Maskelyne v Harrison – the longitude show in London

Harrison's third clock
Harrison’s third clock

 

We finally managed to take in the excellent Ships, Clocks and Stars exhibition at the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, which runs only until 4 January. Among other things, it puts the record somewhat straighter on the eminent 18th century Astronomer Royal, Nevil Maskelyne, chief villain of Dava Sobel’s best selling nautical history of the race to measure longitude at sea. Maskelyne was the man who conspired against John Harrison, the genius who built the first true chronometer, or so the narrative goes in Sobel’s book, Longitude.

Not so, it is clear from the detailed story set out in the exhibition, Continue reading “Maskelyne v Harrison – the longitude show in London”

Greek pilotage puzzle: where’s Ithaca?

On an Ionian holiday a few years ago, I walked straight off a modern cruising yacht into an argument about an ancient voyage that has been unresolved for well over 2,000 years. We had moored at Vathi, the main town on Ithaca, where in a first floor room down a side street I came across an exhibition of photographs of Homeric sites on the island.  There I fell into conversation with a white-haired, distinguished looking man who described himself as director of the archaeological excavations on Ithaca.

Looking down to the sea from one of the archaeological excavations on Ithaca
Looking down to the sea from the site of excavations on Ithaca.

Naturally, we got onto the Odysseus connection, for  the exhibition was designed to connect present day sites on the island with the wanderings of Homer’s hero. I had just read in Rod Heikell’s Ionian pilot book that the island of Levkas, a few miles to the north, had been put forward by some as the true Ithaca. What did the director think of that?

It was as if I had insulted his family, his religion and his country all at once. He exploded.

For the full article – a long read – follow this link. Or look under ‘old stories’ above.

Cowes – love it or loathe it?

The man manoeuvring in the queue for the fuel pontoon at Falmouth took one look at our port of registration on the transom, and let loose a flood of abuse about people like us from Cowes. He was accusing us of queue jumping – we weren’t. Elsewhere, another sailor looked at the town name and added “arrogant bastards” to his complaint about where we were parked on a pontoon.

I may well be getting paranoid, but since moving our sailing base to Cowes 5 years ago I’ve been wondering whether the mere name sometimes prompts the sailing equivalent of the “posh boy” jibe at David Cameron’s cabinet. Continue reading “Cowes – love it or loathe it?”

Sailing days

This year we’ve been converting and extending an old farm building to make a house, which has been a full time job, so with the work running late I didn’t get away for a cruise until the beginning of September, a jaunt across channel for oysters at St Vaast-la-Hougue and back for a south coast potter.

At St Vaast, home of the Normandy oyster
At St Vaast, home of the Normandy oyster

Continue reading “Sailing days”

Ted Heath, the Guardian and the Fastnet mutiny of ’89

 Roger Justice, David Fairhall and Ted Heath at the launch party – the photo that never appeared.

The Guardian newspaper has a long tradition of involvement with sailing, but many of its staff had forgotten all that when David Fairhall and I came up with an idea for a season of ocean racing. The paper was split down the middle by the plan.
It all came to a head in a spectacular fashion one day in early 1989 when every department head refused point blank to run a story and photographs of the launch of our Guardian-sponsored racing yacht. The former Prime Minister, the late Ted Heath, a well known sailor, had agreed to our invitation to launch the boat at a reception in Southampton. Heath was baffled when none of the photographs and copy about the event appeared in the paper. For some of my then colleagues, the combination of a top Tory and yacht racing was too much to swallow. Mutiny was in the air.
For the 25th anniversary of the Guardian’s unusual ocean racing challenge, here is the full story – find it using this link.

Circumnavigation complete – back to base via the River Brent

This is the day we complete the circumnavigation of London by returning to base (though south Londoners might take exception to putting it that way). We cruised slowly up the canalised River Brent, which was green and leafy, the birdsong interrupted only by the roar of traffic as we approached the bridge carrying the M4 over the canal.

