RATS, the Regulations and Technical Services Group, represents the CA in understanding and explaining how regulatory and technical issues affect cruising sailors, and in dealings with government and other authorities, offshore developers and the marine industry. In this session they will cover some of the hot topics in their current workload.
During the 1930s the Germans built up a large fleet of cruiser racer yachts to sail under the German Square Metre Rule. They were principally used for nautical training of German armed forces officers. At the end of World War II a large number of these German Government owned yachts were allocated to the victors with many finding their way into various, mainly British services, yacht clubs. They became known as the ‘Windfalls’ or ‘Booty Boats’.
Robinetta is a gaff cutter designed by Denys Rayner and launched in 1937. Last year, she made it from Tollesbury to Southwold on a shake-down cruise where rather more shook down than was ideal. Julian rebuilt the gaff and repaired the boom fixings spring and continued north towards their new home in Scotland. Leaving the Humber proved challenging.
Over several centuries a surprising diversity of goods were traded between East Anglia, northern France and the Low Countries. Good quality English wool was exported, woven in Flanders and SW Netherlands, and some cloth smuggled back, all duty free. In the golden age of import smuggling the most important commodity was over-proof gin called strong “Jenever”, or brandy; other items smuggled were most of the heavily-taxed products including wine, tobacco, spices, silks and tea.
After decades of sailing around Greek waters, Christopher’s retirement dream was to sail through the Bosphorus and round the Black Sea to Georgia. Planning quickly showed Russian and Russian-occupied Georgian waters were no-go zones but at that time, 2012, the Ukraine and especially the Crimea proved to be excellent sailing.
"We have no use for these inventions" was the rebuff given to Christian Hülsmeyer by Telefunken in 1905 when he offered them his early versions of radar and the chart plotter. Decca would make the same mistake with the Beatles.
This is our annual joint event with the Royal Institute of Navigation. Penny returns to give the second part of her talk which is to focus on modern tidal prediction and models. There have been a lot of recent developments in this space, such as we can now measure tidal height from space, and this technique in combination with computer modelling is about to supersede traditional methods of tidal prediction.
Oliver, who runs Seapower Marine Electronics, is the co-author of Essential Boat Electrics, described by its CA reviewer as ‘easy to read and an excellent little book’. He will talk about the themes covered and about common problems he is called upon to fix.
While many CA members reaching the Mediterranean head straight for Greece and Turkey, Tony and Sarah Boas have spent the past decade sailing around the western Mediterranean, particularly the Balearics, Corsica and Sardinia. Tony will outline their cruising and discuss suitable equipment for the area. He will also talk about formalities post Brexit, pilot guides and passages.
The Novara, Steve Brown’s 60ft aerorigged schooner, completed a 33,000nm circumnavigation of the American continents, passing through the North West Passage and visiting South Georgia and the Antarctic in the wake of many famous polar explorers.
