Spotted in the Solent this weekend... A case of Graffiti or Guerrilla
Marketing?
According to Red Funnel, it's all part of a marketing campaign.
Jonathan Green, Red Funnel sales and marketing director, said,“We found out at 5.30am this morning that graffiti had been written one of our ferries. Instead of Red Funnel, the ferry’s livery now reads Red
Squirrel.
“We understand there’s been a bit of animosity between grey squirrels and the Isle of Wight’s native red squirrels. “We came down to the terminal
this morning and found three grey squirrels protesting. They want to go to
the Island, but they’re not allowed.”
It's all part of the campaign to protect Red Squirrels - for whom the Isle
of Wight is one of their last refuges.
After the Cervantes Trophy race from Cowes to Le Havre last weekend, we booked lunch the following day at the Société des Régates du Havre, our hosts and organisers of the return race, Trophée Guillaume le Conquerant.
In order to give les rosbifs, notoriously monoglot, some idea of what to order, the menu was run through babelfish, google or some such internet translation tool. Had the results been deliberate, it would have been comedic genius. As it is, it’s just very amusing. Despite it dubious billing, the food was delicious.
Sailing slowly up the western Solent late on Monday evening we were greeted
by a huge yellow-brown cloud, presumably the result of a bank holiday’s
worth of pollution, finally blown clear of the land by a late breeze, and
stretching from Southampton to Portsmouth.
You could actually taste this one - our crew’s tongue and eyes were
stinging – sulphur dioxide dissolving to form a mild sulphuric acid?
Whatever the cause, it was an unpleasant welcome back to land and
civilisation - and made me thankful I'd been breathing clean, fresh sea air
all weekend.
Sticking with the cephalopod theme for another day, here's a picture of Phil
Sharp holding a potential breakfast a few days ago, a week into the AG2R
double handed transatlantic race.
He writes, "we had a choice for breakfast of squid or swallow, both of which
appeared on the deck this morning having sadly not made it through the
night. Given that we hadn't really had a choice of breakfast so far, as
basically we don't have any, I went for fresh squid although David was less
keen to tuck in, despite our limited rations."
Scientists dissecting a colossal squid in New Zealand have revealed that
its eyes alone measure an astounding 30cm in diameter.
Not only that, but it's endowed with a killer arsenal: "the hooks, the beak,
everything about it," observed Steve O'Shea from the University of
Technology in Auckland. Scary stuff (and after looking at the 'beak',
just try and suppress a shudder next time you feel something brush your arm
on a night watch.)
Meanwhile, another 'expert' - presumably some sort of antipodean Cap'n
Birdseye - was quoted as saying that 'calamari rings made from it would be
like tractor tyres.' A symptom of dumbing down by the media or of a growing
obesity problem?!
A fascinating article in this week's Observer sheds some light on the extent of the piracy problem in Somalian waters.
Apparently, many pirates claim to be protecting their country's resources
from foreign exploitation. Under maritime law, a country's EEZ, or
Exclusive Economic Zone, extends up to 200 miles offshore, and foreign ships
may pass through but not fish in these waters.
Yet at any one time there are up to 500 foreign-registered boats fishing in
Somalia's rich waters, according to the Seafarers' Assistance Programme.
European boats catch tuna or shrimp; vessels from the Far East catch sharks
for their fins. Almost all are fishing illegally. Often, pirate attacks are
not even reported to maritime authorities: the ransoms are regarded as
perfectly legitimate fines, by both the pirates and the ship-owners.
Andrew Mwangura, an expert from the Mombasa-based Seafarers' Assistance
Programme told the Obsrver, 'One way to stop the piracy is to stop the
illegal fishing, that way there will be nowhere for the pirates to hide.'
A pirate typically earns between $10,000 and $30,000 for a year's work,
which amounts to a fortune in Somalia. The bosses funding the attacks from
the United Arab Emirates or Kenya, and sometimes even as far afield as
Canada, London or Hong Kong, can make several million dollars from a single
strike.
"Once the pirates' bosses have the ship's name they immediately use the
internet to research how much money they can make," said Mwangura. "These
guys really know what they are doing."
Most owners pay up quickly, and the crews are seldom harmed. When older,
less valuable trawlers - often from Taiwan or China - are captured, the
demand is not cash but the temporary use of the boat. The owners promise not
to report their vessel missing, and it becomes a temporary 'mother ship',
allowing attacks on vessels further offshore than would usually be possible.
