Everyone who has even a slight interest in wooden boats should watch this and enjoy.
nautical links
A salutary lesson in getting back on board
I went for a swim on Saturday.
Peggy and I chose what felt like the one sunny day this August, with a perfect wind for sailing, not to sail but to take a couple of hours out and motor out into the Sound for a picnic.
We anchored under Jennycliff, where the bushes and shrubs come almost down to the water, and a narrow waterfall splashes onto the rocks. We were out of the wind, on a perfect holding ground, with the sea sparkling, enjoying the warmth of the sun – yes, this is Devon.
Ever since I bought Blue Mistress, I have been wondering how to get back aboard should I ever go over the side. In a high-sided boat with a near vertical transom, I would have a metal boarding ladder which folded down. In an open-sterned vessel, I might have a built-in step. But Blue Mistress is neither of these – sloping transom, elegant sheer. A ladder attached to the stern seemed far too cumbersome for such a boat.
So, last spring, I invested in a simple ladder I could stow away – a neat, collapsible boarding ladder, which can be stowed away with ease. 112 cm long with 6 rungs and spacers to hold the ladder away from vertical surfaces •Very stable and safe • Weighs only 1.3kg • folds down to just 255x255x125mm • Safe Working Load: 226kg.
The lesson is there in the detail, of course, and you can see what’s coming – but to date I have been very pleased with it – neatly stowed away in a stern locker, waiting to be tested.
So yesterday, I said, “We’ll try the ladder out today. Better I go first in case there’s a problem.”
With my smart, white ladder hooked over the shallow toe rail, and the top rung made fast to a winch base on the cockpit coaming, I stepped over the lifeline and descended – rather more swiftly than I intended, but with what grace I could muster, into the water. The temperature was ok so I spent time swimming around the boat, cleaning the algae off the waterline. It took about fifteen minutes to go round. The sides are low enough for me to hang onto the toe rail with one hand and clean the sides with a rag using the other hand.
The one area that was difficult to clean was the starboard quarter, which, as she is moored head to stern, is the one area of the hull the sun (when it does come out) doesn’t reach.
Now comes the time to get back on board. I had already realised that the sides of the boat aren’t high enough to support the bottom of the ladder – it slides away from me. My first attempt leaves me taking a wild clutch at the lifeline and falling back into the water – strike one.
Peggy moves the ladder towards the stern. I think it will be ok this time because I can grasp the stern rail. But the sheer is greater here and my legs go from under me. Not only that, the ladder slides off to one side. This time I am higher out of the water – (and I am not strong enough to hold on). The subsequent descent gave me a fine view of the bottom of the rudder – strike two.
The splash was also very effective and we have attracted the attention of several boats anchored nearby. Drinks are put down and binoculars come out (at least, that was the feeling I had in the back of my head). Better get it right this time.
We decide that we will try further forward as a last try. (Plan B is to swim to the next boat which does have a fold-down ladder). I notice that I broke the ladder when I pushed it sideways and it won’t hang straight.
However, it doesn’t fold under the hull so much, so up I go, clutching a stanchion, not a little tired, but desperate to make it out of the water. There is a critical moment when my arms are being wrenched out of their sockets and I feel myself going backwards, but I make one last heave (it’s amazing what you can do when you have to), put one foot quickly on deck then the other and then over the lifeline – trying to look nonchalant, but, in reality, rather discomfited – (more hurt pride, and realising my age).
The ladder no longer folds neatly, (although it is repairable), and is no longer on the boat.
Ever since, Peggy has been unable to stop laughing when telling the story and I do feel a tad foolish – but I’ve been there, done it, learnt from it, and now have a design for a proper ladder.
Lessons learnt?
- Think through what you need before you buy. There was nothing inherently wrong with the ladder, except it was on the wrong boat.
- Read the specifications first.
- Respect the fact that getting back aboard is more difficult than you think – even for a relatively fit person.
- A firm, fixed ladder is better than a flexible one – I wonder about the safety rope ladders that hang on the stern rail. I know about climbing rope ladders placing your feet on alternating sides, but this is difficult against the sides of a rolling boat.
- Lifelines and stanchions are not designed for this purpose. Although, I have to say, my starboard lifelines have now been thoroughly tested. 🙂
- If I have had trouble getting back into a low-sided boat, how much more difficult is it to get on board the higher-sided ones?
- Practice. I am responsible for my own actions. Therefore I have a responsibility to myself, and those who are affected by my actions, to try things out first. In theory, the ladder should have worked – I was very pleased with the idea, (in fact, I was convinced it would work). In practice, it barely made it. In this case, I was wrong to rely on my intuition.
- So, a reminder: “theory” is good but “practice” is better. You do need both and, at sea, you have to marry them together, (sometimes very, very quickly).
