sailing single-handed

A voyage of my own

/ Bill / 2 Comments

It has taken a while to get used to people saying “What? By yourself?” as in “I took the boat down to Falmouth and returned to Plymouth via Fowey? It was a quick three-day trip.” “What? By yourself?”

How do you explain it? To the uninitiated it invites the disapproval of

  • the safety industry – “the tiny crew”;
  • the health industry – “the older man on his own”;
  • the social industry – “all alone”;
  • the professionals – “a rank amateur”;
  • the bigger boats – “a smaller boat”;

Despite all of them I succeeded – as do many, many others in far more challenging circumstances.

It has taken many years sailing to be able to say with confidence “I do it like this. I know it is possible to do it like that but I have chosen to do it like this. Yes, the most knowledgeable of intellectuals, the most graceful of athletes, the most creative of artists, the grandest of grandees, they all know better than me. But not quite. Individually they know certain areas of my life better than me and combined they know many areas of my life better than me but the whole of my life belongs to me and I choose to live it like this. I will listen to them but I will make up my own mind whether it is useful for me or not. There’s no side to it, no competition, I respect their point of view but I am taking responsibility for me so I can give back what I learn as I go along.”

Time and money – (not enough of either), have meant that it has taken not months but years to bring Blue Mistress to her current standard – a standard that makes me comfortable in taking trips along the South Devon and South Cornwall coastline.

‘Single-handed’ means thinking things through long before they are needed. The layout of the boat, its contents and every maneuver that may or may not be made has been gone through in your head, maybe on paper, certainly on a computer, and books and videos and charts and tables studied, with the intention that all this be absorbed into experience.

Even then mistakes will be made – some of them very memorable with solutions needed in a breath-taking hurry, but mostly things will go right. Very few of the latter are memorable because what is going on outside the boat is as interesting as what is going on inside. Have you ever seen a coastline from the sea? The Devon and Cornish coasts are particularly stunning. (And, yes, there are plenty of other stunning coastlines too).

I like aloneness but enjoy company. A week ago we took my London-based, four-year-old grandson for his first trip. Enthusiasm on all sides. What’s not to like?

And every trip, every voyage is different.

I took few photos on the Falmouth trip but I will make a short storyboard next post. In the meantime, here is Blue Mistress in Fowey on the last day of September 2014 with the morning mist rising. As I say, what’s not to like?

Blue Mistress, Fowey

(Image taken by Bill Whateley)

(to be continued . . .)

Real disappointment . . .

/ Bill

 

You ask how I would feel to lose an event that I hold dear, how I would feel to be told that it would never happen again. To say I would be upset would understate it. To say that I would be desperately disappointed would be getting closer.

When I was 17, I went on an Outward Bound course in Wales. It was March in the mountains, it was cold, my hands were freezing and I was climbing a rock face. I slipped. The grey rock flew upwards and I hurtled downwards. I fell about fifteen feet before the rope held, a split second between the relative security above and the grazes and bruises below. Too quick for fear, too swift for anger, the world had shifted before my eyes. Shaken, I needed time to recover and regroup . . . Now we are even closer to what I would really feel losing that event, but we’re not there yet.

The event I am thinking of is a yacht race – the Jester Challenge. It is not a competition in the way we accept competition nowadays – strict rules binding the competitors, encouraging increased financial input, possible corporate sponsorship and insistent media attention. The race I am following is from Plymouth, Devon to Newport, Rhode Island. The organisers describe it as “run on a ‘gentlemanly basis’ within the following guidelines:

  • for sailing vessels between 20 and 30 feet
  • human power is the only acceptable alternative propulsion to that of the wind
  • single-handed to Newport
  • one way
  • stops allowed
  • no time limit . . .
  • no fees
  • no inspection
  • no regulation: skippers will be entirely responsible for the equipment they take, based on their own experience

These are the guidelines, not rules; the rest is up to those who wish to enter. As one of this year’s entries said on his blog “Big ocean, little boat, low budget and more about cooperation and camaraderie than competition.” The mightiness of the task means that more people sign up for the voyage than arrive at the start. They are not diminished by dropping out. It takes courage to opt in . . . and courage to opt out when preparations fall short. The decision is yours and yours alone. (Yes, of course it upsets those who would like us all to lead a strictly regulated life).