Thank goodness for the Olympics. The last true bastion of Corinthian sporting endeavour where athletes can compete on a level playing ground (literally and metaphorically).
Of course, to stand any chance of winning you’ll have to pour millions of pounds into a highly focused development system. You’ll have to work out which sports you are likely to win gold in (sailing, cycling, diving) and direct funds there at the cost of developing other sports.
You’ll need a big name sponsor to help pay for all this. And big name sponsors will want their pound of flesh. Or, in the case of Skandia and the Britsh Olympic hopefuls, they’ll demand 19 hours in a photo studio and a tin of gold paint. Oh, and the athletes will need to get their bits out to ensure coverage.
The PR puff that was sent out with these photos states that they are ‘a result of 19 hours of photography by Ranald Mackechnie, and over nine hours spent in make-up with body painting specialist Phyllis Cohen’ and that the five sailors thus lauded/humiliated are ‘showing their desire to win Gold at the 2008 Olympic Sailing Regatta in Qingdao’. The poor sods.
It’s bad enough working your socks off on the water without having to waste a day stripping off to get your sponsor some coverage.
That’s the way sport works today. Gold medals are expensive.
Everyone’s at it. You make a name for yourself producing one thing then use that name to flog a load of other stuff. Marketing folk call it extending the brand.
Tobacco giant Malboro sells clothes. CAT ‘make’ shoes as well as heavy machinery. You can buy perfume from Burberry as well as overcoats.
It’s happening in the marine field too.
Weird Fish, manufacturers of a range of funky fleeces for sailors and cool surf wear are now producing welly boots. But have they got it wrong? These boots don’t feature non-slip razor cut soles suitable for wet decks. Instead they have chunky treads that would be disastrous at sea though are admittedly just right for clambering across foreshores or trudging down muddy lanes to get to the dinghy.
They come in a tasteful shade of brown that will allow you to blend in with the country set but also sport a subtle fish logo to show that you’re a son of the sea. Best of all they’re only £25 but look twice the price.
Another nautical fashion brand that is spreading its wings is Fat Face. Popular with the Salcombe (Seaview, Rock etc) set, the range has also been focused on casual wear with a nautical bent. Fat Face are now hoping to make roads into the sunglasses market and have brought a range of cool shades for summer.
They have polarising lenses and so make for good sailing shades though the thick arms may block your vision at the very moment the boom comes swinging your way. They do boast 100% UV Protection. Bizarrely they also feature ‘Ballistics-Proof Polycarbonate Lenses’. Where on earth are the Fat Face folk expecting us to sail to – Iraq?
And what can we expect next? Will car manufacturers start making boats? Maybe supermarkets’ will produce their own-label cruising yachts? Coming soon: The Tesco ‘Sail the Difference’ 36DS.
If climbing the mast makes certain parts of your anatomy tingle or twitch
then spare a thought for these two men. They’re daily grind consists of
climbing up vast towers, building ladders as they climb. Their latest job
has been on the tower of the Tate Modern, right in front of Yachting Monthly
HQ, and this short video gives an idea of their vertiginous ascent.
The Macgregor 26 'powersailer' (memorably described by a yachtsman of my
acquaintance as having fallen out of the ugly tree and hit every branch on
the way down) certainly bears more than a passing resemblence to Le Ponant,
the superyacht captured by Somalian pirates earlier this month.
Surely Le Ponant's designers didn't get their inspiration from the smaller
boat's styling?
It’s blowing 50 knots and you’re sailing solo – time to get the spinnaker up, right?
Here’s Frenchman Corentin Douget onboard Bouygues Telecom on the edge of control (and briefly over it) in 40-50 knots of breeze off Belle Ile-en-mer during the 2007 Figaro Race.
We’ve watched it over and over again since finding it on Andrew Bray’s blog on the Yachting World site and we still can’t believe he has a go at flying his spinnaker, single-handed and in those conditions. The punchiest of calls from a man with fenders for balls.
When a guy who made his living building boats that do this:
decided to make a 33-foot trailer sailer, you could guess that the trials probably weren’t going to be run-of-the-mill.
Hobie Alter, the man behind the eponymous beach cat, built 187 Hobie 33s between 1982 and 1986. Before production began though, he put his ultra light displacement cruiser through a series of ordeals so bizarre, one wonders if he had an order on the books from the SAS.
