Folksong

After thought

/ Bill / 1 Comment

I’ve been thinking about the “Ceres” and the last entry in my grandfather’s notes on her.

“Foundered midnight Nov 24 1936. Bideford Bay, Crew saved by lifeboat.” This after 125 years of active service.

It’s not the crew I’ve been thinking of. I met them when I was young – they survived.

It’s what happened to the ship that fascinates me. How did she settle?

Did she go down bow first, stern first?

Did she settle upright? (She was carrying approximately 80 tons of slag as cargo).

What happened to the mast, the rigging and the sails?

I guess the captain’s cabin filled pretty quickly. I saw a picture of it once. My grandfather’s office was lined with wood paneling that matched that cabin.

More relevantly, how does she look now – on the floor of Bideford Bay – sixty years or so later?

I thought of her the day I delivered Blue Mistress for her haul out.

While waiting for the hoist, I walked from Turnchapel back to Oreston to fetch the car.

The walk skirts Hooe Lake which is a tidal inlet on the south bank of the River Plym.

At the east end of the Lake, I took these pictures.

 

Hooe Lake 1 Hooe Lake 3 Hooe Lake 2

This is a sight you can see on any of the major rivers, estuaries and inlets of the Westcountry, (the Fal, the Fowey, the Dart, the Tamar, the Plym, the Exe and on). Indeed throughout the UK and Europe too, and, I guess, around the globe – in the mud, beneath tree-lined banks, wooden vessels of a certain age gently decay, slowly fading into their surroundings. Biodegradable, most of the materials they were made of allow that to happen. A slow end to a hard, romantic life.

Well, that was then. What about now.

Wrecks still happen.
MSC Napoli
This one (MSC “Napoli” ) within the last few months – a greater spectacle, with more visual impact, and a great deal more environmental consequences than “Ceres” – or the three wrecks above. This is not a wooden vessel – no biodegration here.

OK, the wreck was a result of heavy weather and a judicious (?) decision on where best to beach her – (as it happens, off a World Heritage coastline).

Looking west towards Sidmouth and Exmouth

You might say, “These things happen. However skilled and careful mankind is, major disasters will occur. It’s how we deal with them that marks us out.”

That may be so, but some “disasters” can be anticipated and maybe we should be ready for them. Try this for example:

In years to come, we will have to deal with another environmental concern. This one will creep up on us: Where are all those yachts and boats that fill our marinas, harbours and rivers going to go after we’ve finished with them? Will they slowly fade into their surroundings? I hope we will enjoy them for many more years. And when we’ve finished, pass them on to new owners for their turn. But will they last 125 years? The boats themselves might not, but the materials they’re made of will. For certain, tree-lined banks of tidal inlets will not be an option.

I am not wishing to make a huge issue about this, nor am I despondent about man’s ability to cope. But I am interested, (and I hope you are too), because it is one small aspect of a much greater concern that is beginning to concentrate our minds and will continue to do so over the next decades – What are we going to do with all these indestructible materials?

I won’t be here to find out the answers, probably neither will my children, but my yet-to-be-born grandchildren will . . . and I care about them and their generation.

 

Stern Lockers

/ Bill

Back to Blue Mistress.

The refit proceeds and the quality of the finished work so far is excellent.

Stern locker hatches.

Original Hatch Covers Wooden frame

Four problem with the old ones:

1. The wood frame was beginning to rot.

2. To open them, the tiller had to be moved out of the way, which was a nuisance at sea.

3. They could only be opened so far before getting caught on the (divided) backstay – so had to be held back with shot cord.

4. They leaked.

I asked for a solution that we could sit on and would also take my full weight if stood on.

It also needs to be shallow enough to allow the Autohelm, which stretches horizontally from a deck fitting on the starboard coaming into an attachment below the tiller, to move freely.

Richard has come up with a solution that seems to covers all the above.

Old frame removed New lipping

The new lids are heavy and robust and, when finished, will seal neatly over the new lipping around the lockers.

