tide by tide

Another Admiralty problem

What I didn’t realise when I wrote the recent post on the UKHO delaying the end of Admiralty paper charts was that there was a sting in the tail – they had wanted to drop raster electronic charts as well. That has also been delayed a few years to 2030 while they think about it.

Ancient Pacific navigation inspires mainstream art

Two events 10,000 miles apart link a renaissance in traditional Pacific navigation and the world of art.

I was lucky enough last week to visit the TarraWarra Biennial exhibition 2023. a prestige art venue in the countryside near Melbourne in Australia. The biennale title is a Samoan proverb which translates as – ‘the canoe obeys the wind’.

The curator’s notes say “this proverb calls attention to the contemporary revival of Great Ocean celestial navigation practices which have been accompanied by waves of renewal of language, thought, movement and relationships.’

The exhibition, which opened on 1 April, is excellent, merging modern and traditional art practices to show how ancient cultures and their environments are struggling to survive.

By coincidence, just before we left for Australia I went to a seminar on traditional Pacific navigation organised by the Royal Institute of Navigation and the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, London.

Wooden boat craftsmanship

The craft of wooden boatbuilding is alive and well on the other side of the world. Here are two dinghies built recently by local boatbuilders for the Hobart Maritime Museum in Tasmania. On close inspection they are not only strongly built, they are finished almost to cabinet maker standard.

Admiralty gives in

The revolution has been postponed: the United Kingdom Hydrographic Office has delayed the phasing out of its Admiralty paper charts for four years, to 2030. This follows pressure from the Royal Yachting Association and others.

The argument against losing paper charts sooner is that adequate electronic alternatives for small craft – especially small commercial ones – will not be ready in time.

Wrong-headed satellite precision claims

I’ve had quite a few emails recently from Orca, a navigation equipment and software firm, boasting about the 3 metre location accuracy of their equipment as a major selling point. It’s a waste of marketing effort, as far as I’m concerned.

Three metre satellite accuracy – available nowadays even on some top of the range phones – is no use when round much of the British Isles chart positions can be far less accurate.

Sigma 362 gets top marks

Practical Boat Owner’s current issue goes to great lengths to praise the qualities of the Sigma 362. It is given three whole pages of an 8 page article on the best cruiser-racers to adapt to cruising.

That’s quite an accolade for a 1980s design that was last built in the early ’90s.

RYA electronic chart training has missed the boat

The near-universal shift by small boat sailors from paper to electronic charts has left the Royal Yachting Association’s training courses floundering in recent years.

That was underlined when Admiralty, owned by the UK Hydrographic Office and one of the world’s gold standard official chart brands, said in July that it will stop selling paper charts altogether by the end of 2026.

Beachcombing for weathered teak

Every river I know with saltings has timber rubbish stranded near the high tide line, usually broken and ignored. A close look, however, tells a better story. Today’s flotsam is often a fragment of a very old boat, and the best of all is a piece of long-lasting teak.

August – Dun Laoghaire to Cowes

Covid caused a full week’s delay in Ireland, and the weather forecast added another three days. By then we were feeling fit, though perhaps tiring a touch more easily than usual. We grabbed the chance to see more of Dublin, along with Rob, who arrived by ferry late on Sunday night.

*Sandy Cove, Joyce’s Tower almost hidden behind the trees on the right*

Near Dun Laoghaire, the James Joyce Tower and Museum at Sandy Cove is fascinating both for its atmosphere and – at weekends – for the fluent storytelling about Joyce and Ulysses by the volunteers who staff it. The tower is the setting of the first page of the book.

July – passage to Ireland

The plan before Covid struck was to allow three weeks for a cruise to the Irish Sea, which is quite difficult to time exactly because of the uncertainties involved in rounding Lands End.

To make the new cruise work on our original pre-Covid timescale, Tony and I had taken advantage of a generous offer from Antony F to arrange a mooring for us at Saltash Sailing Club, an attractive and friendly place near the Tamar bridges (see June post).

*Dolphins all the way from Plymouth to Helford – here’s one about to surface*

A good wind to get to Lands End from Plymouth is often a bad wind for carrying on northwards to Ireland. Strong winds can also prevent rounding the headland for days, as we found in 2007 when we were held up for a week in Falmouth.

Covid strikes the crew

It was a lovely cruise to Ireland at first, with fine, sunny weather rather than the extraordinarily high temperatures that hit central and southern England. But half way through we had a problem for which there was no easy answer – three of us tested positive for Covid after feeling as if we were getting mild colds, with headache, sinusitis and sore throat.

*The loch from a hill behind Carlingford*

We did the tests at Carlingford Marina, which looks across its loch to Northern Ireland on the opposite bank. We had all had dinner in a pub two nights before, after seeking out a quiet room in an otherwise crowded place. That pub does seem to be the likeliest source. The result was obviously as worrying for the fourth crew member as for the three with the virus. One of the crew, Antony, had left from Dublin, so escaped the bug, while Peter F had only just joined there.

June (2) – overnight to Plymouth, fuel consumption

With half a dozen tidal gates on a passage from the Solent round Lands End, we managed to get through four of them in 24 hours last week. The westerlies that usually slow a cruise to Devon and Cornwall gave way to light winds from between north and east, with calm seas.

Two of us were standing ready to sail to Plymouth as soon as we had the right weather forecast, so we would be better positioned for rounding Lands End on our way to Wales and Ireland next month.

*Tony bringing the boat in from our mooring to Cowes Yacht Haven so I could do a pierhead jump – we’re too mean to pay marina day rates*

We went to Cowes on Monday afternoon, left at 5am on Tuesday and were in Plymouth Sound about the same time on Wednesday.

Venice’s Vogalonga

The first boat to appear at the Dogana on the Grand Canal after the 30 km Vogalonga rally round the lagoon and canals of Venice was a coxed eight. It was another 40 minutes before the arrival of the first of the traditional Venetian boats, the ones everyone really wants to see.

All the boats finished further up, beyond the Rialto, and they then paraded down to the official pontoon at the Dogana, which is at the entrance to the Canal.

There they received their awards for participating in the lagoon marathon, which is open to any boat as long as it can be rowed or paddled. It took place on the Sunday before the Transadriatica.

June – the Transadriatica

It was great to be back as crew in the Transadriatica this year, after two years suspension because of Covid.

The race is actually a double one, just under 60 miles out from Venice to Novigrad in Croatia, and back again after a day’s relaxation in the delightful little seaside resort – how can you beat that for a civilised way to compete?

Novigrad is in Istria, close to some excellent vineyards producing wine from the Malvasia grape. There is a strong Italian influence on the food and the architecture, reflected in the town’s other name of Cittanova. That goes back to the days before the peninsula of Istria was taken from Italy and handed to Yugoslavia after the second world war.

Painting the Iain Oughtred dinghy

After 8 years kept in the open, the Iain Oughtred feather pram finally needed its paint refreshed.

The Hempel all in one primer, undercoat and topcoat lasted amazingly well. The boat is stored upside down in the garden when not in use, and only had a tarpaulin over it in the winter.

We gave the hull a rub down with fine 600 grade wet and dry, then washed it and left it for 24 hours to dry before the first coat.There was enough paint left in the old pot for a full coat this time, to be followed by two coats of gloss.