Cold Return to Normality

Today the weather is absolutely dire, low visibility, constant rain, strong wind. Although I’m glad the boat is ashore I’m reminded that such conditions have resulted in some of the most memorable trips.

This is the first time this Century when a group of small boat lunatics hasn’t assembled at Toberonochy on the Isle of Luing, thanks to the Johnson Plague. That weekend is incredibly special, with overtones of return to childhood, challenging trips in small open boats, most of which we have built ourselves, and most of all an extraordinary bunch of people from incredibly diverse backgrounds united by an interest in traditional boat types.

My yellow boat, the Kelpie, was built by me in 2006 specifically for the muster. I wanted something primarily seaworthy that could carry up to four but also be easy to single hand, with an interesting, safe rig and lots of bits of string to keep the crew busy. She’s an open boat, fifteen feet long, with a lot of displacement which makes her stable but a hard pull if you have to row her.

The design is based on an old New England salmon wherry, drawn by Walt Simmonds of Duck Trap Boatworks in Maine. I’ve changed quite a lot, including the rig, which is a sprit sail cut for me in 1988 by the late Gayle Heard of Tollesbury, one of very few with the ability to do it. He’d made it for another New England boat I’d built before, a Swampscott racing dory that had proved to be just too racy. Here's a photo of her under her original rig; the sprit sail tamed her but when the boat went to Angus, seen here, I kept the sail.

Decades later it still sets perfectly. At first the wherry wouldn’t sail properly to windward, something my designer friend Richard Pierce sorted by advising me to move the centreboard forward. Perhaps New Englanders usually sail in reaching winds. Richard also donated a jib, which helps greatly going into the wind.

At the end of the event in 2012 my crew had to go home promptly, leaving me with a single handed trip. The forecast on the previous evening was dire, offering a strong cold North-easterly building up during the day with rain arriving from mid-day. I decided to set off, because if things became impossible that wind would blow me back to where I’d started from and I’d be no worse off. With an escape route available you should always go.

My friend Brice took some photos of my departure, see below. I got the jib up at the start, but it soon had to come back down as the wind freshened. As a result progress was slow, with the Kelpie slamming a lot in the nasty short chop, then the waves gradually got bigger and she really got into her groove, charging along with her rail a couple of inches clear, luffing in the puffs and eating up the distance to windward. In the squalls bathfuls of water would come in over the side and it was tricky pumping it out, a bit like wrestling with an eel while still steering and keeping control of the sail.

After a couple of hours Kelpie and I were well into Loch Melfort when the rig fell down. The sail is tensioned by a long, bendy spar, the sprit, held in place by a line curiously, for Glaswegians anyway, termed the snotter. This had parted during a squall, leaving the rig accidentally scandalised and flapping like mad, quite useless for further windward progress. It would be easy to fix, provided I could make it safely to land to do so.

There was no possibility of rowing up to windward to the safe, North side of Loch Melfort. The South side was quite close, but a dangerous lee shore with waves breaking on the rocks. The exception was one little inlet with a bit of shelter, but I saw at once that it was inaccessible, being barred by the lines of black buoys of the mussel farm, fastened with steel wires along the surface stretching for several hundred metres.

Mussels have never been successfully cultivated there, due to the prevalence of seasquirts, but the Swiss company who “own” this bit of Scotland’s seabed keep the floats there in order to preserve the value of their planning permission. This is exactly the sort of problem some of us have tried time and again to bring to the attention of the authorities who license these things, to absolutely no avail. The general public have the inalienable right to use the surface of the sea for the purposes inter alia of navigation and recreation, but the Crown Estate, who hold the seabed in trust for us, ignore these rights and make money by granting leases of the seabed. Surely the Swiss, with no seas of their own, should stick to tax dodging, cuckoo clocks and occasional sorties into the America's Cup?

Downwind from the mussel farm was another nasty lee shore with waves breaking on sharp boulders. The only course was to run downwind to the shelter of the point at Arduaine, losing over a mile of hard won distance to windward, passing close inshore inside the reef, where there's a deep narrow passage before beaching on a nice sheltered sandy bay, completely out of the wind. There I had something to eat, fixed the problem and tied in a reef to reduce the sail for the return to the fray.

I relaunched and there now followed a hard beat of about three hours into a really cold North-easterly with occasional squalls of sleet, each tack bringing us closer to home and a hot shower.

