Dave and Jeanette recount the story of three months of fantastic sailing in what arguably must be the most spectacular and committing sailing on mainland Europe. Leaving their home port of Liverpool, they sailed the west coast of Scotland, continuing to Shetland 100 miles north of mainland Scotland, then crossed the North Sea without autopilot which presented its own challenges.
Mike is one of the few yachtsmen to have raced round the world non-stop in both directions. He will tell the inside story of the rescue of Alex Thomson during the Around Alone Race in 2006, a particularly difficult and dangerous situation which took place in the eye of a major storm, 1,000 miles south of Cape Town.
With regret, we have had to cancel this talk. Our speaker, Steve, lives in France where more restrictive measures against the Covid 19 virus were introduced yesterday. As a result, his flights have been cancelled and he is taking the advice not to travel.
The good news is we have already rebooked him and his talk on the North West Passage will now take place on Wednesday 4 November.
From the author who gave us Barges and Bread, this talk is an enticing story of slow boats and slow food brought to life. It follows a cook as she takes a year’s journey on a barge through the lesser known waterways of northern and central France. As the landscape changes so too does the cuisine and the wine. Bought in the market, dug from a lock-keeper’s garden, even foraged along the towpath beside the waterway, the food is always seasonal and local to the region. The boating life, though rarely sensational, is full of small events and chance encounters.
Just a purposeless leisure cruise in the Baltic in August 1939? Or did these four young men with a more experienced skipper plan a reconnaissance of Baltic naval bases, intending to report back to contacts previously made? Come to hear what Julia Jones learnt from her father’s diary and the further research she needed to do.
Date: Wednesday 4 March
Time: Lectures and talks start promptly at 1900 hrs
The West Country and Isles of Scilly are often described as a hidden paradise in the corner of England, and in this talk Paul will attempt to show why it is such an amazing sailing destination. Having cruised this area a number of times on board their Ovni 385 Little Wing, Paul and family have made the most of their shallow draft by gunkholing up the rivers and estuaries, exploring the nooks and crannies in the Isles of Scilly and drying out in beautiful harbours.
What is your chart plotter actually telling you? What if you lost GPS signal? From RYA instructor, features writer and author of Stress Free Sailing, Stress Free Navigation starts with the electronics and moves across to the traditional methods to see what the clever stuff is telling us. Course to steer in your head? Secondary Ports in your head? Just two things you will learn how to do in an evening of entertainment and, er, well, lots of useful stuff. Of course we will look at MOB and see how the electronics can help us there.
For those living in the bustling South East it is hard to imagine a part of the UK where the population is as sparse as that along the north coast of Scotland. The main West-East route from Durness to Caithness is designated a primary route (A road), but for much of its length is a single track with passing places. There are only two places of shelter along the 60+miles of coast, but these offer spectacular scenery and glorious solitude. Continuing east we reach Orkney, an archipelago of around 70 islands which is a cruising ground in its own right.
This event is now fully booked.Within days of turning his homemade telescopes towards Jupiter, Galileo Galilei made a discovery which would allow James Cook, 160 years later, to fix his position along the coast of Australia to an accuracy of 2.5 nautical miles, provided he stood on Australia.
Date: Wednesday 4 March