Dick Durham's blog
Latest weblogs from Yachting Monthly's News and Features editor
Thames Clotway
13 May 2008
Another outbreak of marina pox has broken out this time the patient is the wetlands of south Essex and north Kent. With oil peaking some 'Gulf magnates' want to 'reclaim' two three-mile long stretches of Thames Estuary sandbank to create a twin resort on both sides of the river.
Their tasteful work with island creation can be seen in Dubai with Palm Jumeirah a filigree of desert sand concreted into the Persian Gulf. Google-earthed it looks like a cockroach crushed beneath the sole of a Bedouin slipper.
The estuary version will include 'yacht marinas' for an area where a converted lifeboat on a piece of bog chain is as close as many locals can get to where the other half lives; an opera house - in the heart of Chavland - theatres (plural) for a populace continually threatened with the closure of its existing Palace Theatre at Westcliff-on-Sea and housing for an area where humans live in closer proximity to one another than ants.
So I will add Sir Tel Farrell, the architect who drew up the plan, to my list of folks for whom a pair of concrete overshoes awaits on the sands he wants to cover.
Dick Durham
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Fitness for purpose
30 April 2008
It may well have been another time, another place and a very different world when Sir Robin Knox-Johnston sailed solo around the globe in his 32ft wooden craft Suhaili, but not many days pass when he does not spare the gallant little ketch a thought.
Last night I met him at the Royal Geographical Society in London's Kensington Gore and asked him if she would need re-fastening.He looked at his watch and said: 'In about one hour and twenty minutes she will be arriving at Burseldon to have the work done.'
Sir Robin then popped out for a quick fag leaving me with his companion, Julia Stewart who told me that she is not a sailor, but instead a keen tennis and golf player. 'So he goes off and does his sailing and I go off for a round of golf. It works out very well,' she said.
As Robin returned it was difficult not to notice how fit he is. A man twenty years his junior would be happy to be so erect and flat-stomached. The knight's secret is chopping logs for the fire at his Hampshire home.
He joined Dee Caffari, Mike Golding and others, to be feted by TV adventurer Bear Grylls, dressed fetchingly in pink, to be made members of a new adventurers' club, run by champagne producers Mumm.
Dick Durham
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Blowing like a b**tard
25 April 2008
A modern script-writer Martin Baum, has re-written 15 of Shakespeare's plays in the 'language of the street'.
I've had a go at an (abridged) Scene 1 of The Tempest:
On a ship at sea, blowing like a b**tard
Master: Bosun?
Bosun: Here, guv, what's the problem?
Master: Tell the crew to shift their arse or we're gonna hit the rocks
Enter mariners
Bosun: Oi you lot drop the topsail sharpish
Alonso: You're 'avin a laugh ent ya?
Antonio: Where's the guv?
Gonzalo: What about our passengers, there's a bleedin royal among 'em innit?
Bosun: You twits. You're about as much use as a chocolate anchor.
Do you think the sea gives a sh**?
Gonzalo: I'd give a plasma telly and all the mingin' ocean for a sniff of shopping precinct turf. If I'm gonna get wasted I'd rather croak on dry land, savvy?
exeunt
Dick, The Bard, Durham
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In the frame
24 April 2008
It can be an unsettling experience entering a new acquaintance's home to be confronted with A3 sized photographs of themselves dressed in gowns and mortar-boards and holding a ribbon-tied scroll.
'Blimey, THEY went to university?' one thinks.
Which is why I will not be sending £12 to the RYA for their kind offer to provide me with a 'presentation certificate suitable for framing.'
Just imagine a fellow yachtsman being confronted with your framed certificate down below when you've just taken three attempts to pick up a buoy in wind over tide conditions.
'Blimey, he's a Yachtmaster is he?'.
No ticket no shame!
Dick Durham
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MAIB findings echo YM investigation
22 April 2008
In an investigation into rogue containers carried out by myself for Yachting Monthly and published in the April 2007 issue (Accidents waiting to happen) we warned that giant ships driving hard to meet demanding schedules were becoming 'more susceptible to damage.'
Now , unfortunately, our predictions have become a cold reality. Today the Marine Accident Investigation Branch (MAIB) has published a report into MSC Napoli which was deliberately grounded a mile off Sidmouth in Devon last year to stop her sinking. She shed some 200 containers, carrying everything from disposable nappies to luxury motor-cycles, before being beached.
The MAIB report has found that the ship broke her back as she hit big seas because she was laden with overloaded containers and steaming too fast for the conditions.
Now the MAIB have warned that a review of safety rules governing container ship design and a code of practice covering operations is urgently needed to prevent further losses.
