Scarborough

We left Whitby when the swing bridge opened at 8am and sailed the 15 or so miles down the coast to Scarborough. We had fair tide, a breeze off the land and no rain, so a pleasant sail and were in the little Old Harbour at the end of the morning. We were welcomed by the crew of Susan J who arrived last night. Indian Runner, Letty, Onward and Moon River all arrived later today.

I hadn't been to Scarborough before but it is a lively town full of holiday makers and lots of grand buildings near the sea front. There are boat trips around the bay, and the picture shows a pirate ship returning to harbour with its crew after its latest adventure.

A little known yachting connection is with the yacht designer Albert Strange (1855-1917). He was influential  in popularising yawl rig, as suitable for gentlemen yachtsmen who sailed without a professional crew. A number of his pretty boats are still sailing. It turns out that though he designed lots of boats, this was just a hobby. His day job was as the Principal of the Scarborough School of Art.


We walked up to the castle overlooking the town. The castle was very large and the remains dominate the town. It dates from the time of Henry II and the massive masonry is still very impressive.

There is a fine view of the harbour from the castle.The Old harbour with Bonita in is the one nearest the beach.

We did a few other useful jobs, and as there is apparently no fuel available in the harbour, we took a taxi to a fuel station to fill up a few cans of diesel. 

After it got dark we welcomed in the marvellous  Barbara in Moon River who had sailed all the way from Amble today singlehanded. She was welcomed on Susan J with tea, cake and whisky.

Whitby

We left Blyth early this morning - about 4.30- to catch the tide. Our all weather crew are D, and Hugo who is getting to grips with the principles of sailing. Unfortunately as we were motoring out of the harbour the engine suddenly started producing ominous sounding grinding noises. Fearing the worst, we turned round and went back to the yacht harbour. It turned out that the cause was the pulley on the cooling water pump touching the engine bearer when under load. I replaced the belt that drives the pump with a new one and that seemed to cure the problem. We set out again an hour or so later.

Sadly it was rather a frustrating sail. There was very little wind and there was a heavy swell left over from several days of strong northerly winds so the boat rolled around a bit. We motor- sailed most of the way so it was lucky the engine was OK.

We approached Whitby harbour shortly after low water, and I was anxious that there might not be enough water in the entrance, especially as there was a 2m high swell breaking on the shore. However we radiod the Harbour Master and he was confident there would be enough water. He was right of course: the depths went down to 0.5m under the keel at the shallowest bit but we never touched the bottom.

We tied up waiting for the swing bridge to open to go into the inner harbour, and were joined by Indian Runner, who had come today from Hartlepool.

The picture shows Bonita waiting for the bridge. Ahead of her is the Endeavour Bark, supposedly a copy of Captain Cooks boat. James Cook is one of Whitbys most famous sons.There are several supposed copies of the Endeavour of various shapes and sizes in Whitby. They look as though they might be good for a trip round the bay but none really suitable for exploring the South Seas.

Blyth 2

Today we enjoyed the NE area OGA Party Port events, despite almost constant rain. In the morning we had a very informative guided tour of the club lightship (LV50) which dates from 1879. She is heavily built of wood, with iron strapping to enable her to withstand the worst weather in exposed locations. Her first posting was to the Seven Stones rocks off Lands End. She gave service as a lightship until 1952 when she was sold off and bought by the RNYC as their clubship. She had around 7 crew who did stints of two months on her at a time. Lightships became a practical proposition with the large scale manufacture of heavy chain in the early 1800s, but have now been replaced with modern automated aids to navigation.

The picture shows the cabin with widespread use of iron reinforcing straps.   

In the afternoon with went to see a local boat building facility, the Blyth Tall Ship project where they are building a large replica Zulu, a type of fishing boat popular about 100 years ago. We were impressed by the quality of the work being done there. They also have the tall ship Williams 2 on the quay by the yard.

In the evening we were joined by Hugo, who will be sailing with us for a few days. We had an entertaining supper on the club lightship with the Gaffers. The evening was greatly enlivened by singing sea shanties with plenty of audience participation.

The lyrics of the song written by the irrepressible Claudia Myatt give a flavour of the evenings entertainment.

Blyth and Seaton

This morning D and I walked the few miles from Blyth down the beach to Seaton Sluice.

This is a small tidal harbour that was a major coal exporting port in the eighteenth century.

It seems an unlikely place for a major port today, with restricted tidal range and difficult access from the sea. The harbour had almost completely dried out at low water and today the only boats to be seen were a few small shallow draft fishing boats which were all aground.

In Blyth, gaffers continued to arrive all day and we now have about 10 round Britain boats here. Several local boats have also arrived

 Next to Bonita is berthed a beautifully restored sailing coble from 1946, the Royal Diadem II. She has a lug sail and unusually her original Kelvin diesel engine. 

The coble was a traditional fishing boat which was common on this coast. Strong but lightly buit, they could be kept in small harbours or pulled up on the beach.  In the evening we had a reception on the clubship and were welcomed by the Mayor. Everyone at the Club has been very friendly and gone out of their way to make us feel welcome.

Royal Northumberland Yacht Club, Blyth

This morning at Lindisfarne we woke to a

Moderate northerly wind so without hesitation we pulled up the anchor and were swept out to sea. Unfortunately the wind then fizzled out so we motored

most of the way, inside the Farne Islands and continuing along the coast. There was some excitement when we heard on the VHF that Susan J, a few miles behind us, was disabled as they had caught a line round her propellor. They had to be rescued by the lifeboat; luckily the lifeboat crew managed to free the propellor and Susan J, Dave and Julie continued on their way.

We ended up on the Royal Northumberland Yacht Club marina in Blyth, arriving at the same time as 'Onward of Ito'. Blyth used to be a busy port exporting coal. The coal is now gone but there is still quite a lot of commercial traffic with the yacht harbour tucked into a corner. Its a good place to stay for a day or two with a warm welcome from the club members. We had supper in the yacht club with Onwards crew.

The club headquarters are in a venerable wooden lightship dating from 1879, apparantly the oldest timber lightship in the world. Maintaining her is clearly quite a burden for the Club but still she looks very well looked after.

The Gaffers are having a rally here over the weekend so we will stay here and have a couple of days generally catching up with things.

Here is the RNYC clubship dressed with flags to welcome the Round Britain gaffers.