Lowestoft

We are still in Lowestoft. We have had a few days of strong winds but are hoping for some reasonable weather to let us get to Ipswich in time for the Gaffers big gathering. In the meantime we have been enjoying the hospitality of the Royal Norfolk and Suffolk Yacht Club. They have a marvellous clubhouse purpose built in 1903. 

There are quite a few Gaffers here on the marina berths waiting for fairer winds. There are a few interesting resident boats here too.

The Omega is a Harrison Butler design, built in 1939. Harrison Butler was another talented amateur yacht designer, in his case the day job was as an ophthalmic surgeon. A number of his boats survive, and there is an active owners association.

Lowestoft!

We have been keen to make progress South, as it wouldn't be good to miss the OGA 60 celebrations at Ipswich next week, and the weather forecast is looking very uncertain. So we and several other Gaffers headed out on Thursday morning. We left from Scarborough, and took the fair tide to Flamorough head. The rest of the day was spent motoring into light winds. We have to be constantly alert to avoid fishing floats that might get entangled in the propellor. Some floats are well marked, but some are almost invisible and some of them look very like a seabird sleeping on the water. They are hard to avoid in daylight and almost impossible at night. Fortunately by the time it got dark a breeze had sprung up so we didn't have to motor and try to spot the fishing buoys at night.It was a nice night to be at sea: clear sky; there were lots of ships at anchor off the entrance to the Humber, but not many on the move to worry about.

The morning found us off the Norfolk coast, but we didnt get into Lowestoft till late afternoon. A stiff southerly wind for the last couple of hours made entering the harbour quite difficult. There is a real gathering of gaffers here now, and Bonita tied up to the lovely Bristol Channel Pilot Cutter Letty -built in 1905 and recently beautifully restored - two old ladies together.

We are at the marina run by the very hospitable Royal Norfolk and Suffolk yacht club. This is my first visit to Lowestoft since coming here  long ago as a student in my 15ft Sunspot cruiser after a slow crossing from Vlieland in the Dutch Frisian islands. The harbour still seems to be very busy despite the decline of the fishing fleet.

Here we say goodbye to Hugo who has helped us down  from Blyth but has now run out of time

 He will be returning home rather more speedily by train.

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.