tide by tide

Rowing the Venetian way

A visit to Venice brought the chance to learn the basics of rowing all over again. We found there’s almost no relationship between how a Venetian rows and the way we learnt at home.

And following up my last post, here’s what we’ve been thinking about for next year’s cruise: a third round-the-British-Isles voyage, at an even more leisurely pace than before, giving time to explore places we missed and revisit some of the most memorable.

*Spring Fever at dusk in Loch Moidart, 2*012

Oldie sailors

Just realised with a bit of a shock that at the weekend I will be the same age as Spring Fever’s last proprietor when he gave up sailing because he was getting on a bit, and sold the boat to us.

…and back again

We grabbed a brief window of good weather to take Spring Fever back from Suffolk to Cowes. Crossing the Thames Estuary, we retraced our route out, including Foulger’s Gatt, which runs across the London Array windfarm.

After stopping in Ramsgate for the night, we went through the Gull Stream, inshore of the Goodwin Sands. Two Border Force vessels followed us – they had spent a long night finding and rescuing migrants from small boats.

Follow the wind

After leaving the boat in Cowes for a few days for the force sevens to blow over (see previous post) we returned still undecided about where to go: south to the Channel Islands and down to St Malo? But it’s already the French holiday season, the English one is starting and there’ll be packed moorings and marinas everywhere, plus the new customs and immigration bureaucracy.

Furthermore, it looks from the forecast as if the first three days after arriving will be spent sheltering somewhere. After that we’ll be worrying about finding a weather window to get back to Cowes a few days later.

The answer, we decided, was to follow the wind east and head for the Thames Estuary and Suffolk.

Aimless cruising

Mike Peyton’s annual cruise with his club had a simple policy: don’t discuss where to go, don’t collaborate on planning and all set off about the same time. It seems that at the dictate of wind and tides, the club members would invariably end up in the same place anyway.

I can understand how that happens, after 10 days of this July’s weather. If you are a cruising sailor of a certain age who does not want to exhaust yourself and your crew to windward, the options for where to go narrow right down as soon as you check tides and wind.

*Dartmouth entrance in better weather, last time we visited*

Transadriatica 2023

It was one of the best Transadriatica’s from Venice to Novigrad and back that anyone could remember. Winds in the northern Adriatic are notoriously fickle and changeable, and sometimes disappear for hours to leave a glassy calm. This time, apart from a brief lull or two on the way out, we had steady winds all the way.

Martin and I were sailing two-handed in his Spiuma, starting on Thursday evening in Venice and arriving in Novigrad early on Friday afternoon.

*Receiving our prize in Novigrad for the smallest boat to finish*

Dark waters: how the adventure of a lifetime turned to tragedy

This Guardian article was worth reading – not because we ever plan to do trans-ocean passages, but because it illustrates how easily an overstretched, overtired crew can start making serious mistakes. That can happen on a simple cross-channel passage, let alone the Southern Ocean.

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2023/may/11/clipper-round-the-world-yacht-race-adventure-lifetime-tragedy-simon-speirs?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

PS She called it the River Solent – don’t think she’s a south-coast sailor! They changed it in later editions.

Just out – the new Pass Your Day Skipper

The new edition of Pass Your Day Skipper by David Fairhall and Peter Rodgers is now on sale. The book was originally by David but – at his invitation – I’ve expanded it and added lots of new material on electronic navigation, weather, and safety. The illustrations are by the famous sailing cartoonist Mike Peyton.

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’.

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.