Breaking News - Toberonochy invaded again!

It's difficult to believe that it's a year since the above photo was taken by Mark Robertson as the Bilderglug fleet made its way back home North from the wee bay where we had stopped for lunch. This top secret event, only for highly superior very select people, which is why it has the name, is now taking place for the fifteenth time. Sadly we will miss Hugh Gray this time.

My yellow boat is the only non-resident participant to escape the indignity of arriving by road, but this does involve some careful weather watching. First of course there is a little winter maintenance, which was confined this year to treating the tyres on the trolley to a session with Peter's ancient but very sturdy Dunlop Standard pump. (There's actually a book about them: Vintage British Foot Pumps 1900 - 1950)

Here is the good ship the Kelpie ready to go:

This boat is absolutely ideal for events such as this. She's the Walt Simmons Christmas Wherry which I built in 2006 specifically for Bilderglug. She's an incredibly seaworthy and to my eye lovely little boat that has seen us through an awful lot of tricky weather over the years. There's a lot of reserve stability and if you keep a look out for squalls you can carry quite a bit of sail and have a lot of fun.

My only complaint is with the location of the centreboard on the drawing, which was far too far aft for proper balance and made tacking difficult. I shifted the slot forward and replaced the lifting board with a daggerboard, but may have slightly overdone it. She comes into the wind instantly I drop the tiller, which is of course safe but a bit undignified at times.

Yesterday I set off at six on a frosty morning and had a good, warming row for an hour or so before the wind came in from the North, straight from Iceland. It was a good working breeze and we ran straight onto the sandy shore in the wee harbour at half past eight. I was met by the Grand Controller who took me to his underground Control Room to investigate the mental condition that causes me to return each year.

Update

There's now a video clip showing the flavour of the trip across on Youtube, here, Sailing to Luing

Looking across Cuan Sound

There's a little video of our trip back on www.youtube.com now!

Return from Luing

Political mooring post

For the fourteenth year the muster people duly assembled for a weekend of serious sailing, eating and culture. It's not every small island that can host a proper ceilidh with turns that included a Telemann flute concerto, but Luing is special that way.

This year the sun shone and a steady wind blew, ideal conditions for the fleet of little boats to reach South down to one of our favourite bays a mile or so North of the Dorus Mor. On the yellow Kelpie I shipped along an illustrious crew, the guru from Bernisdale himself handling the jib, Judie and Phoenix on the bailers. After lunch the wind freshened and we had a fast circumnavigation of Shuna back to base, to unwind a bit before the festivities. Sunday was more of the same, with Clare and Tina working the ship, a picnic on Eilean Gamhna and a really hard beat back home, as the weather was returning to the usual West coast pattern. As usual the weekend finished with some intellectual stimulation in the form of diverse lectures on coracle building, open boat sailing, chaos theory and such like topics.

The change in the weather had been predicted, so the ship was left ashore and recovered on the Friday. Buses are few in Argyll, but friendly neighbours aplenty. There was a funeral at Kilbrandon and our kindly minister gave me a lift to the graveyard, from where it was only half an hour's brisk walk to the ferry. (The old kirk contains some of the finest stained glass windows in Scotland, by the wonderful Douglas Strachan.)

Kilbrandon Kirk on a sunny morning

The wee ferry at Cuan

It didn't take a lot to persuade Richard Pierce to join me for the sail across and the voyage back. It was the best sail of the year so far, sparkling seas and a steady wind giving us a reach across. A couple of hours later the wind had veered a bit and Richard had another reach back, covering the seven miles in about an hour and a quarter in his flying machine.

Reaching down Shuna Sound

Past Degnish Point

Home, at rest

Return to the Sea (and blogging)

The last couple of years have been extremely busy for me, as I have been involved in establishing a fine art gallery in Glasgow, see www.leiperfineart.com As a result I've hardly been sailing and have had little time for blogging.

Both of my yachts, Stroma and Juni, are for sail, through www.woodenships.co.uk , which doesn't mean the end of yachting for me, but a change of course. It's forty years since I became the guardian of Stroma and I no longer have the strength or the nerve to get the most out of her. Juni is an absolute delight, a mahogany gem on the water. Now that she's restored to a reasonable condition I feel that I have done my duty by her and hope that she'll find her way to a peaceful mooring at the foot of someone's garden in a nice part of the World.

