RYA Affiliated Clubs Conference-East

The following was submitted to the DCA Forum this morning:

"Yesterday I attended this Eastern Region RYA conference. 

Some people assumed that I was representing the DCA;  so I kept very quiet. 

Representatives from the local sailing clubs clearly didn't understand the concept of 'cruising,  not racing'. 

The thought of cruising a dinghy for more than an afternoon was obviously alien to them. 

They knew of no cruising dinghies other than the Wayfarer. 

They tended to smile gently,  and move away. 

By contrast,  the RYA is beginning to understand dinghy cruising.   Or,  at least,  pottering about with family and friends with a picnic for the day. 

The RYA doesn't yet know what to do about dinghy cruising,  but it's clear in its collective mind that it must harness members.   It's the only water-borne recreation over which it doesn't yet have some degree of control. 

Robbie Bell,  the Eastern Region Development Officer,  was explicit about his objectives at the conference: 

it's all about recruitment. 

Recruitment for the local affiliated clubs?   Yes,  but as a means of recruiting members for the RYA. 

Did you read Terry Pratchet's "Small Gods"? 

He described the power of a god as the number of people who believed in that god. 

The more believers (members?) the more power. 

The RYA is a not-so-small god;  by accumulating members it accumulates power. 

It genuinely believes that it uses that power for the benefit of sailors of all kinds.   It consults with government over wind farms,  red diesel and the results of Brexit.   It negotiates over the application of SOLAS to small boats and with Trinity House on the positioning of buoys. 

It has training schemes for most kinds of watercraft (except cruising dinghies!). 

When,  I wonder,  will they devise training schemes for dinghy cruising folk? 

Will the schemes be as badly thought-out and constructed as those for yachts? 

What will the RYA do about us?  the DCA? 

John Starkie"

Boats and Mowers

Fido had become stuck on The Bank.

Again.

The Bank is steep(ish) and there is a small irregularity with which he it can't cope.   As he it continues to try he it eventually crosses the boundary wire and switches himself itself off.   He It then needs to be moved and rebooted*.

This is a minor nuisance which could be removed either by moving the boundary wire or by smoothing the small irregularity.

At about the same moment a heron chose to alight on one of the boats,  presumably to lunch on small fish.

What is the LG to do?   Rebooting Fido will disturb the heron:  not disturbing the heron won't get the grass cut.   For a real LG the answer is obvious:  do nothing.

*In the Old Days,  when the LG was a young man and learning Fortran (you won't remember Fortran:  it was a computer language when life was simple and computers had valves (you won't remember valves:  don't ask.)) computers often crashed.   They were then 'bootstrapped';  lifted by their bootstraps (a theoretically impossible task) and persuaded to calculate again.   Obviously computers don't have bootlaces;  it was a metaphor from a Bygone Age.

Computers are now 'booted up' (a startling and destructive mental image);  if they crash (another startling mental image) they are 'rebooted'.

Fido is a computer which is firm-programmed to move its structure around the garden and to trim the grass.   A robot.  With wheels.

Some robots walk.   They still don't have bootlaces.

DCA Medway Cruise

At seven o’clock on a Saturday morning in June the M11 and the M25 were plagued with weekend drivers,  but it took Opal,  on her trailer,  less than 90 minutes to reach Upnor and the Medway Yacht Club.   The seeds of the cruise had been sown in March,  when John Basley,  from the MYC,  invited the Eastern Region to launch from their slipway on the North bank of the Medway,  and had germinated into conversations with Steve the Bo’s’n and Catherine the Sailing Secretary.   The cruise had blossomed with a conversation between John,  of the DCA,  and Norman,  of Lower Halstow Yacht Club which would make the Eastern Region members welcome on Saturday evening.

Opal was off her trailer and waiting on her launching trolley when Dave arrived with his Roamer.   A few minutes later Mark arrived,  expecting to sail with Gerald.   Opal and the Roamer were afloat and waiting when Gerald trailed Susie to the slipway.   As she launched John and Opal were a mile or so downriver,  running before the Westerly wind against the new flood.   He ate lunch in the cockpit,  under way,  keeping clear of the two coasters carrying the flood upriver,  counting the buoys as he passed them and watching the thick,  black thunderclouds gathering overhead.

The first few drops were big and heavy,  dimpling the river and killing the wind.   As the shower strengthened the drops became hailstones,  turning the water into a seething,  bubbling froth.   The ice accumulated in the little boat and on the skipper’s drysuit until he was sitting in an ice bath.   As the hail and then the rain abated the black clouds lowered,  flickering with lightning and deafening with thunder.