Because they are not hinged, they will be permanently made fast to the boat from internal eyebolts.

New stern locker covers
They have to be put to the test, of course, but I am delighted with the result which is practical, skillfully fitted and has added considerably to the appearance of the boat.

The story so far

/ Bill

Some of the deck fittings on Blue Mistress have been found to leak. Also, there are fittings that are no longer needed, as well as points where fittings have been removed and repair of the grp would be beneficial. The deck also needs stripping and recoating.

Blue Mistress under cover

She is now under cover  – to allow her to dry out completely before applying new materials.

Many of the fittings have been removed, including some damaged woodwork.

Fittings removed 2
Fittings removed 1

Now is the time to decide what fittings should be replaced and also where improvements can be made.

Old windows removed 

We can also see the difference removing the existing windows makes to the appearance. We are going to place alloy-framed windows, with an internal ring that can be removed when the new cabin lining is placed next year.

One point that has nothing to do with the deck-work but a lot to do with appearance is the position of the yellow strip on the waterline.

The growth indicates it is probably too low and it would be better to scrap this line and place a strip higher on the hull, bringing the antifouling up to it.

 

Words and language and a love of the sea

/ Bill / 1 Comment

I have a notebook that used to belong to my grandfather.

It has a leather-bound spine and cloth sides. It is black and heavy.

On the bottom of the spine, in gold letters, is imprinted: J.C.King, London, 42 Goswell Road

There are three labels inside the cover:

The first gives a registered number – 3520, and the price – 4/3 (shillings and pence).

The second, a large one, says: “The “Half-Black” Series of Account Books. For the quality of paper and binding the best value on the market.”

It lists various types of account book and, towards the bottom of the label, it boasts “A stock of over 4000 varieties of Account Books”.

The third, a red label, reads: Please see end of book for full Price List which shows the various rulings and thicknesses of the series all clearly set out.

Doing so shows me that the layout is “Ruled Quadrille, bound half black basil. Cloth sides”

On the fly leaf, he has written:

Alfred Petherick

Edmonton, Alberta

July 29. 1914

He seems to have been studying to be an electrical engineer. There are a number of faded short notes on meters and transformers etc at various intervals through the book. Perhaps this started after the 1914-18 War – he was in the Canadian Forces.

As things turned out, events at home overtook him and he was forced to return to Bude, (North Cornwall, UK) to run the family firm. Letters and telegrams sent at the time show a man and his gentle wife reluctantly torn from friends and a life they loved.

No more engineering studies, and a largely unfilled notebook.

One of the assets of the firm, (agricultural merchant), was a ship – the Ceres, which had been in the family since 1856, and he renewed an obvious love of the sea. The picture below shows him on the right, dozing on a quiet passage.

Dozing

He kept his notebook and, in later years – (in a feature of ageing that I have now discovered for myself), he must have seen how the world was changing and he began to record in it some of the local (and family) maritime history. The notes are not prolific – they are mainly copies of earlier records, but they tell a lot about the man who made them.

I mention this because I have been copying some of those entries and will place them in this blog in due course.

What strikes me forcibly is that I have just copied an entry of a meeting that he copied from his father, who copied it from the original minutes. I have struggled to decipher some of his handwriting and have fretted over particular words. It seems to me, my grandfather may well have done the same over his father’s writing. We have been doing exactly the same thing, probably with exactly the same interest and pleasure, the only difference being that we are two generations apart. As I said the other day, although the world may change over the years, the people in it are basically the same.

What has happened now, of course, is that I have put it in electronic form and the personality reflected in the handwriting has been lost. On the plus side, the material is available to many more people and I hope it will be picked up by others as a useful resource.

Alfred Petherick

My grandfather was my first and greatest hero. In reading his notebook I have been moved by the immediacy of the contact. Through words and language and an obvious love of the sea, we have been brought closer together. I cannot achieve in the same way he did but, in this small way, I have come to understand him a little better.

This is one of a number of posts on the Ketch “Ceres”. They have been presented in a random order as and when I have found, or been given, new material. They represent steps in a personal quest to find out more about one branch of my family.