The old adage was a foot (waterline) for each year of age, but that probably always was complete rubbish and certainly is now in our austere age when virtually nobody sails with a paid crew. In my view it makes good sense to reduce the size of the boat to keep it manageable.  I marvel at the faith of elderly folk in the use of hydraulics to weigh anchor and electric winches to get in massive genoas. I'd far rather sacrifice a little comfort and speed by keeping the ship small enough to work safely without such things and mainly single-handed, as most of my sailing is destined to be solitary.

I've been checking out Francois Vivier's Beniguet , which looks just about right for the purpose. Any comments would be appreciated.

Meanwhile Scottish Coastal Rowing continues to spread. I've mainly been rowing with the Isle of Seil's Selkie but I'm now getting involved in the new Glasgow Coastal Rowing Club, which currently hasn't a website, but can be found on Facebook.

And the lovely historic Isle of Luing continues to exert its pull. Last weekend a couple of dozen small skiffs, wherries and similar classic shapes were to be seen thrashing about in a stiff breeze in the wonderful stretch of water North of Crinan. the photograph at the top of this post shows my Kelpie charging along on a reach with self at the helm, Iain Oughtred forward and Judy and Phoenix bailing, the old Ensign of Scotland on the sail and the Toberonochy Dolphin flying at the stern.

photo courtesy of Mark Robertson

A nice pulling boat for the sea.

One of the dreadful things about building any boat is that after the present project is safely up in frame, or on the moulds if you build upside down like most of us do, one’s thoughts turn to the next project. Mutterings along the lines of “haven’t you got enough boats already?” do absolutely nothing to dampen things down. There are several reasons for these feelings.

Boatbuilding is itself a very basic and intrinsically compulsive activity. It seems likely that the human race was going afloat for millennia before the wheel was invented. After all, why build roads when the sea and river are here for nothing? Historically our islands were the centres of commerce and administration and hence culture, also the interface with other cultures far away and thus responsible for most of our genetic mix.

Constructing a boat is a fascinating blend of practicality and artistry, a three-dimensional object which must work, keep us safe and last in a destructive environment but which can also be handsome and even beautiful.

Finally, as with everything else, we do it because we can. We have acquired the tools and skills and why stop now, when every boat we build is an improvement in what has gone before. Ronnie McG from Kilcreggan told me once of an uncle who built livery skiffs by eye and continued to produce them at the rate of one every four weeks or so, long after there was no market for them and all his other faculties were giving up, “just because it was what he did”.

So, my record to date is: a a Joel White Nutshell, which took 6 months in 1986, Mystic John Gardner’s Swampscott Dory from Volume One in 1988, his Quincy Skiff in 1990, David Ryder-Turner’s Sonas between 1992 and 1994, Iain Oughtred’s smallest stem dinghy in 1996 and Walt Simmon’s Christmas Wherry in 2006. The significant gap before the wherry was taken up with rebuilding Stroma after a museum destroyed her and since 2006 I’ve been restoring Juni (and building a house). Most recently Selkie hit the water after the community build on the Isle of Seil. Not all my own work, but I was proud to help.

The next project will be a pulling boat with long enough legs to get up a good clip with one or maybe two people sculling, but not too difficult to handle on shore (so that she gets used)  and fine enough lines not to be a pain, but also firm enough not to cause alarm. Oh dear, I’ve just described two or three separate boats.

A Whitehall type, or Iain’s Acorn at the longer length, say sixteen or seventeen feet, or the lovely but extreme Flashboat, would get the speed, but such boats at shorter lengths are tippy spindles. At the intended longer length she’d be fine until caught in the wind and tidal chops we get around here. And probably blow away if left on the shore.

Shorter boats, such as the larger tenders, are too bulky for recreational rowing and don’t get the speed, if safe.

I’m tending towards an elongated tender, taking an existing design that combines a firm bilge with smooth lines and extending the mould spacings to add some length. The ends should be as vertical as possible, to maximise immersed waterline. Many of Iain O’s designs fail to do this, an exception being the Tammie Norrie, which should go on the list. It’s a plus too, that Alec Jordan has kitted her.

That makes me think of a traditional Cornish rowboat drawn by Percy Dalton, plumb ends, nothing fancy, just a good basic no-nonsense boat. I seem to have lost my copy of his book – must see if the lines are googleable.