The MAIB has found that 22 ships they inspected, following the Napoli stranding,have design flaws. They condemned the widespread practice in the industry of failing to load containers properly either to save time or avoid taxes (factors covered in an earlier YM investigation into containers: Killer containers in May 2001).
The MAIB report concludes: 'Evidence obtained during tis and other MAIB investigations into container shipping accidents suggests that in reality the safety of ships, crews and the environment is being compromised by the overriding desire to maintain established schedules or optimise port turn-round times.'
For environment read us: the yachtsman.
Dick Durham
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Fool's gold
21 April 2008
I've had a change of mind over the Beijing-based Olympics. In an earlier blog I said Ben Ainslie and other sporting folk should not be expected to respond to the fact that the host country imports oil from Sudan.
However news that Nepalese security men have been given the all clear to shoot people demonstrating against the wretched Olympic torch being traipsed up Mount Everest is a different matter altogether.
If a single soul demonstrating for or against the Olympic host country loses his or her life as a result of heavy-handed action by whichever nation, then any sportsman taking part in the games will be competing for fool's gold.
Dick Durham
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Filling holes in the ground with yachts
18 April 2008
I recently took a whole load of rubbish to what I still call the local dump, but which now calls itself a re-cycling centre. I went through the rigmarole of separating stuff and depositing it in the correct bins. Then came some bags of stones, earth and grass.
'Stones, earth and grass,' I said, 'where d'you want it?'. The re-cycling 'technical support' officer was called to my bagside by the fluorescent-jacket cladded bin loader who was more interested in tut-spotting.
'Stones, earth and grass?' I repeated. 'Chuck it in the skip, mate,' came the expert's reply. Well it made sense after all it WAS landfill originally!
In Ireland things are a bit different. You can lob whole yachts into landfill sites or at least GRP deck plugs, like this one spotted by blog reader Odette Kelly's dad in Dunboyne, County Meath.
Dick Durham
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Sprat to catch a becquerel
14 April 2008
When I was a kid, sailing around the Thames Estuary, one of the urban myths we picked up was that tropical fish were breeding in the unnaturally warm waters surrounding the outfall at Bradwell Nuclear Power Station, on the River Blackwater in Essex.
I never saw any parrot fish on the fish-monger's slab, but now we are confronted with something more horrible, but whether it's any less of a less of a myth I'm not sure: namely that '50 million fish are killed every hour' in the cooling pipes of Britain's nuclear power stations.
That's the claim of Oxford University associate lecturer Dr Peter Henderson who must have one hell of a calculator.
Dick Durham
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New Charles Darwin pen released
11 April 2008
While archaeologists probe the ooze of the Thames Estuary to locate the timbers of HMS Beagle, an image of her most famous passenger, Charles Darwin, has been painted onto a fountain pen and offered to me for £1,455.
Conway Stewart Luxury Pens sent me a press release yesterday to alert me to their product and told me that: 'Charles Darwin was a British scientist who published the fundamentals of the theory of evolution which gave us thought for consideration into how we feel about the natural world.'
Their release gave me thought for consideration as to why the Pope still has a job and whether Darwin realised, as he used quills to write his theory, whether the species the feathers came from were endangered.
I'll bet he did. But worried not, knowing that the survival of tufted creatures would require them to develop feathers with brittle nibs.Those which did not would go the way of the Dodo.
As producers of intelligent design, Conway Stewart Luxury Pens, may wish give thought to the consideration that priced at £1.5K, their pens may follow the Dodo's demise.
Dick Durham
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Sun, sea, sand and SAR
10 April 2008
The RNLI are turning their flash new HQ in Poole into an hotel for the summer. Anyone who is linked to the lifeboat, be they crewman, volunteer or family member can stay at the waterside edifice while there is no training taking place.
However their standard B&B rates are actually higher than the local Premier Inn!
'Remember every £1 you spend at The Lifeboat College helps the RNLI to save lives at sea,'my wife's latest copy of The Lifeboat tells me. Hey come on guys - and also to pay for the PR team who write the blurb! Poor old Grace Darling never had a media representative!
Dick Durham
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Ghost ship returns
31 March 2008
Britain's last sailing ship: the Thames barge CAMBRIA, which is being rebuilt thanks to a lotto grant of nearly £1 million, will, with the exception of her bottom boards, need every inch of her wooden hull replaced.
Time was when you would see the hulks of abandoned sailing barges scattered along the sea-walls of the Thames Estuary with big, square holes in their bottoms. Because the air never or rarely got to this part of the hull they were frequently cut out and used again.
On Saturday I climbed down into CAMBRIA's shell for the first time since 1970 when her skipper, the late Bob Roberts and I discharged her last freight: 100 tons of cattle feed at Ipswich Dock. Back then Bob was depressed about the future of the barge and had even considered scuttling her out in the North Sea.