As the storm moved away to the East the wind returned gently and he was able again to count off the buoys.   The PHM ‘No 16’ was mistaken for ‘No 14’ and he crossed to the South bank looking for the two cardinals.   The flood,  now at its strongest,  carried him into Half Acre Creek and he spent an anxious hour struggling out again.   And there,  around the corner,  was the real ‘No14’ and beyond it,  the cardinals at the mouth of Stangate Creek.

During the storm the wind had backed toward the South West so that,  in Stangate Creek Opal tacked with long boards to the S’E and short boards,  back against the flood,  to the West.  At the mouth of Halstow Creek the wind was exactly contrary;  the creek itself was a maelstrom of breaking water.   With Opal deep-reefed the boards were equal,  but even with the fair tide flooding up the creek each one gained no more than a hundred metres or so to windward.   When,  occasionally,  Opal refused to tack and had to be gybed around there was no gain at all and even a loss.

Dave later estimated this wind “at the top end of F5”;   he and his Roamer wisely anchored in Stagnate Creek during the worst of it.   At the same time Susie was safe somewhere in the maze of channels East of Stagnate Creek;  neither Mark nor Gerald was able to say quite where!

As Opal finally rounded the corner into Halstow bay the wind died away and a weak sun came out.  Under full sail she glided across the flat water toward the LHYC clubhouse,  passing smoothly between the moored yachts and whispering into the grass an hour before HW.

Ken,  a member of the LHYC,  had prepared his sailing yacht and was waiting for the DCA members at the landing stage.   John secured Opal to a post and Ken showed him the clubhouse,  how to operate the door lock,  the location of the kettle,  the microwave and the shower.   Was ever a soaking sailor made more welcome?!

And there,  coming round the corner,  were the Roamer and then Susie.   Before they were halfway across the bay both dinghies were under oars and being rowed the last half mile to the jetty.

The Three Tuns was packed and heaving with marathon runners who had run an extra ten miles to celebrate and were now rehydrating.   All tables in the restaurant had been booked weeks ago (Saturday nights are popular,  and it’s a lovely pub!) and there was a waiting list for tables in the bar,  but eventually one came free and the four sailors dined and supped.

Medway Estuary

Four o’clock on a Sunday morning.   The last quarter of moon was high in the South and the air was clear and dry and calm.   The tide,  following the moon,  had covered the mud in the bay and would reach HW at about 5.15.   Opal was afloat by a quarter to five,  moving gently through the moorings on the slack water.   The light Westerly wind and the new ebb carried her East down Halstow Creek and North down Stangate Creek.   At the cardinals both wind and ebb were dead against her.   For a futile hour she made no progress upriver at all,  and eventually anchored on the ledge between the East Cardinal and the Isolated Danger for a second breakfast.

To the East Dave’s Roamer,  and then Susie,  crept out of Stangate Creek and turned right toward Queensborough.   They intended to wait for a few hours,  perhaps over lunch,  and then catch the new flood up to Upnor,  but,  within the hour,  the Roamer appeared,  tacking upriver.   For a boomless standing lug she sails remarkably close to the wind!

By  eleven o’clock John had also tired of waiting for the tide and weighed his anchor - which refused to leave the bottom!   Eventually,  he cut the rode,  losing the anchor and committing himself to the wind and tide.

The long beat upriver was concentrated sailing,  both tiring and relaxing,  stimulating and exciting.   Keeping the boat as close to the wind as she would lie while keeping the speed up to cover the tide.   Judging the moment to tack before running into the muddy bank yet using as much of each board as possible.   Estimating by eye the potential collision courses with other boats,  their tack and angle to the wind,  and then deciding which of the blighters had even seen him and which would ignore him.   A cheery wave to those who clearly knew the Rules!

The new flood helped to carry the three boats the last mile or so;  and then the back eddy at the slipway took them each in turn by surprise.

The electric winch was a blessing,  the club restaurant and bar was welcoming and the club officials were very friendly.

The boats were loaded and secured and the motorways were relatively clear.   The delay at the Dartford Crossing was normal.

Christmas Eve, 1963

Christmas Eve,  after luncheon,  and he was bored.   There would be afternoon tea later,  and then the long evening toward Midnight Mass.   He could read through the long,  deepening gloaming,  but there was always the ambiguity:  they became irritated by his reading:  "Always has his head in a book,  but never in his school books."