A near vertical transom means of course that a little Mercury or similar could perch there, handy if someone wants to go fishing.

As often before I’ve turned to the sage of Mystic Seaport. The closest to what I have in mind is the Lawley tender, which is too short for the purpose at twelve feet, but what if drawn out a foot or two? She has the proud stem, firm bilge and lovely traditional transom that would hold their own in any company. The lines look good and would cope with being drawn out I think. She could be built in strip but, what the hell, better to do her in fine clinker, with lots of planks per side and make a proper job of her!

Does anyone have a better idea?   

Cold return to Normality

The forecast on the Sunday evening was dire, offering a strong cold North-easterly building up during the day with rain arriving from mid-day. I considered hitching a lift back by road, but that would have left a sense of incompleteness and lack of achievement. Also it's a good old rule that if conditions look possible and you have an escape route you should always go.

My mates for the trip were going back on the sturdy Blue Sky, so the Kelpie's now solitary crew departed just before nine, with a couple of hours of favourable tide left.

 

Once I had rowed out far enough to get an offing the main was set. 

At that stage there wasn't a lot of wind, so the jib went up as well, but a few minutes later this effort was rewarded when a squall came over and we shipped a bathful of water. Thereafter for most of the day the jib stayed firmly lashed to the bowsprit.

 

Despite the strongish wind progress was slow, with Kelpie's flat bottom slamming a lot in the nasty short chop, then the waves gradually got bigger and she really got into her groove, charging along with her rail a couple of inches clear, luffing in the puffs and eating up the distance to windward. Operating the new pump was a bit like wrestling with an eel, however.

After a couple of hours Kelpie and I were well into Loch Melfort when a short line forming part of the snotter burst during a squall and the sprit fell down, leaving the rig accidentally scandalised and flapping like mad, quite useless for further windward progress. As it continued to blow very hard I couldn't see exactly what had happened, so stowed the main and got the jib up to see if any progress could be made against the wind. The answer was a resounding no.

I could have reached across to the South shore of the loch, except for the fact that the route to the only stretch with any shelter was totally barred by the lines of black buoys of the mussel farm, fastened with steel wires along the surface stretching for several hundred metres. This is exactly the sort of problem some of us have tried time and again to bring to the attention of the authorities who license these things, to absolutely no avail. The general public have the inalienable right to use the surface of the sea for the purposes inter alia of navigation and recreation, but the Crown Estate, who hold the seabed in trust for us, ignore these rights and make money by granting leases of the seabed. The farm in question, owned by some Swiss investors, was badly damaged in the storm a year ago, turning the lines of ropes into a tangled confused mess and a real hazard to everyone. It's been rumoured that they even got a cash grant from our government to start their operations here, which sometimes makes me wonder what kind of reply we would get if a group of Scots asked one of the Swiss cantons for finance to spoil one of their lovely mountainsides with a similar intensive farm. Surely the Swiss, with no seas of their own, should stick to tax dodging, cuckoo clocks and occasional sorties into the America's Cup?

Downwind from the mussel farm was a nasty lee shore with waves breaking on sharp  boulders. The only course was to run under the jib to the shelter of the point at Arduaine where I got the oars out and had a brisk row round the corner, passing close between the reef and the shore (there's a deep passage there, I discovered) before beaching on a nice sheltered sandy bay. I discovered that one tiny piece of line had let the whole show down, a real reminder of the old adage for the want of a nail .... After some lunch and a walk on shore I quickly got the rig repaired and the Kelpie relaunched.

There now followed a hard beat of about three hours into a really cold North-easterly with occasional squalls of sleet and a real sense of achievement on getting safely moored in time for tea. Once again Walt Simmons' wherry showed her seaworthiness.

Evening Sun in Argyll

It's been great weather for varnishing and the wherry Kelpie now has a fresh look to her spars.

Also a Portugese theme to her rails.

The sprit rig is great, once properly set up, which has admittedly taken some fiddling about. I've added a little jib on a bowsprit too, as we need some extra sail in the light airs that seem to be promised for this weekend.

When we run ashore for our lunch we disconnect the mainsheet and haul the sail to the mast with the brailing line. Reversing this gets us underway again in seconds.

In the evening, or if it really blows when we're out, we can lift out the whole rig, an advantage of an unstayed mast. Altogether a great system.



It's all looking good this year for that top secret event that may be happening soon.