One thing’s for sure, anyone who thinks he needs to test his boats like this has serious doubts about the sanity of his prospective buyers:
For a landlubber, watching Delia Smith’s latest television series, “How To
Open Cans And Empty Them Into A Pan” must be more tedious than watching a
snake tackle a Rubix cube.
However, to a sailor, the food probably looked familiar.
In fact, had Delia
filmed it in a small, cramped galley, heeling at 45 degrees while beating
out of the Western Approaches, not only would the food appear more
appetising, (at least to those not suffering from seasickness), but the
public wouldn’t be quite so quick to complain that, actually, all she did
was open cans and empty them into a pot. It might even open up a whole new
market!
Hidden among the doom-mongering stories of recession and woe this week was a
story about a swan which, having previously fallen in love with a Pedalo,
has ditched it for a model more able to return its affections.
In my experience, this is perfectly in character. Swans are cantankerous
creatures, capable of bearing a grudge for years. A few years ago I was
emptying the dregs of a coffee pot over the side in Newtown Creek on the
Isle of Wight, to be met with an infuriated hissing as a (previously
undetected) bird flapped away looking distinctly brown, angry and jangling
with caffeine.
Ever since, I've realised that the National Trust own the creek by name
only. It is the swans who wield the real power. Safe in the knowledge that
Her Majesty will grant them immunity from ending up as the basis of a tikka
masala they patrol the harbour like some sort of winged mafia, doling out
justice as they see fit.
To people who, like me have fallen fowl (sorry) of the 'mob', there is no
escape. Two years after the coffee incident I was scrubbing the waterline
from a dinghy when a sharp pain in my behind and a circling horde alerted me
to the fact that perhaps I should seek shelter in the cabin.
What next? Should I live in fear of finding a mallard's head in my sleeping
bag?
What is it about seafaring that makes you so hungry? There’s the exercise and sea air of course – or the periods of inactivity during a long spell on the helm when endless cups of tea and chocolate biscuits are essential to crew morale.
Yachstmen certainly like their grub and are becoming more and more discerning. The gentrification of coastal towns has led to a burgeoning of top-rate restaurants and it’s now possible to get a decent meal in most British ports.
And then there’s the food festivals. What better reason to set sail than to join a waterside community celebrating the sea’s bounty by eating a lot of it, drinking heavily and maybe having a dance.
Falmouth’s oyster festival is growing every year and comes highly recommended and other towns have similar events.
It’s unlikely you’d have sailed there this early in the season, but the Scallop Festival in Rye is another good example. There’s still an active fishing fleet and the scallops they catch are as good as you’ll get anywhere and can be bought within yards of where they are landed.
Pubs and restaurants throughout the town served these succulent shellfish during the ten-day festival in February. Among the events was the the Scallop Gourmet Dinner at The George in Rye. This Telltaler couldn’t make it for the dinner but was lucky enough to recently savour their superb scallops, as well as the local Romney Marsh lamb, and looks forward to sailing into Rye later in the season for seconds.
Isn’t that one of the joys of cruising – sailing somewhere and being able to stop to enjoy the local delights? And of course there are now all sorts of festivals including literary and arts.
Perhaps it would be possible to complete a round Britain festival cruise – hopping from jazz bash to crustacean carnival, book bazaar to fish fete.
“Vessels must pay attention to the fact that VTS and other shorebased
stations may not recognize, identify and track affected vessels by AIS.”
Contrary to what meets the eye, this is not a sign that VTS have fallen
asleep on the job. Rather more worryingly, it is an extract from a Swedish
Sjofartsverket navigation warning. It reports that several large ships in
Swedish waters have recently been subject to malfunctioning GPS and AIS
sets.
Rumour has it that the US shut down one of the 31 GPS satellites a fortnight
ago, but failed to issue a warning, leaving vessels in the Baltic somewhat
tense as position data vanished, taking with it accurate AIS information.
Such is the dependence of modern seafarers on GPS data that this news is
somewhat concerning. There has been no official explanation as to what
caused the blackout – so does the deafening silence from the US military
suggest a cover-up? Or is this merely a crazy conspiracy theory?
