We can straddle the generations and see what comes out of it.

Even if we wanted to, we cannot avoid the modern – it constantly hits us in the eye. But we can take the time to look a little further, trawling beneath the surface. And wondering along a coastline, wherever you are, is doing just that. Some of the knowledge and skills I am talking about can still be found in places like the little harbour below.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 
 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A qualification for life

/ Bill

 

This is the qualification I am proudest of – one of the first I ever received.

 

Not one of the many compartmentalised, categorised, bulletised certificates that I have received in the intervening years has matched this hand-printed document for its underlying humanity.

Three cockpits

/ Bill

Tongue stuck gently in cheek, I offer you three images.

Like thousands of others, I leant on the railings around the Barbican in Plymouth in early May and admired the TRANSAT boats.

Like hundreds of others, I looked very hard at those boats and put myself on board. “What would it be like in a gale of wind – where would I be, what would I be adjusting next?”

I imagined myself picking up lines, juggling with electronics, changing sails, feeling myself lifted high in the air in those wide cockpits – looking down to leeward as the boat heeled precariously in a sudden gust . . . or standing knee deep in water, looking up as the windward side angled above me . . . or just holding on – (when ‘one hand for you, one for the ship’ becomes ‘both hands for you’) . . not to mention the other tasks of working with the team, managing the press, dealing with costs.

Sure, I can see the differences, this is way out of my league, but are there any similarities with what happens on Blue Mistress?  . . . Is there a common thread?  Or am I just a another dreamer?

This is the cockpit of Gitana Eighty (Loick Peyron)  – as I write, lying first in the IMOCA 60s, making 13.8 knots, with 307 nautical miles to go to Boston, (and, yes, we do deal with figures showing that apparent accuracy).

 

And this is the cockpit of Telecom Italia (Giovanni Soldini) – currently lying first in Class 40, making 7.4 knots in light airs, with 1079 nautical miles to go.

 

Back on  board Blue Mistress – (seen here last month in Fowey, Cornwall),

 

I look round my own short, narrow cockpit. Like Peyron and Soldini, I know every inch of it. Less to know, of course, and I may not have competed every inch of the way across an ocean, but I too have watched the sea from every angle, felt the wind, and eyed the weather.

And there lies the similarity, it’s not in the technology, it’s in the sea and the weather, elements careless of mankind, carrying their own way day after day, century after century.

And if I dare to compare myself (and you) to those sailors currently hurrying acoss the Atlantic, it’s lies in a certain restlessness – that sparkle in the eye, that beat of the heart, that need to test ourselves in those elements.

There’s no mystery, it’s simply being out there for the love of it.

 

What’s in a word?

/ Bill

It has taken me a while to grasp this – I am a bit slow.

If you look at the entry list for the Artemis TRANSAT, it reads, for example,  Gitana Eighty – Loick Peyron, Telecom Italia – Giovanni Soldini.  

On the other hand, in the entry list for the JesterChallenge, it’s the other way round – the sailor is the entrant, the boat his/her vessel.  

This is because the entries to the Artemis TRANSAT single-handed race are Team entries; the entries to the JesterChallenge are Single-Sailor entries.  

Both events have instrinsic value, but it is the concept of single-handedness that differs. The meaning has become confused – in the context of this particular race, at least.

I look at the entries in the TRANSAT as a small boy must look at Formula One cars – from afar.

I look at the entries in the JesterChallenge with genuine understanding and fellow feeling.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Artemis TRANSAT

/ Bill

On Sunday, Peggy and I sailed (and motored a fair bit) out of Plymouth with the fleet to watch the start of the Artemis Transat.  

The wind was light, the sea was calm and the sun shone. Perfect for the watchers – not so good for sailors in a hurry.

We stayed back, sailing gently to and fro a mile or so out from Penlee Point at the western end of Plymouth Sound. As we weren’t going anywhere, it was a chance to try the smaller/taller jib (as opposed to the shorter/wider jib) in light conditions – (good result).

Most of the watching boats seem to get in close but I reckoned if we stood back we would see more of the spectacle and not get caught up in the start, dropping back through a fleet that would be moving much faster than us.

 

 We had been rewarded by one or two of the IMOCO 60s coming over in our direction as they prepared for the start. This was Cervin EnR – Yannick Bestaven

 

 BritAir – Armel Le Cleac’h, tacked early, presumably to avoid the heavy boat wash that the main fleet were experiencing. Despite little wind, these powerful yachts sped gracefully across the water.

 

This is the race that started in 1960 with Hasler and Chichester. It’s a perfect example, of which there are many in modern sport, of how the “higher, faster, stronger” ethic eventually changes the original premise of the competition so that it becomes a completely different event.

One man/woman and his/her boat is no longer an option – it is now sponsorship and shore teams and pre-race villages and television and online race viewers and much tactical analysis. I am currently following the competitors as they make their way across my screen. I can see the weather they are experiencing and read their reports from a few hours ago. I can even watch them on videos and listen to those reports as they are made. I admire the sailors for their skill, their courage, their persistence.  I am fascinated, of course, and completely hooked.

