The blog records the voyages of PicoMicroYacht, a seaworthy small sailing dinghy converted for rowing long distances. This includes the 26th July 2012 crossing of the English Channel, as well as rowing along the south coast of England, down the river Thames, around London and across Ireland. PicoMicroYacht is a converted Laser Pico Sailing Dinghy, with a sliding seat, riggers and cleaver oars, fitted with a shortened main mast and a mizzen mast and can be set up as a reduced rig sailing boat.
I am locked down and landlocked. I have managed, however, to slide PicoMicroYacht through the garden gate and assemble the rig for my 'Shortest Voyage' (see the video below). But the pull of the sea remains.
I must go down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide
Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;
And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,
And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying.
It is not too far-fetched to think that one of the greatest
20th Century adventure writers is Adlard Coles. He wrote books describing
his voyages on the South Coast of England and beyond, noting the simple
pleasures of yachting in a small boat. His voyages were mostly unexciting, but his
detailed writing captures the essence of such sailing in a way unsurpassed by others.
Adlard Coles in later years
His classic book ‘Sailing Days’ evokes carefree days of
exploration in the 1930s.
Illustration from Sailing Days
A follow up book, ‘More Sailing Days,’ was written at
the end of the Second World War.
At the start of the book he describes how he sailed his 22
foot yacht called Zara from Itchenor to Wooton Creek on the day war ceased in Europe.
Zara
His
sense of gratitude is as follows:
‘I had bought the yacht in 1944 when, like multitudes of
others, I was longing for the time when I could get afloat again. And so you will
understand that it was a great moment in my life when a year later these
fancies grew into a reality and I found myself making the journey down to the
sea and to the little ship from which I had been separated.’
Adlard Coles 'on board'
PicoMicroYacht will launch again as soon as it is
possible and of course also my small yacht, Lady Elizabeth.
Cold and windy weather has limited PicoMicroYacht's voyaging recently, but I was able to visit Chichester Harbour and a favourite spot, East Head.
East Head - anchor locations marked with a cross
This sand dune promontory is a great place to beach a boat. Due to the inclement weather, it was fairly deserted.
It was too cold to hang out on the beach, so I went for a walk.
I had to calculate the tides carefully, to be able to get back to the boat before PicoMicroYacht floated again. It could not be easily dragged up and down the foreshore due to the damp sand.
PicoMicroYacht was beached about four hours after high tide. With approximately six and a half hours between high tides, I had just over four hours until the boat would float again.
To be cautious I attached it to an anchor borrowed from my larger boat, using a long warp.
I then did the boot trick.
I learned this trick from Dylan Winter. If you leave a boat in such circumstances and do not want people to meddle with it, then leave a pair of boots by the anchor. His view is that it has the effect of making people think you just about to return. Of course, they could walk off with the boots, but I think that unlikely!
Three hours later, I returned and lay on the shingle upper foreshore, watching the sea and the sky.
The tide came in and PicoMicroYacht was readied.
The photo shows a newly acquired depth transducer mounted on the bottom of the rudder
On a cold winter’s day, I decided to row out into the entrance
of the River Blackwater on the Essex Coast.
I was dressed well to keep warm.
As I left the Bradwell Marina, I passed some yachts on their
moorings, including a Lawrence Giles Peter Duck yacht, the original having been
designed for Arthur Ransome.
I was then out into the estuary, looking upstream to where
a light vessel was moored.
Just over a millennium ago, between two and four thousand Viking
raiders sailed through this stretch of water, reaching Maldon and doing battle with Saxon Warriors, pitching
their arrows and spears against the Saxon’s mighty shield walls.
I could imagine how the Vikings arrived in relatively small boats, with
perhaps an east wind blowing them gently up the estuary.
Looking out to sea and on my starboard bow was the Bradwell Nuclear Power Station.
Close by on the bank a family were walking their two dogs.
As the afternoon wore on, it was getting very cold and I turned
back.
A golden and then deep orange sky awaited me as the sun dropped to the horizon.
In the past few days an unusually high pressure settled over
the UK, the barometer reaching 1050 millibars, the highest recorded since 1957.
High pressure was caused by a massively fast Jet stream in
the mid-Atlantic, recorded as 238 miles per hour. The jet stream hit slower air
over the UK and a pile-up ensued, accounting for the high pressure.
With the sea calm, little wind and a neap tide, I decided to continue with the Jurasic
Coast adventure on the Dorset Coast.I
had to skip the first five miles due to the firing range just beyond Kimmeridge.
I started at Lulworth Cove. In the winter when the visitors
are few and the cove is empty of visiting yachts, this is one of the more
beautiful spots on the South Coast.
It was formed due to a coastal wall of hard limestone being
breached by the sea. The waves forced through and refracted outwards, wearing
down the softer rock behind and resulting in a bowl-shaped
natural harbour.
The limestone is Portland stone, this type used to build many iconic building, including Buckingham Place, St Pauls
Cathedral and even parts of the United Nations Building in New York.
It was a surprisingly short distance between launching and
exiting the cove, the entrance flanked by the remains of the wall.
The west side of Lulworth Cove
A light easterly wind made it easy work going west and the sea remained calm.
Out to sea was a Royal Navy vessel on exercises.
I could see the Isle of Portland in the distance.
A close up revealed the lighthouse.
The next major landmark was Durdle Door, again formed from hard limestone. From the sea, it looks even more like a door, the 'Durdle' derived from an ancient word meaning ‘drill’ or ‘hole.’
Durdle Door camouflaged by the cliff behind
Beyond Durdle Door is Bat's Head, a structure flanked
by two arching chalk cliffs, the wings of the bat, dominating Weymouth Bay as seen from
the sea.