Whichever it is, it lends weight to the argument that Galileo, the EU’s
rival system due to be operational by 2013, is more than an empty political
gesture. Perhaps a separate satellite navigation system, removed from the
whim of the US military, is a sensible precaution for safe navigation.
A sailor of great experience told me recently that his 20ft boat was probably the smallest that still crosses the North Sea anymore. He then pointed out that it wasn’t the case before navigation became so easy.
Assuming that’s the case – and I’d say it’s fair to assume it is – what’s the reason? Have boats just got bigger? Have we got less time? Have budget airlines reduced the need to make such voyages? Is the challenge no longer there because it’s so easy? Or, on the contrary, are we simply more scared now than we were in the days of dear old MG?
Certainly, media of all kinds have made us more aware of disaster at sea and elsewhere. It’s part of the reason many of us have DSC VHFs, EPIRBS, AIS and all the rest of the electronic paraphernalia. Why then, with all that safety netting to catch us should we fall, are we not making the voyages we used to? Have we been scared out of offshore sailing by tales of collision, capsize and carnage?
Back-of-the-bus conspiracists will say that YM is peddling terror, hand-in-hand with the firms that sell this stuff, needy of the advertising. They do say it, they always will and it’s pointless trying to persuade them otherwise. That would be a ‘cover-up’. It’s kept JFK alive for 45 years, whatever the ‘truth’ maybe. It’s Freud’s straitjacket – the deliciously perverse principle of denial. Get out of that one!
The simple reason YM – indeed all media – run stories about disasters and tragedies is because a) it’s news, b) there are lessons to be learned, and c) it sells. It’s true. If there’s a crash on one side of a motorway, there will always be a queue on the other side as all of us see where, but for the grace of God, we go. It’s not the most attractive human trait but it’s undeniably human, all the same.
Anyway, back to the point. Why don’t we make these voyages when we’re better equipped than ever to make them? Sir Robin Knox-Johnston was 29 and armed with nothing more complex than a log and an HF when he set out on the Golden Globe to do what had never been done before. He won the ‘voyage for madmen’ in 1969. Today he’d be sectioned before he got to the start line.
The fact is he did get to the start line again, in the Velux 5 Oceans Race, and his nav station bristled with technology. Yet, during the first leg he was moved to remark in his Daily Telegraph blog (we’ll ignore the irony of his being able to communicate his frustrations): ‘More bloody useless expensive electronics. It was all easier 38 years ago when none of these gadgets had been invented, so one did not have them to miss.’
Despite all our electronic safeguards, are we too scared to sail offshore? Or do electronics diminish the challenge to the point where it’s hardly worth the bother. Answers on a postcard, please. Actually, make it an email. It’s easier. Or is it…?
Sailing, like driving, has a few basic procedures that, if not followed, leave one liable to problems. ‘Mirror, signal, manoeuvre’ we were all taught when we learn to drive. When we learn to sail, it’s ‘forecast, bilges, fuel’, among others.
And problems, as we know from experience, tend to beget problems. Trouble has a tedious habit of escalating exponentially. In 1980, Malcolm Dixon and his two year-old daughter Nieve went out in his 28ft sloop. There was very little breeze off Brisbane as he motored out of the channel, but a heavy swell running.
This footage, shot by Channel 7 in Australia, shows Dixon with no engine power, a shredded jib and beam on to waves breaking over a sand bar at the edge of the channel. The results were inevitable. The cause? A jib sheet over the side.
The stray sheet wrapped round his prop and rudder, simultaneously killing the engine and hauling the jib off the forestay. The main, limp in the calm, was useless. Both he and his daughter were quite unbelievably lucky - they survived.
On the surface photographing boats may seem a peaceful way to spend a working life, but behind the lens it’s not always the case. On press trips and new boat launches, there can be as many as 12 photographers photographing 6 different boats at the same time. Sounds chaotic? It usually is.
Space on board the press boat is a premium, so it’s important to get a spot early and mark your territory. Best spot is on the flybridge near the driver. We photographers stake our claim with the detritus we usually hump around, tripods, camera bag, coats, waterproofs, anything goes. Once installed, it would take a capsize to move us from our spot, and even then it’s doubtful that some overseas photographers would move!