However, this is not single-handed sailing in the sense I have always understood it. For that, I look towards the Jester Challenge and the Azores race at the end of the month.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Little Learning

/ Bill / 1 Comment

I woke up in the middle of the night in a hot sweat, convinced that we’d fouled the forward warp and Blue Mistress had swung with the tide, hard against the boat in front of us. Somehow every boat in the area had sprouted a deckload of people – all laughing at us. The fact that I was lying in my own bed, thirty miles from the boat made it no less real.

The problem for the following day was that there would be a particularly high spring tide and my single crewman – (my son), was going to arrive at about half ebb when the weight of tide against the stern would be at its strongest. We could wait for it to ease, but then we would lose precious sailing time. (This is the lot of the weekend sailor).

Blue Mistress is moored fore and aft, with doubled warps, on a line of trots. Mooring this way is secure and safe, but getting on and off it requires some concentration. Like the boats around us, we are moored facing downstream – into the flood tide, and the technique for leaving the mooring depends on whether the tide is ebbing or flowing. 

Normally, we have little problem, but this time the speed of the tide was worrying me – and I like to get it right. Get it wrong, and we contact the boat in front and, maybe, others. At best, this would be untidy; at worst, expensive. 

The plan was to let go both the aft warps before we start, replacing them with a longer, light, slippable warp; and to let go one of the forward warps, while holding the bow close to the forward buoy with the other, able to let it go at a moment’s notice. 

By gently slipping the light stern warp, and easing the tiller to starboard, the stern should turn out into the main stream.  Once well clear of our neighbour, a nudge astern on the throttle should pull us into the main fairway. As we move away, the bow warp is dropped and the stern warp slipped. When clear, we go ahead.  

Sounds easy enough. However, too much stern throttle combined with too much rudder will bring the boat side onto the stream, causing it to slew round rapidly to face upstream. This is manageable when the stream is fairly slack, (I’ve done it before), but with a strong tidal stream, there would be a danger of being carried too close to the other boats in the few seconds between going astern and ahead. Hence my bad dream. 

In the event, we were helped by a light but steady wind pushing us in the right direction. I put the engine slow astern to hold her in the current, we rearranged the warps, and I let the stern warp slowly bring the stern out. At this point, I was still worrying about slewing round because the current was obviously strong, leaving a marked ‘wash’ around the nearby buoys. 

Then I noticed that something else was happening.  

There was none of the expected tight pull on the stern warp. We were held in the current by the engine and the lightest of touches on the tiller was moving her gently sideways.   

Pete let go of the forward warp and I slipped the stern warp, and, free now, still slipping slowly sideways – 20, 30, 40 seconds – still level with the mooring, Blue Mistress was steady and easily controllable.  

Two men, on 25 foot or so of deck, with the ebb tide flowing past, could have been on dry land for the stability and strength they felt beneath their feet. Here was a fine hull shape, working as it was designed to do in wind and water, making the helmsman’s life easy. 

Once clear of the other boats, the engine now firmly ahead, we shot down the line of boats towards the sea. And the moment had gone. 

The young man said, “See, I told you you worry too much. It was easy.”

The older man (in that way older men have) said, “Yes, but you’ve got to do it right. Be prepared for things to go wrong and mostly they won’t but sometimes they will, but you’ve got it sorted.”  

Inside he was thinking, “Yesss – this is why I like this boat. She may not be as light and fast as many of the newer racing-cruisers, but she rewards you with moments of sheer, seamanlike pleasure – and these are the moments I go to sea for.”

Curious dreamer AND practical realist

/ Bill

In my last post – On Becoming a Skipper, there are two adjacent branches of the mindmap: ‘curious dreamer’ and ‘realist’. I have put a key against each one, because I think they are both important. 

You might say: “What! A dreamer and a realist? There’s a crew problem before you start.” Well, yes, there could be, but we are talking about one person – you, the skipper, plus a great deal of common sense. 

The practical realist keeps his/her feet firmly on deck and practices the art of the possible – here – now. The realist says, “This is the problem, these are the current resources available – (time, crew, experience, money). This is the solution, Let’s get on with it.”

The curious dreamer says, “What if. . .?” The dreamer uses his/her imagination and creates a wider framework for the realist to work in. The dreamer in you stretches the boundaries, expands the horizon, looks beyond the present and explores the possibilities. The realist in you expresses the solutions in current time. You need a realist when caught in a gale on a lee shore – although if he had listened to the curious dreamer he might have been able to avoid it in the first place.  

The realist will say, ”Your great-grandfather was an example of a practical man. Look how he coped with that storm.”