If you are interested in maritime history or would like to read more, please use the Search facility at the top right hand side of this page (‘Ceres’). If this is not available on your current screen, then click on ‘Bill’s Boat Blog’ – (or the title of this entry, then ‘Bill’s Boat Blog’), to be taken to the correct page.

Ready to haul out

/ Bill / 1 Comment

Blue Mistress has moved out of the marina onto a trot mooring and will be hauled out next week.

Pre-refit 2007

The image is a good study in comparative yacht design. (Blue Mistress is the boat in the middle if this is the first time you’ve seen this blog).

Everything has been taken out of her, except flares, warps and fenders and an anchor on the foredeck.

It’s interesting to see she is a little down at the stern. This is the inboard engine which was added later.

She originally had a large outboard on the stern which must have weighed her down further.

She sails better with weight forward.

This is a major refit, which is planned to take six weeks or so. Among other things, all the deck fittings are coming off and being refitted and the deck recoated. There are some annoying leaks on some of the fittings and, rather than only seal those and wait for others to open up, we are “starting again”

Fittings missing from the coach roof are grab rails.

DSCF5454

When I stripped the lining from the cabin deckhead, I discovered the original holes for the grab-rail fittings which have been filled in. My natural inclination is to replace them – safety being the most obvious reason, but I don’t know what the best design would be. Elegant carved teak is not the Blue Mistress style. What are the alternatives?

 

The Cockpit Sole

/ Bill / 3 Comments

One of the problems with the Folksong is cockpit drainage.

Cockpit Detail

There are two drains set into the aft end of the cockpit that, in Blue Mistress’ case, lead out below the waterline.
Because the cockpit sole is at water level, there is always water visible in these drains.
At no time, in the six months I have sailed her, have I got wet feet, or found there to be any other than a minimal amount of water around these drains.
I am assured by the previous owner that he found this to be so too.

However, I know of at least one other boat that has ‘wet foot’ problems.

Well, I have found that the cockpit sole of Blue Mistress is a false one. It is 4-5 inches above the original.
There is a space between with, I presume, a supporting framework.
I guess this was a problem picked up when she was originally launched.

The real problem, of course, is how to placing sea valves on the outboard end of the drains to stop inflow in the unfortunate event of the drain becoming detached.

One solution is to place a sealed box containing an automatic pump below the cockpit, and direct the drains into this with an outlet above the waterline.
It sounds plausible, but a) expensive, and b) likely to be a drain on the batteries.

The jury is still out.

Inshore Craft 1

/ Bill / 5 Comments

“We treat the past as a foreign country, when, in reality, it was occupied by the same people as us.”

I’ve forgotten who said that but I was reminded of it when I saw that Edgar March’s “Inshore Craft of Britain: In the Days of Sail and Oar” has just been republished.

It was first published in 1970, and covers small working boats of the Nineteenth and early Twentieth Centuries. Reading it, I was fascinated that an island as small Britain should have developed so many different shaped boats to perform more or less the same thing. Each locality had grown a different tradition. These working boats were, in effect, visual versions of regional accents. Thirty five years later, I am still fascinated.

Three reasons for liking this book:

1. For the boats themselves – as complex objects, with lines and detail, some more elegant than others, but all with a functional beauty that fitted their surroundings.

2. They were true examples of the the concept of ‘form following function’, made more substantial in that they were the livelihood of their owners and crew. Here were small boats constructed in local yards round the coastline of a small island. They varied in shape, in design and in size, not just from region to region but often from harbour to harbour, the only limitation being in the wood and materials used in their construction.

On the face of it, looking back from our mass-produced, communication-efficient world, it can be difficult to understand why this Falmouth Workboat, photographed off Polruan in Cornwall 

Falmouth Quay Punt

should differ so much from this Coble, photographed at Seahouses in Northumberland.

sea 062

After all, they were built for more or less the same purpose.