With so many different photographers, all speaking different languages, all wanting their own angle to photograph different boats, bedlam is never far away. Heads pop into view, shoulders become broader while everyone tries to get the perfect shot. Like a pack of meerkats we bob up and down all shooting in different directions. In the heat of the action a lens gets dropped, falling like a £1500 meteorite onto the head of a photographer below. I don’t speak Italian, but I guess he’s unhappy with the sheepish looking photographer above. The helms of the boats we’re photographing get at least three sets of different directions, hands wave like tic tac men communicating their latest odds. One photographer says faster, another says slower, I say hold it there. So the bun fight continues until it’s time to go in.
Recent news that American adventurer Reid Stowe, 56, and his 19 year old
girlfriend Soanya Ahmad had to halt their 1,000 day ‘Mars Ocean Odyssey’ an attempt to stay out of sight of land for
1,000 days, a similar amount of time that a manned mission to Mars would
take - had me looking at their website.
The sheer quantity of branded merchandise on offer is staggering. You can
put Stowe and Ahmad's faces on, in order of taste: a T shirt (perfectly
acceptable), kitchen clock (eccentric but forgivable), commemorative kitchen
tile (a little strange), maternity wear (just plain weird) and to top it
all, a thong (frankly disturbing).
There’s no accounting for taste, and you have to applaud any novel way of
raising funds, but I wonder how many other sailors would be willing to rely
on such 'exposure' to finance their dreams?
What is a bloggerist? It is some saddo who can’t even think up his own material and rips off other people’s stuff from cyber-space.
And that’s what Tell Tale has been accused of by no less a figure than respected ocean sailor, pilot book author and YM columnist Rod Heikell.
His own sailing blog is called Tell-Tales – you can find it on www.freewebs.com/seawrite - as the more discerning among you will know this is the name of YM’s latest blog station, too.
Sorry, Rod, we completely overlooked this and our new ether network name was coined by office staff coincidentally. But cheer –up : our site has not got a hyphen, so the two can live together happily without compromising the other.
By the way Rod’s blog is well worth reading on a regular basis: it covers he and his wife Lu’s Atlantic and Med cruising aboard Skylax, their Warwick Cardinal 46 and what they have done to upgrade the boat.
They are off soon on a new adventure: across the Pacific.
David Vann, the not-so well-known author of a book called ‘A Mile Down: The True Story Of A Disastrous Career At Sea’ has set sail again, this time on a solo circumnavigation. No, it gets better. This time, he’s made an aluminium trimaran called Tin Can himself, entirely out of materials bought from US DIY chain Home Depot. Maybe he took MacArthur’s B&Q too seriously…
The signs were there. The sail plan is based on a second hand Dacron main he picked up free. When the boat was launched, the designer (yep, there was one) couldn’t attend because of an urgent holiday in Puerto Vallarta. On launch, the meagre crowd gasped as the escape hatch in the main hull sank below the surface. The Napa Valley Marina’s owners towed him out of the marina themselves, no doubt high-fiving all the way.
When he set sail from San Francisco (already confounding many critics) he made it as far as Santa Cruz, a full 80 miles south. The alarmingly ladder-like cross beams had stood the rigours of the gruelling voyage but associated scaffolding had failed. Square one. But are we disheartened? No!
‘The additions to the structure won’t take long,’ says Vann in his Esquire blog, ‘most likely not more than a week or two. But I was already pushing late into the season, leaving much later than I had wanted, and now it’s simply too late for this year. I’ll have to wait until December to set sail again.’
The thing is: is he so much different to Knox-Johnston, Moitessier, Blyth, Tetley, Crowhurst et al, when they set off on their impossible journey? Weren’t they setting sail for certain death too? Vann himself aggrandises ridiculously by comparing himself to Sir Edmund Hillary, another man attempting the impossible: ‘He said that ordinary people go on adventures, an encouraging and inspiring comment if ever there was one.’
Beneteau put us up just outside the Monaco border in Cap d’Ail to test 3 new yachts. Anyone with Med knowledge will know it’s not the greatest place to test (they were also launching two new Monte Carlo motor boats, hence the location) and so it proved.
Tuesday was all sexy blue Corniche-coloured skies and 5 knots of wind, Wednesday a short, aggressive 1 metre swell with glowering skies and scudding low cloud shoved on by a 20 knot south-easterly – great day for sailing, dodgy for pictures. Thursday was back to blue with a giddy 8 knots but the swell remained, punching the life out of any serious boat testing.