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Soon, we were into the locks, tackling 10 altogether, 6 of them in a single flight. We had lunch in a basin between two locks. Continue reading “Circumnavigation complete – back to base via the River Brent”

Limehouse to Brentford with the tide

We’ve booked the lock into the Thames for 1130, to catch the last couple of hours of the tide, which will sweep us up the river. (The boat goes so slowly that it would hardly move if it tried to fight the tide). Three other Black Prince boats head for the lock, with a shared professional pilot, but one turns back because of engine trouble. We head out into the Thames, giving our plan to Thames VTS (traffic control) on VHF channel 14, and head for Tower Bridge.

20140528-231451.jpg Continue reading “Limehouse to Brentford with the tide”

Little Venice to The Guardian

Three ex-Guardian journalists on board, so where else can we head for than Kings Place, the new offices overlooking Kings Cross marina and the Canal Museum. Skipper’s son and grandson joined the crew for a while. Here they are going through the Maida Hill tunnel.

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Continue reading “Little Venice to The Guardian”

Rainy Day in London Town – or A Splendid View of the North Circular

Rain forecast all morning, so wet weather gear and a stoical attitude called for, with half hour watches steering. It was therefore a pleasant surprise to find that there are no locks until Camden, which we won’t reach until tomorrow. Camden is the end of a 27 mile lock-free stretch before a gradual descent to the Thames at Limehouse.
The best surprise was that far from cruising an industrial wasteland we were actually spending much of the time in a green corridor through London, sheltered by trees, with a profusion of wild flowers, certainly as far as Wembley and Alperton. Even in the industrial and retail parks of the North Circular and further in, there’s a May-time profusion of greenery and flowers along the canal itself.

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And what can be more detached from normal London than standing on the boat above the North Circular Continue reading “Rainy Day in London Town – or A Splendid View of the North Circular”

Cruise by tube

The London circuit
The London circuit

This is a map of our next cruise: a circumnavigation of London using the Paddington Branch and Regents canals, with a detour to see the Olympic Park via the Hertford Union, the Lee Navigation and Limehouse cut, then the River Thames from Limehouse to Brentford and back to our starting point via the Grand Junction Canal.

We have just had the cheapest ever holiday fares – zero – as we got the tube to Greenford and a bus to Tesco’s car park using our Freedom Passes, before a short walk to Willowtree Marina. We were expecting an industrial backwater, but nothing of the sort: a neat marina with a bar and restaurant, surrounded by trees. Evie is the barge’s name, 70 feet long but still a squeeze at 7ft 6 in wide.

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Here’s the captain (David, right) and crew, waiting for what turned out to be a splendid takeaway from an Indian restaurant in nearby Southall.

Building an Iain Oughtred pram dinghy

My birthday present was a kit to build a little wooden tender by the celebrated Scottish designer Iain Oughtred (celebrated, that is, by afficionados of wooden boats). However, this tender is not for Spring Fever, because there is nowhere on the deck it would fit, but for the grandchildren to row on the old farm pond in our garden, and perhaps on quiet stretches of a nearby river.

The boat is 6 feet 10 inches and called the ‘Feather’ pram, because it is Oughtred’s smallest and lightest design. Construction is lapstrake, which is like old fashioned clinker (overlapping plank), but glued instead of clenched with nails. Nearly everything is made from plywood. It’s a very pretty little boat.

The building frame on trestles.
The building frame on trestles.

The first stage was to buy some timber from a builders’ merchant and make a strong frame on which to build the boat, resting on a pair of trestles in our next door neighbour, Paul Broomhead’s, workshop, which he has kindly lent for the project.

Cutting planks from a plywood sheet.
Cutting planks from a plywood sheet.

Continue reading “Building an Iain Oughtred pram dinghy”

Who sank the Bank of England Yacht?

The Old Lady at sea

The Bank of England once owned a succession of yachts, which each went by the name of Ingotism, an insider’s reference to its old telex address and to the bullion stored deep in the sub-basements of the Threadneedle Street offices. This is the story of how Ingotism was sunk – in a manner of speaking – and of how I got a good share of the blame from the Bank’s sailing club.

Ingotism
Ingotism

Follow this link to read the full article.