The Arnside Conference

At the weekend  D and I attended an excellent  conference at Arnside with several talks on  Crossfield's boats and the contributions of the Crossfield family of boatbuilders. The conference was ably organised by Alasdair Simpson of Arnside Sailing Club, and there were about 60 people present including several owners of Crossfield built boats. Alasdair was presented with an OGA trophy for his efforts in organising the meeting and researching the local boatbuilding industry.

                                                        Alasdair Simpson with OGA Award

There were several members of the Crossfield family present, and Eric Crossfield, who is a member of the Old Gaffers also spoke. The boatbuilding business closed down in 1940, and I think they were pleased to see that their name is still held in such high regard.

                                                              Eric Crossfield

Its possible to see the site of the boatshed where Bonita was built, although the building has now gone and a couple of semi-detached houses are being built on the site.  The boatshed was in the middle of the village a little way up a hill from the river, so finished boats were rolled on a trolley down the middle of the street to be launched. They had no way of getting boats back up the hill into the shed, so any repairs or modifications had to be done on the beach between tides. The site of the boatshed seems very small, when one imagines them melting down tons of lead to cast a boat's keel, or steaming large planks to bend them into place to make the Nobby's characteristic elliptical cockpit coamings. Yet very many boats were built here over around a hundred years and established the family's reputation for good quality work.
There was a general feeling that the conference was too good to be a 'one-off' so maybe we shall be making a regular pilgrimage to Arnside in future.

Return home

We had planned to cross over from Dunkerque last night, but were discouraged by a forecast of patchy fog. We both have unpleasant experiences of crossing shipping lanes in fog, and patchy fog can seem pretty bad if you are in the middle of a patch. So we left this morning at 7am instead. We had a SW wind force 5 gusting to 7 which seemed quite enough. For the first few miles we were in the Dunkerque approach channel tacking straight to windward. After that we had a fast but rather wet reach across the Channel. The day ended with a very slow journey along the north Kent coast heading into a stiff wind and a spring tide. We picked up our buoy on the Swale at about midnight.

So this brings Bonita's Baltic cruise to an end. It was a great experience despite many setbacks and we had more than our share of bad weather and head winds. There were lots of benefits of cruising in company and we enjoyed being with Calismarde and her crew.

Many thanks to all my long suffering work colleagues, family and friends who have made this adventure possible.

In this year of Brexit when we crossed many international borders visiting 7 countries people may be interested to know that no-one during the whole trip asked to see a passport, and no-one asked to see our ship's papers.

The star of the show of course is Bonita who like a proper lady is always elegant, glamorous and well behaved despite sometimes being rather roughly treated.

And the hero of the piece is surely William Crossfield (1847 - 1921), who designed and built Bonita. He described himself as a joiner, yacht and boatbuilder. He was a prolific builder and one of the most talented of his time. I like to think that having got a commission for a racing yacht from paper mill owner Edwin Grundy Wrigley, he put all his skill and effort into ensuring that she was a strong boat and that everything was of the highest standard. It is testament to his skill that 128 years later she still has all of her original planks and frames. 

Crossfields at Arnside, from L-R Fred, William snr., William jnr. and Frank

The photo on the right was taken circa 1910, it shows William Crossfield with his sons Fred, William jnr. and his nephew Frank in their boatyard at Arnside where Bonita was built.

Dublin

Having left Dunmore (nr Waterford) at 3am on Friday we sailed all day with lightish fair winds and a good bit of engine. We wanted to go into Wicklow at about 11pm but when we went into the harbour there were no Bonita friendly spaces free so we left and carried on to Dublin arriving here about 9am on Sunday. I long ago learnt the hard way that it's best not to try to squeeze Bonita into spaces that look too difficult. 

Dublin harbour is a busy commercial port and we are constantly entertained by watching huge ships being skillfully manoeuvered in the river.

We went into the city for lunch. Dublin has changed beyond recognition since Geoff Jones and I sailed here in Young Alert in 1978. There has been lots of new building and pretty Miss Molly Malone would not find much of the fair city that she recognised. Almost the only thing that seems unchanged are the large number of statues of a variety of heroes of the struggle for Irish independence - many frozen for ever in dramatic postures.

There are two Dutch gaffers here; Cine Mara and Vlieter. Strong winds are forecast overnight but should be settling tomorrow.

Bonita's first name was 'Iris', she is Iris No 8 here.

The other news is that I have a research team hard at work finding more detail about Bonita's history. The only copy of Lloyds Register of Yachts that is available from being scanned onto the internet so far is the 1902-3 edition which can be found here but Tim has a friend with a complete set of Registers.

The photo shows Bonita's first entry under her original name 'Iris' in the 1889-90 edition; she was owned by Mr Edwin G Wrigley who was a member of the Royal Barrow Yacht Club. This is also the first time that Crossfield (misspelt here but corrected in later entries) appears in the register as a builder although they appear frequently in later editions. We hope to be able to complete a full account of her changes of ownership, home port etc.