But, when in Rome... Three of IPC’s most wildly optimistic took their chance and headed up to the casino. With €50 to burn (‘Who needs shoes anyway?’), tieless and distinctly low-rolling, we gamely hid our surprise at being let in at all and headed for the tables with long gins in hand. Roulette: ‘These guys are putting down, like, 20 chips in a go. I don’t get this at all.’ Which left blackjack. €25 table, the cheapest there. That’s two hands. First hand: two 8s. Split. Bust. Twice. 30 seconds after my bank breaking effort begins, I’m out.
The other yachtie doubled his money but the third – all throttles, fly bridges and sharp suits – walked away with €275. The rag-stick schism would have deepened Marianas-style were it not for his magnanimity at the bar. Les jeux sont faits. Oui, vraiment.
A few weeks ago the BBC reported on a new sport known as ‘Speed Cabling’,
which is taking America by storm.
It involves unravelling the wires of six Ethernet computer cables, some as
long as 25ft. They are put into a tumble drier and spun for 3 minutes,
until they are as intertwined as two pythons on honeymoon, whereupon they
are taken out and detangled, racing against the clock.
The winner of the first championships, Matthew Howell, an LA-based web
developer, claimed to have benefited from his time spent kneading pizza
dough, and called his technique “fierce data cloud”.
This sounds like a perfect opportunity for a pot-hunting sailor to add
to their collection of silverware. If you have ever trimmed a mainsail
in a fast-paced race, forgotten to flake a spinnaker halyard, or worse still
dropped a twisty trailing logline in a pile on the deck, you’ll know that a
tumble dryer isn’t necessary. More importantly, chances are you’ll be able
to untangle a mere 25ft of computer cable before some pasty-faced web
developer has even had the time to look up 'Dyneema' on his BlackBerry.
My feelings of inadequacy are deepening. It’s what comes of comparing yourself with Sir Robin Knox-Johnston, I suppose.
In his recent book, Force of Nature, Sir Robin states that he comes from the Bill Tilamn school and avoids wearing gloves whenever possible.
‘It’s not just a grip issue,’ says Britain’s greatest living yachtsman. ‘ I find that if I leave my hands bear in cold climates they respond by pumping more blood through themselves. Everyone thinks you are butch and hardy, but in fact you are not suffering at all.’
All this was academic until I lost my motorcycle gloves yesterday.
‘I’ll be fine,’ I thought to myself, ‘My body will respond and just pump some more blood.’
Yeh – right! I could hardly move my frozen digits by the time I climbed off after my 30-minute commute. More proof, not that it was needed, that Sir Robin is cut from different cloth.
I was recently looking at the Landfill
Prize website, which is an award for Britain’s most pointless new products. And that got me thinking. Perhaps there should be an award for the most irritating, over-designed piece of nautical nonsense. I’m sure there would be no shortage of nominations.
I’ll happily start the bidding with boathooks which come complete with 57 incomprehensible attachments but which sink when dropped in the briny, gas lighters which might have a flame hotter than the sun but which stop working the second a breath of air hits them, and sailing shoes made from space age materials and designed by Mensa but which smell like a sweaty Stilton at the mere hint of moisture.
YM was recently sent a product grandly called the ‘Sidelock Frappit’. It claims to eradicate antisocial noise in harbours, and is made from a strong polyester
lanyard, an aluminium hook and a healthy dollop of marketing hype. It boasts a ‘unique noose arrangement’ and features a ‘sliding flexible tube of
critical internal diameter’.
Can you tell what it is yet? A portable gallows to deter noisy youths?
Nope. It’s for frapping noisy halyards.
It may be an ingenious invention – or it could be an over-designed bit of string.
These are days of increasing homogenisation. If a product works it is copied endlessly at minimum cost. Shopping centres, TV programmes, cars and even boats are churned out with little to differentiate one from the other.
The backlash seems to have started however. More and more people want something a little different, something with some character. Supermarkets are stocking ‘ugly’ fruit and veg. Businesses are winning custom by highlighting their individual, non-corporate nature. The average white boat is not at risk – but it is bound to suffer as part of this search for individuality.
If you fancy something altogether different and not in the least average or white, then how about this pocket cruiser, spotted for sale on the hard? Around 20ft LOA but complete with a poop deck and aft cabin scaled down from HMS Victory.
