Cruising, boatbuilding, fighting....

Tom Cunliffe reconsiders ocean cruising:

Two weeks out from Nantucket Shoals. Noon. Running hard with a couple of reefs in the main, full staysail and spitfire jib. Westernman is in the North Atlantic Drift, still over a thousand miles from Falmouth. In the reasonable weather since the last gale we have sighted Portuguese men-of-war, turtles and the occasional flying fish drastically astray from his proper place. This morning a male orca stormed by, powering to windward at twelve knots in the direction of a group of smaller killer whales we passed at dawn. Right now, however, things are turning to the bad.

Julian Blatchley tells the story of the Copra Run:

Loading between 15,000 and 18,000 tons of highly varied cargo in between five and ten ports so that it could be discharged without being obstructed in another five or ten ports was no simple matter, and it was perhaps here the true lost art of the cargo ship was to be found. Outward cargoes were almost inconceivably varied, since they comprised absolutely anything that could be imagined to be needed in the remote vastness of the South Pacific. Motor cars, trucks and tractors were lashed in the tweendecks together with stationery, machinery of all sorts, spare parts, batteries, rolls of newsprint, tinned foods, household goods and materials. The special cargo lockers bulged with tobacco, wines and spirits, and the latest fashions. The ships had strongrooms where currency minted in London for the outposts of Empire was secured behind steel doors which were then welded shut and sealed by grim officials. There were also the personal effects of people being posted to or from the Islands, including on one occasion a grand piano, which led to a lively discussion in the bar about how far out of tune it would be after being loaded in sub-zero Hamburg and discharged in tropical Lae, and how far the nearest piano-tuner would have to travel to attend to it.

Augustine Courtauld goes to war:

My crew always said that if we ever picked up a German airman there was nothing they wouldn’t do to him. One day we did pick up a German near Dungeness. He was an officer who had commanded a bomber which was brought down on its way back from a raid on London, and he was wearing the Iron Cross. I gave my revolver to Jock Lamont, telling him to take the man for’ard and bring me anything he had got. When we got back to Dover I handed over to my coxswain and went down to the forecastle to have a look at the prisoner. I asked Jock how he was doing. The answer was, 'Ssh, sir! We’ve given him a nice cup of tea and he’s just gone off to sleep.' When we had landed our officer, he was marched off by an armed guard of soldiers with fixed bayonets. My crew thought it was very cruel.

Max Liberson, in Carriacou, sets sail for England:

The water was coming in from a place near the mainmast compression post. I put on a mask and slipped over the side. The first place I went to was the flaw in the keel I had noticed halfway between the Canaries and the Cape Verdes. It had never leaked; but now I put my hand in and a fish swam out. I went ashore. The first person I met was Paul O’Reagan. ‘You look a bit stressed, Max.’

‘Yeah, the boat's sinking.’

Gus showed up and towed us in. The big lifting rig got us out in short order, and hoisted Gloria high in the air. Jerry looked at the hole and put his hand up inside. His fingers came out covered in mud. He sniffed it. ‘Essex mud,' he said. 'It's the only thing that's kept you afloat all this time.’ My legs went a little wobbly.

Gordon Davies on the development of the propeller:

Two types of propeller had been talked about for centuries. One was based on the windmill or its domestic cousin, the smoke-jack – a miniature windmill inside a kitchen chimney, using the updraught from the fire to rotate a spit. The other was derived from the helical Archimedes screw, which had been used for centuries in irrigation systems. In theory, a screw thread fixed to a boat would pull it forwards when it was rotated. It was not, however, until the late 1700s that either type was actually demonstrated on real vessels.

Ian Nicolson gets round postwar timber shortages:

The tiny drawing office were I worked at was next door to the manager’s office. I often made sure this door was ajar so I could hear Fred Parker, the manager, on the phone or talking to a foreman – I learned a lot about the boat business in that way. When I arrived that morning Fred sent me round the yard to get all the foremen to his office right away. When all five of them were standing round Fred’s desk (there were only two chairs), Fred asked for ideas. Don Farwell, the senior foreman, started right away. He said that when he was taking his greyhounds for country walks he often met farmers, and was friendly with several. 'They’ll sell us trees,' he said.

Gwyn Pugh, the Welsh foreman painter, was a man of few words, but those he used tended to count. 'I know a fellow with a big lorry. He will shift cut-down trees at night if he gets paid in cash.'

Doug Stratton, the foreman rigger, said: 'I know a few policemen. We can make sure a friendly one is on duty the night we need to move the timber.'

W S Gilbert sings of cannibalism:

'Twas on the shores that round our coast
From Deal to Ramsgate span,
That I found alone on a piece of stone
An elderly naval man.

His hair was weedy, his beard was long,
And weedy and long was he,
And I heard this wight on the shore recite,
In a singular minor key:

‘Oh, I am a cook and a captain bold,
And the mate of the Nancy brig,
And a bo'sun tight, and a midshipmite,
And the crew of the captain's gig.’

The Scilly postal service is born:

In the nineteenth century, the wildness of Scilly and the remoteness of its position made tasks that would have been daunting on the mainland positively Herculean. One of the labours undertaken by the mighty Augustus Smith, after he had acquired the lease of the islands from the Duchy of Cornwall and set about their reorganization and improvement, was the securing for Scilly of a decent postal service.

This had nothing to do with the sending of holiday postcards. In the age of sail, ships would arrive suddenly and without warning out of the wastes of the Atlantic, wishing to know to which European port they should carry their cargoes. During the early years of Smith’s tenure, there was no postal service. He complained that this was crippling the islands’ usefulness as a port and therefore their economy, preventing ‘up to two hundred ships’ at a time communicating with their owners. The Post Office refused to supply a service.

Peter Davies works with superyacht folk:

We arrived at the yacht at the same time as the Customs officers. It took a little while for the owner's wife to remove her four-inch heels, fur coat and Gucci handbag, all of which she left with the stewardess. We crowded into the master cabin while she dialled the combination, opened the safe and took out a blue velvet bag containing a large collection of her jewellery. The grumpy customs officer peered into the now empty safe, thanked her and left. Pocketing the velvet bag, she climbed down the ladders, gathered fur, heels and handbag, and asked me to take her back to the airport, where her jet was waiting to take her home to Germany.

As we drove back to the shipyard the stewardess said bluntly that British customs officers were stupid. When I asked her why, she said the safe they had inspected was all very well, but they had missed the real safe, which was hidden behind it.

Graeme Rigby explores the uses of the herring:

There was a time in Britain when the uses of the herring were seen as all-encompassing. The traditional song What'll We Do With The Herring's Head? has as many dialect versions as there are fishing community dialects. Herring's head, loaves of bread / Herring's fins, needles & pins / Herring's eyes, puddings & pies / Herring's belly, jams & jelly (or colour telly)... With at least nine verses, it celebrates the scale of the wealth the herring once created, and the degree to which they underpinned the social order. In one version from the northeast of England, the singers shake hands with the audience between verses: How are ye the day? How are ye the day? / How are ye the day me hinny-o? Herring was the glue which held the community together. Over the centuries, though, the uses of the herring have always gone beyond mere food and wealth creation.

… and of course there are Flotsam and Jetsam, an interview with an oligarch in which he reflects on the joys or otherwise of yacht ownership, books old and new, the beautiful illustrations of Claudia Myatt, excitement, reflection and blasts of salt spray and fresh air….