Liverpool

D, John and I took the train to Liverpool  for the OGA AGM.  The conference was excellently arranged by the NW Area of the OGA, and there was a display of various prawners build in the area arranged by the Nobby Owners Association. They were selling neat little badges showing a nobby in full sail. Of course we had to buy a couple....

Virtually all nobbies are cutters as in this badge (single mast and two headsails). Bonita is as far as I know the only one that is rigged as a yawl.

We all enjoyed the meeting which I felt was very productive with some useful business done. We met a lot of OGA members from all over the country. It is most helpful to meet up face-to-face with people you normally only see on Zoom. There was also a very encouraging contingent of Younger Gaffers.

At the AGM the results of the OGA Photographic competition were announced, excellently judged by Sandy Miller who is a renowned marine photographer. Justin got a 'Highly Commended' for this picture taken from Bonitas cockpit.

This was taken in Lyme Bay heading westerly after a windy night at sea. As the sun came over the horizon in the east, we saw this magnificent rainbow, a sign, as it turned out, of more difficult weather ahead.

After the AGM on the Sunday morning we had a few hours to spare before the train home. D went in pursuit of culture in the art galleries. Preferring fresh air I walked down to have a look at the river Mersey and look at the Albert Dock. 

The dock was a major piece of early Victorian engineering, but is not much used now apart from a few yachts. There are a few historic boats in the dock and some historic vehicles on the dockside. There is a London steam bus from 1902 - apparently a commercial failure, and withdrawn from service after a few months. The most interesting exhibit I thought was a propeller from the the liner Lusitania. Built in 1906, and sunk with great loss of life by a German submarine in 1915. 

This is one of her 4 propellers and is 17ft in diameter, though I thought it looked smaller than I expected for such a large ship. The propeller was removed in 1982. Presumably the visible damage to the blades was caused when the ship hit the bottom, perhaps with the propellers still turning as its known that she sank very quickly.

Crossfields Conference 2023

 D and I went (by train) to Arnside for the third conference on the boats built by the Crossfield family of boat builders and other nobbies, inshore boats local to the challenging waters of the coast of NW England. We stayed at the cosy Fighting Cocks pub and hotel.  As always the conference was excellently organised by Alasdair Simpson. On Friday a small group of us went to David Moss' boatyard to see the fine work being done to restore the Severn, a Crossfield Rivers class boat. She has a remarkable history, which includes capsizing and sinking during a race on the Mersey in 1914. Due to the diversion of the first world war she was not raised for 13 years, when it was found that the hull was still in good condition and she was put back into service. She is now owned by Arnside Sailing Club and is getting a major rebuild. Once done she should again be good once again for many decades of sailing.

As on previous occasions the conference was a mix of history, tales of sailing and practical details of individual boats. I was particularly interested in Michael Leahys talk on the Laura, a very fast nobby built in 1908. She has a fasinating history, although disentangling fact from fiction can be difficult.  I gave a talk on Bonitas participation in this years OGA Round Britain cruise. It was good to see Dave Walters again - he is a professional musician and took part in the 2013 Round Britain Cruise. He was talking about the nobby Pastime which he used to own. Sadly after he had sold her she was lost in a storm in the Irish Sea. Fortunately her crew of four were saved in a heroic rescue by the lifeboat. In the evening Dave entertained us in a jolly evening at the Arnside Sailing Club. 

The picture shows Dave in full flow. 

Laid up for the winter

 With the shorter wetter days, and Storm Ciaran expected to bring strong winds to the south of England, I thought maybe it was time Bonita came up Faversham creek to her cosy mud berth in the boatyard. So yesterday with help from Allan and his friend Andrew we has a pleasant trip in fine weather. With Allan at the helm we cleverly avoided going aground, although at times the echo sounder showed zero distance between keel and mud. By the end of the day we had got the sails, spars and assorted other gear ashore, I flushed out the engine cooling system with fresh water and antifreeze, changed the oil and got the winter covers on. The picture shows us tied up alongside the sailing barge Mirosa, with Allan and Andrew hard at work.

And so in a few hours Bonita is transformed from being afloat and ready to sail the seas to being safely tucked up away ( I hope) from the worst of the winter weather.

What projects this winter? There has been a fair bit of minor wear and tear on the gear this year and I have taken a carload of stuff home for general repair, painting and varnishing. Otherwise I'm not expecting any major work......

Home ports

 With Susan J, and now Minstrel returning to their berths on the south coast, all the Round Britain boats are now back home. Paradoxically, the best of this summers weather seems to have come in the last couple of weeks, although without much wind. We may have a few day or weekend sails in what remains of the season but nothing I hope too adventurous.

We have had a marvellous time going round Britain with the Gaffers, and have been made very welcome all around the coast. Where possible on this trip I have tried to visit harbours that we havnt been into before, and with Bonitas limited manoeverability under motor this is often a stimulating experience. I am grateful for my many long suffering crew - 12 this year- who have helped make these visits less dramatic than they might have been and made the whole voyage possible.

In several places, not just in south coast ports, there were piles of these leaflets in the clubhouse or harbour office.  I wasnt sure if I should be pleased they had used a picture of a gaffer to enhance the visual effect, or maybe there is an implication that traditional rig might in some way be more suspect. The combination of a 'sugar scoop' reverse sloping transom with gaff rig is definitely unorthodox.      We saw lots of Border Force patrol boats on our travels but none of them showed any interest in an elderly gaffer slowly making her way round the coast

Strong wind videos

 Attached are a couple of videos Tim took on the downwind run from Inverness to Rattray Head. I wasnt able to attach them to the blog while on the cruise due to either problems with the mobile phone, or poor internet access.

Trying to take videos in heavy weather can be difficult due to the risk of getting the phone wet. In the first video, taken astern, we are running with mainsail furled under just mizzen and headsails.

In the second video, taken looking ahead, we have a much reefed mainsail. Wind strength about F7.