In fact, the answer isn’t so difficult. Take one island, facing north, south, east and west; take tides, currents, prevailing winds; take a long, varied coastline, some stretches steep and rugged, some shallow with sand and mud, some exposed to the weather, some with large safe deep harbours, some with just a rock or two for shelter. Add a function – fishing, trade, piloting, transport.

Even today, these factors would make a difference to shape and form, but think what centuries of experience of local conditions would do. Think about the materials that would be available in one part of the country that weren’t in another. Think about the traditions that would have grown up around a particular coastline. And to really understand what it was like, you need to take one other factor into account:

3. The owners and crew who sailed in them. They represented the way of life of countless small communities. This was a world where experience counted, where fathers passed their skills onto their sons and, less so in those days, their daughters. Here were local communities, not necessarily isolated from one another but certainly separated, who developed their own craft specifically for the coastal conditions in their area.

No different from us today – they faced the problems of the time and had to solve them. They laughed like us, they cried like us, they succeeded, they failed, they loved, they hated – just like us. They knew what hard work meant. Some did it well, some badly, a few brilliantly. Some were successful financially and went on to do more, some were less so. But their knowledge, skills and attitudes came from doing, from experiencing first-hand. It took longer to gain them, but the best results lasted as long, if not longer, than ours will today. Those hard-won abilities created individuals in a world that needed individuals.

There is one major difference between are ancestors and us today. We have access to more knowledge and more skills, and at a far younger age, than those who came before us could possibly imagine in their wildest dreams – (think Google, endless courses, books, journals and DVDs). But, despite this, our basic ability to absorb and use our new-found knowledge has not grown in line with our sources. In the end, we learn best by doing too – and it still takes time. All the rest of the stuff that comes our way is ‘on approval’ – and we are becoming increasingly swamped by it, struggling to be individuals in a sea of often irrelevant information.

So what’s your point, Bill?

I don’t have a romantic view of the past but I do have a respect for those who learn from experience – and I don’t care whether they were born in 2007 or 1007. (At this point, it would be easy to bang on about our not learning the lessons of the past, but that’s for others to do).

What I would like to do is to stay with boats and to use the concepts above – a) boats themselves, b) the fact of their form following their function, and c) the crews who sail in them, and, as I travel around the coasts not just of the UK but further afield, record, if I can, examples of craft that are being used today that represent this long line of experience. No doubt, some will exhibit a high quality of craftsmanship, some less so. But it isn’t the quality I want to pick out here. What interests me are the solutions to maritime problems that work in particular circumstances. Like this small fishing boat moored in Trikeri on the Pelion Peninsular, on the Aegean shores of Greece.

DSC00628

I do not pretend to be an expert. Inevitably, my efforts will be random observations and certainly not comprehensive. But, this is not an academic study, it is a record of small pleasures, pleasures I believe I share with many other people.

It is also a record of concern, a concern I also share with many others. Times are changing so fast that much hard-won, long-term experience is being sacrificed in the name of easily-found, short-term expediency. We badly need to hang on to some of that experience.

So, my entries to this blog over the next year or so will include an ‘Inshore Craft’ series of images. I hope they will be of interest to you. Please feel free to add your own if you wish.

 

Where to move the socket

/ Bill

So here’s a problem to solve?

Autohelm socket

This is where the Tiller Pilot plugs in – (Raytheon ST1000 plus)

It’s in the corner – (currently, dirty corner following heavy rain), of the cockpit, out of the way, or, at least whoever placed it there thought so.

It’s not the socket, of course, that’s the problem, it’s the cable that plugs into it.

I knock it far too often – usually during manouvering, sometimes just feeling expansive and leaning back, occasionally I have put something on it without thinking. Mostly I don’t notice myself doing it – too busy concentrating.

The result is a disconnected self-steering which becomes evident sooner rather than later, depending on which direction we are pointing.

So I need to do something apart from scrubbing the deck. The socket either needs to be protected, or moved – but where? especially as there is no nearby vertical surface to attach it to.

I’m sure there’s a good solution out there somewhere.