With or without a race, the solitude of single-handed sailing draws me – not loneliness but aloneness and the sense of freedom that comes with it. A state of awareness, of continuous problem-solving, of feeling the changing wind and sea – the keenness of the boat. There is a continual desire to be good enough in my own eyes, then a wish to be better still. ‘Practice’ wins over ‘perfection’. And if I remove the words ‘sailing’, ‘wind’, ‘sea’ and ‘boat’, this becomes a description of writing – for surely this is a single-handed occupation too, and a clue to why I am here.

So what are my deeper feelings if the race were lost?

You are a writer. Imagine that someone takes your keyboard and your mouse, then your monitor and the computer with all your stuff on it. Imagine that they then remove your pens and pencils and your notebooks and paper. Imagine . . .  Now we’re getting very close.

It’s not the race itself that concerns me – (although I confess I would like to do it), it is the thinking behind it that encourages me. The instigators saw their chosen preoccupation – sailing, taken over by big business, by technology, by fashion, by people’s need for immediate excitement. They also noticed that one of the potential benefits of sailing, the development of the truly self-sufficient individual – (small boat, low budget, big ocean!), was being stifled by these changes. Here was a way to give those with the will an opportunity to grow their skills and widen their experience.

Whether these sailors like it or not, (and I suspect they don’t), the leadership built into their activity is becoming increasingly important in a world overtaken by universal communication. We need individuals who stand out. Where will they come from? Already it is virtually impossible to disappear into the wild without some form of tracking device. You can find Webb Chiles, who has sailed alone around the world at least five times without such a device, here, or Jeremy and Phillip who are sailing round Britain in a Wayfarer dinghy, here. These are people undertaking amazing adventures. We, who sit in front of our computers, can find them instantly.

What will we do when the Google satellites make everyone and everywhere visible in real time? We’ll work it out no doubt. But, in the mix of a humanity shaped by technology, we will still need leadership from individuals shaped by hands-on experience. I am not suggesting this race produces world leaders – although some amazing individuals have taken part. I am suggesting that the attitudes behind it are important in the search for those leaders.

So, if the race were abandoned, I,for one, would be desperately disappointed. Good leaders create spaces for their followers to move into. The space created by the Jester Challenge and those who participate in it has significantly enhanced my life. I would have lost that source of leadership. I would definitely miss it.

 

 

Back to studying

/ Bill / 1 Comment

For those who tune into this blog occasionally and are wondering why I am dodging around topics, it’s because I am doing a short course with WordPress – Writing 101. It lasts a little under three weeks and involves participants posting a blog most days. The topics are varied and a little out of my usual line. My intention is to get back to a writing habit that I lost over the past year. Bear with me, something good will come from it.

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For those who are wondering what has happened to Blue Mistress, the refit is nearly complete. A lot has been done in between longish pauses and I see the chance to get back in the water in the next two weeks. The boat is looking good but needs to be afloat!

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And if you are also wondering when I am going to talk about New Zealand, it will come. In the meantime, this is the Bay of Islands where Webb Chiles (see below) is headed.

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If you are not following Webb Chiles, you should be. Aged 72 and circumnavigating in a boat smaller and lighter than Blue Mistress. It is his sixth time round, I believe. He prefers the solitude of single-handed sailing and was reluctant to fit the Yellowbrick – technology impinging on personal space. In the meantime, we have the privilege of sitting back and admiring. He has been sailing at over five knots for most of the voyage. Fair winds to him.

You can follow him here http://my.yb.tl/gannet

(All images taken by Bill Whateley)

 

Lifting Blue Mistress

/ Bill / 1 Comment

There are a number of reasons why I might not have shown this image – personal embarrassment being high on the list, But then I thought, “Hey, this is what happens if you don’t lift the boat often enough. Not many people have seen this on their vessels, so maybe it will make them feel even better about the refitting work they do.”

I haven’t posted this year. One of the results of a difficult year has been a lack of time afloat. So when, on one of the few times I was able to go to sea, I had engine trouble, I finally decided it was time to lift her and spend some productive refit time over the winter.