Bat's Head - the 'head' towards the left
I was struck by how much Bat's Head and the surrounding cliff
looks like a modern work of art. As I rowed on, I pondered on whether nature
can ever be called art and the different viewpoints on this matter.
At this point my camera stopped due to the excessive cold.
As a backup I got out my smart phone, which I found was also not working.
PicoMicroYacht eventually entered Weymouth Harbour.
The voyage:
Later on I found various suggestions to keep a mobile phone going in the cold:
Wrap it up with an insulating material
Use a thermal protective pouch
Use a hand warmer
Use body heat - I put the lanyard of my waterproof phone pouch round my neck
and push the phone down my inner shirt
As well as PicoMicroYacht voyaging I enjoy being a member of a sailing club. The other day I was helping check the club moorings, having a larger boat on one of them.
The moorings have buoys attached by chains to large concrete blocks embedded in the mud at the bottom of a creek. The chains wear out either due to chafing or rusting and have to be checked regularly.
It is a muddy business, involving using a barge to winch up the chains, and sometimes going overboard to dig down into the mud.
To get to the barge we rowed down the creek in a small dinghy, trying not run aground. We then manoeuvred the barge into position using oars and started checking the chains.
All of this took me back in my imagination to a bygone era of hand operated barges, used throughout the ages.
A river landscape with figures in a ferry, barges and rowing boats Salomon van Rusdael ca. 1644
Finding the swatchway on the way to the barge
PicoMicroYacht in Thailand ... I wish ... but I did the next best thing ...
I have not been able to PicoMicroYacht in the last few weeks, but had the opportunity to go to the Phang Nga Bay in Thailand and sail a Wharram Catamaran for a few days.
James Wharram sailing a Wharram
James Wharram first started
designing catamarans in the 1950s, based on his research into ancient
Polynesian designs.
Sixty years ago, he sailed one of his early designs across
the Atlantic from New York to the River Conwy in North Wales, the first
Catamaran to make this voyage. Since then Wharram’s have travelled the world.
My Wharram was based on the Hitia
class, lengthened from 17 feet to 26 feet. It was built by Maxim Jurgens, originally
from the south Netherlands, establishing a fleet of four Wharram’s for hire in
southern Phuket, the other ones larger and more sophisticated.
Maxim Jurgens
I was to sail into the Phang Nga Bay, famous for scenic islands and sheltered water.
The Hitia had just a bare deck,
with the option of sleeping in a tent either on the deck or the beach.
When I
arrived, Maxim was there to greet me and provide instructions, with his helper,
called ‘Popeye,’ who indeed appeared to be a blond Germanic version of the
character.
Maxim explained how to rig the Hitia. His explanations reminded me
of Q instructing James Bond, speaking tersely and enthusiastically in an accented version of precise English (he could have said ‘now pay attention PicoMicroYacht,’ but I am obviously imagining
this).
As a result, I remembered absolutely everything he told me, which proved
very helpful later on. He told me he personally liked most maintaining
the boats, which is just as well because everyone else benefits from him keeping his treasure going.
The gathering storm
The afternoon was nearly finished,
and it was soon to be dark, so I quickly put up the tent. A storm was brewing,
and I had just time to finish when heavy rain and thunder started, the ferocity
of which I have rarely experienced in the UK. I lay in the tent counting the
time between the flashes and the thunder, wondering what it would be like if I
received a direct hit. About two hours
later I could relax, read a book and sleep.
The following morning, there was a
north easterly force four to five. I rigged and set off, finding I could just
point high enough to clear the bay. I had been warned that Wharram’s are poor
at pointing into the wind, but I was making good progress. I passed a
lighthouse close on my port bow and then saw from starboard an array of
large fishing boats crossing my path.
It was then I recalled the advice
on how to go about in a Wharram: ‘get
some speed up, put the helm hard over and keep the jib tight and let it back.’ It did not work. The Hitia just went into
stays and sat there nonchalantly. I had another go, but the same happened.
Because of the proximity of the lighthouse, I turned to starboard and bore
away, eventually gybing and then gybing back again to continue on my way (later
I mastered tacking – the trick is to be ruthless with the technique).
Soon I was close hauled again,
tacking up Phang Nga Bay. The Hitia seemed to gather up pace and keep going effortlessly
for about ten miles until I was approaching an island called Koh Rang Yai. At
this point the wind disappeared and I motored the last mile to the west side of the
island.
Moored at Koh Rang Yai
This was where the Hitia came into
its own. Maxim had told me that most of the coast was sand or mud, and beaching
was easy – find an island and anchor protected from the prevailing wind. I was
warned not be fooled by the late afternoon sea breeze, blowing in the opposite
direction. Beaching the Hitia was convenient in the day, but I was to discover
the beach also attracted bugs at nightfall, so I learned to anchor off by about
100 metres.
I also found I could anchor close to the beaches and swim ashore,
the tidal streams being slight.
There followed several days of
setting sail in the morning and returning to Koh Rang Yai for the night, the beach
deserted after nightfall.
I relaxed into the rhythm of the sea and wind, made
easy by the predictable wind directions and strengths.
A traditional long-tail fishing boat passing by
The twin hulls tracked
smoothly and effortlessly, a slight weather helm counteracted by using a rope
system to fix the course. The two hulls meant a stable platform to move around on.
Standing whilst under way
In the distance were the scenic islands
On the second night, I was woken at
2.00 am by the light of a long-tail fishing boat, about 50 metres away. In my
stupor I thought they must be pirates, so I stood up on deck and made a
presence. But I soon woke up properly and realised the light trained on me was
just curiosity. Satisfied with this, I went back to sleep.
The days passed quickly, and I
returned to the base, at the end of my voyage passing through a small race which the Hitia cut through
with ease.
Rough water as part of the race
‘Popeye’ was there to greet me, positioning himself in his dinghy
by my mooring buoy.