For love of a boat – on the Dalmatian Coast, Croatia
For love of a boat – in Devon, England
We went down to the beach this evening to watch the Teign Rowing Club racing in the Shaldon Regatta.
The boats they race are copied on the original seine boats that used to fish the river Teign, mainly for salmon.
The Club website describes them thus:
“There have been fiercely contested rowing races on the Teign for about 200 years . . . Most of the racing prior to the formation of the club was in the one- or two-man Shaldon Regatta dinghy, with a “work boat race” held once a year as part of the regatta.
The boats used for this event were the original seine boats. Crews would arrange the loan of the working fishing boats for the day and modify them for the race. Extra seats had to be put in to accommodate four rowers. Blocks of wood would have holes drilled into them and then be clamped to the gunwales to hold rowlocks in place. The cox would sit either on the transom or on a beach chair fitted precariously to the stern.”
Thanks to AA and her clip of a Greek fishing boat being turned to woodchip, I have become much more attuned to how working boats are evolving to be meaningful to future generations.
Well, the seine boat has turned from a wooden fishing boat to a sponsored racing boat, built in grp – and very successfully too.
Here are 28 women, with seven men coxing, less than half the fleet, rowing their hearts out at the end of an hour’s racing which started at sea, rounded two marks before entering the Teign, going with the tide to a mark upstream and then returning against a strong current to round this, the last mark.
In the Olympics , they rowed a straight course – their own lanes, no tide, no marks. Different sport? – Different tone.
This is the winning boat – by several lengths, approaching the last mark against the tide.
Salute the crew. You won’t catch them.
It’s a case of resorting to one or two of the sponsors in consolation.
For the origin of this series – here
For love of a boat – in Northumberland, England
Why I like sailing
I realise I haven’t written about Blue Mistress for a while now – but I have been sailing as often as the weather allows.
For those who like clips, this is another one in the Why I like sailing series – here
I have been told by someone who doesn’t sail that nothing appears to be happening in the clip. My reply is that everything is happening . . . beautifully.
Enjoy.
For love of a boat – on Cap Corse, Corsica
For love of a boat – in Messinia, Greece
Ayios, Nikolaos, Messinia, Greece 2007
We walked down to the coast from Milia, a village high up in the hills behind Ayios Nikolaos.
In the heat of afternoon, the four of us sat in a taverna on the harbour wall, with four cold bottles of Mythos on the table before us.
One of us couldn’t take his eyes off the boats.
For the origin of this series – here
For love of a boat – in Messinia, Greece
Enjoying the wait
The trapeze artist said: “Living is walking the wire. Everything else is waiting.”
The finest Sunday of the summer. The sun shone, the wind blew. A brilliant day for a sail.
But there was something wrong with the car. . . and, as I have damaged my thumb, sailing was out.
So we took the train to Exeter . . .
Teignmouth – Dawlish – Dawlish Warren – Starcross – Exeter St Thomas.
This is the coast-line – to be more exact, Isambard Kingdom Brunel‘s line, the line of his Atmospheric Railway.
The sea sparkled the way it does here when the wind blows from the west and stirs the calm surface to catch the morning sun.
A mile or so off the beach, a ketch, in full sail, was reaching across the bay. Each time we emerged from one of short tunnels through the cliffs, she had stretched away further south towards Hope’s Nose and Berry Head.
We stopped in Dawlish, then Dawlish Warren, (disembarking families carrying beach clothes and picnics), before we turned inland along the Exe estuary.
The tide was high and the Folkboat (I always notice her) was on her mooring. I had thought of keeping Blue Mistress here before settling on Plymouth.
It seemed that people were taking to the water wherever we looked.
In Exeter, they were enjoying the river, including the short crossing on Butts Ferry.
The ferry is left over from the wonderful and much lamented Exeter Maritime Museum.
The warehouse that housed the museum is still there. I have always thought, whimsically perhaps, of the boats moored along the canal as ganging up in sympathy for the small gem of a museum that has been lost forever.
We had come to Exeter to visit our son and spent the day doing ordinary things – walking and talking, greeting and eating, before returning to the train.
Along the Exe, the tide was now very low and the Folkboat closer to the shore – well, close to the bird flocked mud flats.
And in Teignmouth, in the late afternoon, there was gig racing. On shore, rowers were hurrying to their boats, busying themselves before the start of their race.
Offshore they were heaving on their oars, some boats flying, some labouring, all working to a common cause.
Today the rowers had been out ‘walking the wire’, while we were ashore ‘waiting’ and doing ordinary things – walking and talking, greeting and eating . . .
and we were all having a thoroughly enjoyable time.
Beyond Steeple Point 