And yesterday we did lift the boat, and this is what we saw in the early evening gloom (click on image to enlarge) . . .

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. . . not just barnacles but a whole colony of mussels – on the rudder and around the propeller. So this was why the helm was sluggish and the engine was difficult to start.

There were some ripe comments from the lifting crew!

However, Blue Mistress had always cleaned up well and today . . .

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She won’t be back in the water until early May. There are a number of jobs I want to do on her, including major work on the engine. And we also have other adventures planned before then.

I will post on the boat again.

An elderly pencil

/ Bill

We have had the decorators in and everything but everything has been boxed up. The job has been so long that all our cardboard boxes are now hidden wells of discovery,  Looking through one such box. I found this pencil.

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Walter Brennan taught me to sail. I was 13 or 14 at the time – so the pencil is a little over 50 years old.

It was inexpensive – free, in fact, because he gave them away. It hasn’t been used constantly but it has survived over the years where a number of expensive and increasingly sophisticated computers have not. And whereas those computers became obsolete, this piece of kit will still do what it was designed to do – act as a printer for whatever is going on in my head.

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Obviously it is ancient hardware and I don’t offer it as an alternative to a computer – (certainly not with my brain!), but as a design that stands the test of time.

Having found it again, I am able to use it instantly – no recharging,  no cables, no wireless router, no waiting for startup, no searching for software and apps, no need to update.  It is portable and versatile. So is my mobile phone – but I guarantee my pencil will outlive my mobile too. (And I can’t chew the end of my mobile).

On the boat, I have three versions of gps – plus a clutch of 2B pencils.

If you’re younger than thirty you possibly don’t care. That’s ok. But at the weekend I watched my three year-old grandson climb the stairs while watching a television programme on the iPad he was holding. He had found the app and opened the programme himself. I don’t suppose he will be impressed if I leave him my pencil in my will. However, my pencil will last longer than his iPad.

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Perhaps the pencil will be the shape of computers to come.

Who knew they would reduce a computer to look like a large postcard?

Who knew a smart phone would become the size of a small chocolate bar?

All power to the pencil.

Rhumb Line

/ Bill

So I woke up in the middle of the night wondering whether ‘about 1900 nautical miles’ was really the distance from Steeple Point to Quirpon Island off the northern tip of Newfoundland or whether I had been sloppy in using the Google Earth ruler to measure it. This got me to thinking about rhumb lines.

The Wikipedia definition of Rhumb Line is:

  • “In navigation, a rhumb line . . . is a line crossing all meridians of longitude at the same angle, i.e. a path derived from a defined initial bearing. That is, upon taking an initial bearing, one proceeds along the same bearing, without changing the direction as measured relative to true north.”

My measurement wasn’t “a line crossing all meridians of longitude at the same angle” but a line crossing all meridians of longitude at the same latitude.

There will be a difference in the lengths of these lines. How much longer will depend how far north the lines are drawn, because of the spherical nature of the earth. The question for me was whether the Google Earth ruler measurement differs from other means of measuring the distance.

So, I reviewed the measurements.

Firstly, for my latitude line, I needed to be more accurate in my landfall in Newfoundland.

The coordinates for Steeple Point are: 50 52 34N  004 33 39W

For Cape Bauld Lighthouse on Quirpon Island the northern tip of Newfoundland: 51 38 24N  055 25 36W

If we move 55 miles south as the crow flies, we come to the harbour at Conche – the coordinates  here are: 50 53 09N  55 53 22W – very nearly on the same latitude as Steeple Point.

The Google Earth ruler gives a length from Steeple Point to Conche of 1,915 nautical miles.

I looked for a site that calculates the Rhumb line and came across this one Movable Type Scripts.

Entering the coordinates for Steeple Point and Conche gave me:

  • Distance:            3,536 km (to 4 SF*) – 1,908 nautical miles
  • Initial bearing:     290°02′46″
  • Final bearing:     249°13′06″
  • Midpoint:            53°38′41″N, 030°17′27″W

You will notice that, whereas the distance is fairly accurate, this isn’t strictly a rhumb line because the bearings are not the same.