But now the thrilling news is that she will definately be sailing again. So far 17 floors have been replaced as shipwrights have started in the middle 'box'-section and will work outwards towards her sheer and bow. In three years time when shipwright Tim Goldsack and his five-man team have finished their work, CAMBRIA will be re-rigged at her berth in Faversham, Kent.
She couldn't be in a better berth: Maldon in Essex would have been another option, and many a sailing barge restoration has successfully taken place there. But old Bob would not have approved as, to him, Maldon was the Mecca of the barge 'enthusiast' and even one of CAMBRIA's current restorers said to me: 'Rather too many experts there'.
No Faversham has the feel of a working port about it and shipwrights there work on other craft as well as barges which is healthy. Even the oak for CAMBRIA has been donated by Angela Yeoman from her local estates.
'It's like an archaelogical dig,' said William Collard, project director, of CAMBRIA's restoration. Her lee-board winches, mast-case, halyard and brail winches have all gone ashore for shot-blasting and re-painting. Her iron work is being restored. Her cabin - like that of the CUTTY SARK - has been gingerly taken apart and moved into storage until it is time to replace it. But unlike CUTTY SARK, CAMBRIA will actually go sailing again and is one reason she is attracting such interest. Already the Cambria Trust have been obliged to pledge a visitor centre at Faversham and the town will also set up a school for shipwrights, naval architects and marine engineers thanks to the resurgent interest in such occupations that CAMBRIA's restoration has sparked off.
When finished CAMBRIA will sport solar panels which will help power a small generator which in turn will be used for an electric launch, carried in the old barge boat davits, to help her into tight berths. MCA inspectors have already been down to visit the barge as coding is being applied for so that she can be chartered by interested parties when she is not being used as a floating classroom for youngsters learning about the importance of the London and Medway rivers, and the Port of London Authority and Medway Ports Authority docks.
'When the MCA man arrived he asked us why we could not fit an engine as it would make his calculations possible,' I was told, ' we had to explain that the whole point of the barge's restoration was because she was the UK's last sailing cargo vessel!'
Dick Durham
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Marina life
20 March 2008
If you believe marina construction is a Trojan Horse for building flats and hotels how do you think they feel in Dubai?
Dick Durham
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Dead end job
19 March 2008
Following news that a Romanian civil servant sat slumped at her desk for two days before her colleagues realised she was dead and not dead drunk, I wondered how long it would take before anyone gave me a shake.
One cynic said: 'If you weren't up and away at five thirty one. I'd have known something was wrong.'
Bit different to falling asleep at the helm, although in a yacht as well balanced as a Contessa 32 it might take even longer for the Coastguard to notice and probably not until she ran up the beach in Ostend.
This would be not unlike the time my old Alan Buchanan broke her mooring and glided away with a north-west wind down through the Thames Estuary on the ebb, back up on the flood and then back down again on the second ebb until somebody noticed and towed her into Whitstable.
A friend later told me: 'We saw you going away and thought it strange: you had a fair wind but you were motoring.' I had to explain I wasn't aboard!
Proof perhaps that it is a perfectly human reaction to rationalise the unexpected, but rarely to lateralise the rational.
Dick Durham
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Sail-drive
18 March 2008
Good news for yachtsmen considering a berth at Ocean Village in Southampton: the marina owners, MDL, have announced this afternoon that they have won the 2008 Car Park of the Year award.
Not for MDL, urine-smelling, tin lifts which scrape slowly between floors of oil-stained, cast in-situ concrete: their new car park was 'recognised for the innovative design and quality of infrastructure as well as the environmental considerations.'
Good old MDL their car park hasn't got the remains of scraped plastic bumpers on every tight exit-ramp bend: 'the contemporary facility utilises revolutionary design, exceptional attention to detail and the latest car park architecture.'
Hooray for MDL, their carpark is no crack dealer's high rise: ' Features include easy to navigate parking spaces, convenient payment systems, enhanced lighting in all areas.'
Let's hear it for MDL, their carpark does not suffer dreary views of post-Luftwaffe Southampton, but 'stunning lobbies with spectacular view points and feature windows, as well as state-of-the-art security throughout.'
Congratulations MDL, not for you a mugger's paradise, for your car park 'boasts Park Mark(®) status through the Safer Parking Scheme. The sight of the Park Mark sign at the entrance to any car park inspires confidence and reassurance for the driver that they are entering a parking area where measures are in place to help deter and prevent criminal activity and antisocial behaviour.'
Now, if there's still a chance of dragging your customers away from this Hyundai Hilton, how about the marina?
