From the White Sea to the Black Sea, by Maxine Maters
In the summer of 2013, John Vallentine took his Australian flagged yacht Tainui to Russia. In early June she entered the White Sea and cleared in at Archangel, then followed the Volga and Don Rivers to Ukraine and the Black Sea in a journey lasting four months. His account of the trip won the CA Lacey Trophy for the best blog www.tainui.org.
Expanding Horizons: One Hundred (and eight) Years of Cruising - and other things, by Jeremy Batch
“There is nothing... absolutely nothing, half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats.” Appropriately, those words were first published in 1908, the year that the Cruising Association was founded.
Come and join us for this convivial celebration to start off the lecture season in style. Our Master of Ceremonies, Alec Macpherson, has prevailed upon a galaxy of talented members to volunteer their services. As well as the traditional piping in of the haggis, we plan to have a dramatic reading of Tam O' Shanter by members, musical accompaniment, singing and dancing to the bagpipes as well as all the usual toasts.
An alcoholic cruise around the Atlantic, by Roger Kynaston
Roger and Audrey recently completed an 18-month Atlantic circuit. The cruise was a huge success and one of the highlights was a chance to sample different drinks all along the way. There was a not a single location where they weren’t able to sample the local tipple, including such classics as Bajan rum and port from Porto. However, even in such places as Morocco and the Azores, they enjoyed local wine. Of course, the Caribbean itself was dominated by the different rums – some of which were made into terrifying punches.
The Northwest Passage Challenge: two summers in the High Arctic, by Jimmy Cornell
In an attempt to transit the Northwest Passage, in the summer of 2014 Jimmy Cornell sailed his new Aventura on a maiden voyage to Greenland and Arctic Canada. The attempt was abandoned because of unfavourable ice conditions. Undeterred, Jimmy sailed south, transited the Panama Canal, and is making a new attempt this summer to accomplish a transit of the NW Passage, this time from the Pacific to the Atlantic.
The Highlands and Islands of north-west Scotland are regarded by many as one of the world’s most beautiful cruising areas. It is also an area with challenging sailing conditions and a fascinating history and culture. Mike Talbot has kept his boat in the Hebrides for the past four years and has sailed extensively along the coast and through the islands. He will talk about the highs and lows of cruising in this part of the world, its wildlife and the places of interest to be found ashore.
From Pin Mill to Rømø: the cruise of the Drascombe Longboat Badekar, by David Jillings
Badekar’s seven week cruise was intended to reach the Baltic, and to retrace the steps of David’s Viking ancestors who settled in Suffolk from Denmark. Starting with a 40-hour solo crossing of the North Sea, he eventually reached Denmark (although not the Baltic).
Kaiku and her crew have been in the Mediterranean for 10 years now. This talk takes us on a gentle meander around the Cyclades, through the Corinth Canal to the Ionian with a look at both ancient Greek history in Delos, Delphi and Olympia, and some of the smaller Greek out-of-the-way harbours. We all know that the Mediterranean in summer is usually hot and sunny, and has almost no tides, so we will look at some of the equipment that makes for a happy lifestyle there and touch on some of the skills painfully learned.
Paddington goes from sail to power, by James Littlewood
In 2014, James and Carol exchanged their sailing yacht Paddington IV for a spacious motor cruiser, inevitably christened Paddington V. James will take us through the rewards and challenges they encountered in making the change from sail to power. These went far beyond acquiring new boat handling skills and included their whole attitude to equipment and cruising in general.
Smartphones, iPads and consumer devices in general are becoming powerful additions to the modern connected boat. Find out about the apps, integration and wireless connectivity in a talk by Nick Heyes of Digital Yacht, which also covers modern interfacing using NMEA 2000, and a look at navigation for the future with multiple positioning systems, AIS and crowd-sourced charts.
Date: Wednesday 21st October. Lectures and talks start promptly at 7pm.