Best I can do for the moment.

By the way, Conche looks a good place to visit in summer.

Steeple Point

/ Bill / 1 Comment

It has been well over a year since I last posted here. There are reasons for this and I will talk about them in time.

But now that I am ready to start again, I find that the title  ‘bill’s boatblog’ does not adequately cover what I want to say.  I want to reflect wider horizons. However, I don’t want to start a new blog – life’s too short.  Hence the new title.

I have changed the font but kept the general layout – there is a lot of historical material that I have posted over the past six or seven years that I would like to keep and one or two readers may find  the book references useful.

WordPress has developed into a much more sophisticated software package since my first timid attempts at posting.  This is a good thing – we all like to move forward. My first thoughts were that more sophistication means more complication – the process taking over the content. In fact, the changes have made it easier to post on this site. I look forward to more posts.

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Steeple Point - standard

I have chosen Steeple Point – a place I have mentioned often. It plays an important part in my story and now that I am moving on from my day job, I want to have a physical base with a long personal connection from which to develop the blog.  I could have used a street we have lived in – Belle Vue or Cavendish Road or South Pallant or Martins Lane  or Clonbern Road or Nayland Rd South or Stockbridge Gardens or Paradise Road or others. Yes, there are more but none have the nautical connection I am looking for. Steeple Point stretches into the sea. I knew this place before I was old enough to know I knew it.

And there’s more. If the Earth were flat and your eye a perfect instrument, you could stand on Steeple Point, look due west, and see, first of all, very slightly to the north, Cape Clear Island and Fastnet Rock and then, on the southern tip of Ireland, Mizen Head , followed by no land at all until Quirpon Island with L’Anse aux Meadows beyond on the very northern tip of Newfoundland some 1,900 nautical miles away. All between is sea and ocean, wide horizons swept by wind and weather,

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I will still talk about the boat, and I still have an eye for Greek fishing boats particularly those in Crete. They will feature, as will the past, especially the trading ketches of North Cornwall and the Bristol Channel. But there will also be occasional notes about what is going on around me as a I age in an increasingly complex world. Like it or not, all our horizons are changing. We need to recognise those changes.

5/7: A touch obsessed . . .

/ Bill

from John: “Lovely boats Bill, they all seem to be double enders, is that cos they are the most common or are you touch obsessed?”

The answer is yes and no – yes, I am a touch obsessed, but not about canoe sterns. As you say, canoe sterns are common to these boats.

My ‘obsession’, such that it is, is for the individual boat builders, the fisherman and all those who work these boats.

I became fascinated by small boat design when I read Edgar March’s book ‘Inshore Craft of Britain in the days of sail and oar’, published in 1970.

“. . . before the days of marine engines, scores of picturesquely-named craft, worked out of tiny harbours and off open beaches around the coasts of Britain.” It was the differences in the boats that I found so interesting.

For example, these were all designed to be fishing boats. Why did this one evolve like this?

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. . . .when, only 150 miles east as the crow flies, this one evolved like this?

. . .  and some 300 miles north this one like this?

Obviously, the differences came about to suit the the needs of the people who worked them. Therefore the design of working boats tells us  a great deal about the coasts they are found in and the  knowledge, skills and attitudes of the people who live there.

But local boat design is disappearing. Fishing is being discouraged, fewer people work in the industry, boat production has moved to the factories. There is no a need for the local boat-builders who were found all along the coasts in the days Edgar March was describing. There are fewer and fewer true examples of local working boats in the UK.

Similarly in Crete and mainland Greece. The local fishing boats are disappearing.  Apparently, the average working life of these wooden fishing boats is 26 years. They come, they go – they are no longer replaced. Tourism is taking over (and, yes, I am obviously part of that).

The real tragedy is the loss of the local knowledge behind the boats. If the boats are no longer needed in this form, certainly the knowledge, skills and attitudes behind them are. The local population, not the tourist, lies at the heart of  a coastal community. However important tourism may be  for a local economy, it’s influence is negative if it takes away the character of the area it occupies.

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John, that’s a long way for canoe sterns. I will come back to them, I promise.

There are at least two more in the short series of fishing boats in Crete.

For Love of a Boat.