It was a bright clear afternoon (decades later he would know about high atmospheric pressure in winter,  that the evening would cool and the night would freeze) as he and the dog walked up the hill,  across the fields behind the house.   Across the next field,  and the next (the hedges and fences were no barrier to a skinny,  teenaged country boy and a small mongrel dog);  over the brow of the hill and then down across the fields to the South East.   The A482 was somewhere to his right,  the lane to Glan-Denys ahead in the valley.   There was always water at the bottom of a valley.

The copse was unexpected,  a delight,  not an obstacle.   And then the lane in the valley.

The lake was a total surprise:  he'd had no idea.

Back in the summer he and his sister,  together with her would-be boyfriend Cornflakes and a girl from Lampeter,  had borrowed his father's Vauxhall Velox to get to the cinema in Aberystwyth.

Driving was a great pleasure.   The long,  narrow swooping roads to the coast were a joy.   The big car purred as it swept them along.   The others chatted as he revelled in his skill.

The attraction at Aberystwyth?   The film,  Summer Holiday,  starring Cliff Richard and The Shadows.   He'd been astonished when his sister and the girl had screamed every time the star appeared,  and especially when he sang.   Even Cornflakes,  round as he was,  bounced up and down in his seat with excitement!

Eventually the tedium ended,  and he was able to drive them home:  Cornflakes to one of the little coastal villages,  his sister to Pantcoy and then the girl toward Lampeter.   Around the bends and down the hills,  with no-one to talk to,  she became anxious and was clearly car-sick.   She began fumbling with the door handle.  He swerved off the main road,  into the lane and stopped in a layby.   She threw open the door and was violently ill by the side of the lane.   He fetched water from the stream and she drank and washed her face.   Gently and slowly he drove her home.

As he crossed the lane,  on that cold Christmas Eve,  there was the layby.   The puddles of vomit,  along with the memory,  were long gone.   And there,  on his left,  was the lake.   It's gravelly shore stretched at right angles to the road.   And on the shore was a raft.   The usual thing,  nothing special:   A few planks lashed to four oil drums.

It took a matter of moments to drag it into the water.   A long stick served as a pole,  and in a few more moments he,  the dog and the raft were a hundred yards from the shore,  and sinking.

He'd spent the past 12 years or so in West Wales with parents and younger sister.   The past 5 years had been at Aberaeron County Secondary School,  on the coast,  where every window overlooked Cardigan Bay,  where lunchtimes were spent on the beach or around the harbour.   

The family holidays were spent in a caravan at New Quay (the Welsh one,  not the Cornish one).   He and his father looked longingly at the sailing dinghies drawn up on the sand,  and at the trip boats in the gentle surf,  and at the mackerel boats as they brought their catch in for the holidaymakers.   They knew every inch of every plank and line;  every ha'lyard and stay;  every gun'l' and thwart;  every jib and main.   In theory they could sail every one of them.   

They knew the intricacies of the British Seagull outboard engine,  how it worked and how to operate it.   Even the magic of the misunderstood air-bleed screw!

They had once,  as a family,  taken the paddle steamer from Barry to Weston-super-mare.   And back.

Sundays out were spent at Llangrannog,  further South down the coast.   His parents and sister were good swimmers;  aunts,  uncles and cousins,  when they came to visit from England,  were excellent swimmers.   He hated swimming and scorned all attempts to learn or be taught.   Boats were the thing:  they kept you dry.

And now,  for the first time in his life,  he was afloat on his own,  sinking,  craft.   Alone on an isolated lake in a Welsh valley.   There was a skim of ice across the surface which broke as he paddled with his stick to get the doomed raft back to the beach;  a thicker patch of ice broke the stick and left the stub in his hands.

Water welled up between the planks and froze at the edges.

No problem;  the dog's lead (string) was long.   Push the dog into the water,  it'll swim to the beach and pull the raft along.

The dog didn't agree.  It scrambled back onto the edge of the raft,  its efforts pulling that edge a few inches lower into the water.  

But that lifted the opposite edge a few inches out!  He knelt at the edge and began paddling with his hands.  His hands and the dog's hind legs combined to drift the waterlogged craft back toward the beach.   It ran aground,  and he waded the last few feet.

As he slipped quietly in through the back door his trousers,  from the knees down,  were rock hard ice.   His shoes and socks were sodden.   The dog was dry and as happy as he.

Afternoon tea was long past, and they served nothing but tension and unanswerable questions.

Midnight Mass was utterly tedious.