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.
Whilst sailing round the UK, Ann and Steve have been circumnavigating some of the larger islands round our coast, all of them for the first and probably only time. They plan to talk to you about their adventures going around Lundy, Anglesey, Isle of Man, Ailsa Crag, Arran, Bute, Mull and Skye, including the navigational challenges of a first time visit and a few things to see onshore.
London may not spring to mind when you think of shipbuilding, but seagoing vessels were constructed here for hundreds of years. The pride of Henry VIII's fleet, Henry Grace a Dieu, was built in Woolwich, as was the Beagle which carried Charles Darwin. The Blackwall Yard built well-armed cargo ships for the East India Company. In 1577 the Revenge, the ship used by Francis Drake to raid Cadiz, was launched from Deptford.