The next morning it moderated a bit when we soon got and entered the Bay of Biscay, when the wind shifted around to the South West and blew very heavy and we had to heave to. We found her a miserable sea boat. She would not come up and take the seas end on, but merely fall off and allow the seas to roll over her in the trough of the sea. We smashed away a good deal of the lee bulwarks to try and relieve her. After two or three days the wind veered to the North West, still blowing very heavy, when we had to get her on the other tack and smash away more bulwarks. (here)

The dreamer would say, “But he was a dreamer too. Look how things opened up for him because he signed on for that trip to Shanghai. He saw there were possibilities that would come out of the voyage and he took the opportunities when they came to him. Surely, he was both a dreamer and a realist. The two work together.

”He went and told the Captain, when I was called aft and explained to the Captain that I had served 4 years at sea mostly in the Bristol Channel. When I was appointed pilot. We worked down the north shore to the Nash when the wind went a little more to the north, and the next morning we was going between Lundy Island and Hartland Point. We had a fine time down passed the Scilly Islands. The Captain was very pleased with my pilotage and thanked me very much. He hoped to repay me before we parted, which he did by lending me books and instruments and learning me navigation, that, within a fortnight of terminating the voyage, I went in at Plymouth and passed my first examination! (here)

So what of this blog? The realist will tell you, “This is not sailing. This is talking-about-sailing. It’s not the real thing at all.” The dreamer will say, “Ah, yes. But look how the framework changes. Every time I step on board I have a better understanding of what I am doing and a greater excitement in carrying it out. There are possibilities here that I have a mere inkling of, and, if the past nine months are anything to go by, many more that I no nothing about out about yet.”

Yesterday we went to the theatre in Plymouth. On the way we stopped to check Blue Mistress was secure. At 1700 on a Saturday evening in August in one of the crowded anchorages of Devon, in the drizzle and wind, only one boat was away from its moorings. This summer is for the curious dreamers. The practical realists are pacing up and down in frustration.

On Becoming a Skipper

/ Bill

“Make a list. Then work through it.”  

Good advice generally, but a list implies some sort of linear order – one item written after another. However you look at it, your brain makes the items at one end of the list more important than the other. And what happens to the items in the middle? Working through a list takes time, and, the human condition being what it is, the enthusiasm that greeted the construction of the list and dealing with the first entries will wane as time goes on. 

OK, a list works if you can afford to forget a portion of its contents, but what happens if your occupation involves items that are all of equal importance – each relying on the other for success? 

Take, for example, the knowledge, skills and attitudes required to be the skipper of a small boat, particularly if you want to sail single-handed. You need to get it all right, or at least a good enough proportion of it – in your own style. It might be helpful to know what Robin Knox-Johnson or Ellen MacArthur did in similar circumstances but they’re them and you’re you, and the circumstances won’t be exactly the same, and they’re not there to help you anyway. 

So how do you start? Well, “Make a list. Then . . . . .”   No, there’s another way, using a mindmap. 

Below is a group of skills and attitudes for skippers that I first saw listed in a book – (and my apologies for not noting which one), early last year. It struck me as interesting, well thoughtout and a good starting point from which to build my own skills, so I copied it down. Then I forgot all about it. I found it again this week. 

This is an exercise in getting it all together – and keeping it together. It’s an exercise in converting someone else’s thinking into my thinking. If it appears to you to be an exercise in the blindingly obvious, bear with me, some of it is – but these are the early stages of a much longer enterprise. 

Here’s how I’m going about it. 

Step One: Create a new mindmap. Call it, in this case, ‘On Becoming a Skipper’. Add two branches – ‘Practical Skills’, ‘Theoretical Skills’. Add sub-branches for each set of skills, taken from the original list. Now we’ve developed an image of a complex subject which appears all on one screen.  However, at this stage, the content is still someone else’s work.  

01. On Becoming a Skipper
Step Two: Begin to sort the branches by adding icons based on your own style and needs. Pencil = work on this, cross = not ok, tick = ok and so on.  
02. On Becoming a Skipper
Step Three:Think about it for a while. A couple of days after producing this, I added ‘rigger’ and ‘purser’, the latter being very relevant at the moment.  The point here is that it is not a fixed picture, we can alter it at will. 
03. On Becoming a Skipper
Step Four: Rearrange the skills and attitudes into some sort of order that suits your current needs and style. What are you going to do with what you are learning here? (Or, in this case, what am I going to do?) 
04. On Becoming a Skipper
Step Five: Keep this image at the front (or back) of your mind. Every now and then something else will occur to you and you can add to it. This is a work-in-progress to maintain a balanced approach to growing as a skipper in an age when traditional apprenticeships are not always available or appropriate. The sea is still the sea, sailing is still sailing, and we all need to learn the same stuff regardless of the way we do it. 

As for me, I shall revisit this file regularly. I can see where I need to be working now and I shall add another level of branches, going deeper into each topic, but always the overview will be there.

Maybe we shall look at it again later in the year and see what’s happening.