You think you know where you are but you can’t find the mark that should be there. It’s a situation most yachtsmen find themselves in from time to time. It often turns out that an error has been made somewhere between the chart table and the helm. Variation or deviation was wrongly applied, BST was ignored, the tide was ebbing or flooding or leeway was ignored. Perhaps the GPS datum was wrong. You have a good scratch of the head, work out where you went wrong and plot a new position.
Sometimes, however, you cannot find the mark because some bugger has ripped it up and left it on the bank!
A moment’s innocent web browsing has brought home to me my inadequacies as a yachtsman – and, come to think of it, as a man.
I gave up drink for January. I also grew a beard. I told people that I would shave off the beard when I had a drink and it proved useful motivation to keep on the wagon. I was proud of my beard. It was thick and manly. At some strange level it felt that by not drinking and by growing a beard I had achieved something in the first month of the year.
And then I ruined it all by looking at Alex Thomson’s website. There was a picture of the 33-year-old offshore yachtsman – and look! He had a beard just like mine. My self worth dwindled and died at that moment as I realised that the similarities ended there.
In January I had grown a beard and not drank. Full stop. The end.
In January Alex Thomson had grown a beard and not drank. He had also raced at break-neck speeds, two-handed across the freezing, gale-whipped Southern Ocean and around Cape Horn in an Open 60. Alex’s beard and sobriety were a by-product of his extreme ocean racing. Mine, pathetically, were an end in themselves.
Next January I shall give up drinking and shaving again. Oh – and I’ll give up the internet too.
The East Coast sailors thrive on it of course – but are the rest of us over cautious when it comes to good honest mud? Has the increase in marina berths meant that we’re not only reluctant to anchor but are now fearful of drying out, especially if there’s mud involved.
Of course it’s child’s play if you’re a bilge keeler but there are creeks and estuaries all round the country where deep keeled boats are moored in less than conventional surroundings.
This example caught my eye on a recent visit to Rye. The yacht nestled into the mud looks like a Hillyard. Her long keel has carved out a bespoke mud berth into which she fits like a glove.
Thank goodness that such interesting boats and berths can still be found.
There are many things that we would like to include within the hallowed pages of Yachting Monthly but cannot. Issues such as space, legality and taste mean that they end up in the bin, or dragged mercilessly into the on-screen gash bag, never to see the light of day.
This blog is for all those snippets.
It's a scrag bag of nautical titbits. The intention is that some of them will be useful, some amusing. Expect to be infuriated and inspired, educated and entertained.
Spotted in the Solent this weekend... A case of Graffiti or Guerrilla
Marketing?
After the Cervantes Trophy race from Cowes to Le Havre last weekend, we booked lunch the following day at the Société des Régates du Havre, our hosts and organisers of the return race, Trophée Guillaume le Conquerant.
Sailing slowly up the western Solent late on Monday evening we were greeted
by a huge yellow-brown cloud, presumably the result of a bank holiday’s
worth of pollution, finally blown clear of the land by a late breeze, and
stretching from Southampton to Portsmouth.
Sticking with the cephalopod theme for another day, here's a picture of Phil
Sharp holding a potential breakfast a few days ago, a week into the AG2R
double handed transatlantic race.
Scientists dissecting a colossal squid in New Zealand have revealed that
its eyes alone measure an astounding 30cm in diameter.
A fascinating article in this week's Observer sheds some light on the extent of the piracy problem in Somalian waters.
Thank goodness for the Olympics. The last true bastion of Corinthian sporting endeavour where athletes can compete on a level playing ground (literally and metaphorically). 
Weird Fish, manufacturers of a range of funky fleeces for sailors and cool surf wear are now producing 
For a landlubber, watching Delia Smith’s latest television series, “How To
Open Cans And Empty Them Into A Pan” must be more tedious than watching a
snake tackle a Rubix cube.
However, to a sailor, the food probably looked familiar. 
Hidden among the doom-mongering stories of recession and woe this week was a
story about a swan which, having previously fallen in love with a 
What is it about seafaring that makes you so hungry? There’s the exercise and sea air of course – or the periods of inactivity during a long spell on the helm when endless cups of tea and chocolate biscuits are essential to crew morale.
“Vessels must pay attention to the fact that VTS and other shorebased
A sailor of great experience told me recently that his 20ft boat was probably the smallest that still crosses the North Sea anymore. He then pointed out that it wasn’t the case before navigation became so easy.