Dick Durham
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Island mindset
17 March 2008
The early-flowering daffodils of the Channel Islands wave their yellow trumpets innocently in the stiff sea-breezes but there are black secrets buried deeper than any bulb on these undoubtedly beautiful islands.
There is thrilling sailing to be had in and among these islands, and though I have only ever been to Jersey once, I will not forget the uncomfortable silence that greeted the unwitting questions, I and others put to civic dignitaries about their role during World War Two.
It was as though I had burned copies of the Koran in order to barbeque pork outside the gates of Mecca.
These islands were the only part of the British Commonwealth to be occupied by Nazi Germany, which was their misfortune, and one which they did not invite. But stories of Jews being rounded up by local police for the transports to camps within the Third Reich; accusations of collaboration and slave labour (there was even a death camp on Alderney) have left many with an uneasy conscience to this day.
Which is why I find the claims of silence and cover-up about child abuse, involving hand-cuffs and dungeons, coming from scores of adults who were once in care on Jersey, very disquieting. I hope they prove to be unfounded, but it is not looking good and seems to be a chilling echo of an even darker past.
Dick Durham
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Kidd gloves
14 March 2008
Twice in as many months I have sat down to yacht club dinners and listened to fellow diners expressing fears of a new unknown: whether they will ever face an act of piracy at sea and, if so, what they should do about it.
Most are in my camp: make them a cup of tea, call them 'Sir', hand over cash, High Street goods etc and give them a course to steer back to terra firma.
A few more adventurous souls, however, believe a physical broadside is the kind of international language they will understand. Trouble is today's corsairs aren't Johnny Depp-style swashbucklers, but like as not Kalashnikov-wielding,14-year-old, half-starved youths indoctrinated with a mal-interpreted ideology and no great love of fat, tanned westerners in half million pound yachts.
In other words if you want to take them on you have got to know what you are doing when it comes to killing. Unless you are an ex-serviceman it is likely that the pirates will have more experience of battle tactics than you do.
At last Saturday's Royal Burnham Yacht Club Old Gaffer's Dinner I was told of a yachtsman who rammed and capsized a pirate RIB off Somalia. His action, while heart-warming, has done no favours for yachtties following in his wake. Next time those pirates will shoot first. So put the coffee on and hand over your wallet.
Dick Durham
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Miami nice
13 March 2008
A Dorset-based marine sales company 1st 4 Boats Sales has issued this photograph after picking up orders worth more than £500,000 at the recent Miami Boat Show.
Sales director, John Beales, decided to take his staff out for a spin to celebrate.
Hey John, what makes you think they will stay afloat without lifejackets?
Dick Durham
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Royal souvenirs
11 March 2008
Parts of a royal yacht are adorning the mantlepieces of several homes throughout the Kingdom. This remarkable fact was revealed at the Royal Burnham Yacht Club which hosted the East Coast Old Gaffers Dinner on Saturday.
After the supper I gave a talk about the East Coast in which I showed news cuttings of the Royal Yacht Britannia aground on the mud-flats at Southend-on-Sea, Essex during J-Class racing in 1924.
This prompted a member to reveal that his umbrellas are held upright in the foyer of his house by means of a section of Britannia's mast (she was scuppered off the back of the Wight as King George V scandalously requested should happen after his death).
When I expressed astonishment at this relic it was further revealed that many other mementoes of the great yacht exist in other homes throughout the land.
Dick Durham
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Birds and boats
10 March 2008
Brent geese, unlike sailing boats, don't like it up 'em. The gales currently hammering the Solent and Thames Estuary appear to be keeping the suspicious fowl on UK mud. They should have flown home to Siberia by now, but even though it would be a tail wind, a gale would clearly ruffle the feathers.
Several score of the birds were pecking the mud for worms as the tide made and I moved my 12ft sailing dinghy up under the protective arm of the marsh on Sunday, before the gales hit the Thames Estuary.
Last weekend she capsized in an earlier gale on her regular mooring which is more exposed and I lost the locker lid and a set of oars. Buying a new pair this weekend the chandler told me how the 1987 tempest had left the windows of his sea-front shop completely covered in sand. 'It was as though they'd been wall-papered with sand paper,' he said, the salt spray had wetted them and then the sand had stuck on top of the film of water then dried.
Dick Durham
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Ouzo entombed ?
6 March 2008
The wreck of the Ouzo, the 25ft Sailfish, which sank in the English Channel south of the Isle of Wight, with the loss of her three crew, may never be found experts believe.
This is because it is thought she is lying virtually entombed, 100ft down, on a part of the sea-bed where limestone crevices are common.
It is an area where bottom-trawling fishing boats - one of which, some hoped, would one day snag the hull of Ouzo - avoid lowering their nets for fear of shredding them.
Dick Durham
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