Sailing, supertankers, ballads, Elizabethan stunts…..

Philip Marsden heads for the Summer Isles:

I had never skippered a boat to anywhere I couldn’t reach by lunchtime. Now I was due to sail up the Irish coast to the top of Scotland, singlehanded, aiming for a small group of islands that, more than twenty years ago, I’d vowed to reach in memory of someone I loved. I was thinking: What, in God’s name, have I taken on?

Sam Fortescue takes a giant multihull for a sail:

Big multihulls demand a special sort of sailor. First, it really helps to be French. No one is quite sure why, but the majority of cutting-edge racing multihulls are designed and built in France – more precisely Brittany, and to be exact, Lorient and Vannes. They are sailed by a hardy breed of (mostly) men who are more comfortable being tossed about the Southern Ocean on their own than running into a neighbour at the boulangerie, and they would sooner eat vegetable protein rehydrated with water from the desalinator than tuck into a nice poulet fermier.

For the purposes of this expedition, we have pulled together MOD70s, AC45s and a bevy of third-generation Ultim-class trimarans fresh out of the moulds, and here are the keys for a day. Now let's go sailing.....

Alfred, Lord Tennyson tells the story of the Revenge:

AT Flores, in the Azores Sir Richard Grenville lay,
And a pinnace, like a flutter’d bird, came flying from far away;
‘Spanish ships of war at sea! we have sighted fifty-three!’
Then sware Lord Thomas Howard: ‘Fore God I am no coward;
But I cannot meet them here, for my ships are out of gear,
And the half my men are sick. I must fly, but follow quick.
We are six ships of the line; can we fight with fifty-three?’

David Pyle sails a Drascombe eastwards from the Gulf:

A thousand miles of unwelcoming sea lay ahead of us before we were to reach Karachi. The coastline of Muscat, South Iran and West Pakistan had little to offer in the way of refuge. Back in England I had been warned of this coastline by a BOAC captain who had often flown high above it. 'It's about the most barren and inhospitable area I have ever seen,' he informed me one evening a few days before we were due to leave. Now we were about to see it for ourselves. His words echoed in my thoughts as we set the sails and headed northeastwards along the Trucial Oman coast.

Ian Tew fights the flames of a burning supertanker:

It was dark as we approached the burning tanker. The Al Ahood was well down by the stern, which was under water. Flames were shooting up the starboard side of the accommodation, through which the missiles had entered, and the Iranian mountains dark against the sky made a spectacular backdrop to the flames and smoke. I wondered if I had bitten off more than I could chew. The Al Ahood was a huge potential bomb, especially if the fire spread forward to the undamaged tanks loaded with crude oil. I thrust such negative thoughts aside. Forget about the Iraqis, the Iranians, war zones, and missiles. Concentrate on the salvage.

Julia Jones tells the story of British submarines early in WWII:

Twelve little S-boats ‘go to it’ like Bevin,

Starfish goes a bit too far — then there were eleven.

Eleven watchful S-boats doing fine and then

Seahorse fails to answer — so there are ten.

Ten stocky S-boats in a ragged line,

Sterlet drops and stops out — leaving us nine.

Nine plucky S-boats, all pursuing Fate,

Shark is overtaken — now we are eight.

Eight sturdy S-boats, men from Hants and Devon,

Salmon now is overdue — and so the number's seven.

Seven gallant S-boats, trying all their tricks,

Spearfish tries a newer one — down we come to six.

Six tireless S-boats fighting to survive,

No reply from Swordfish — so we tally five.

Five scrubby S-boats, patrolling close inshore,

Snapper takes a short cut — now we are four.

Four fearless S-boats, too far out to sea,

Sunfish bombed and scrap-heaped — we are only three.

Three threadbare S-boats patrolling o'er the blue

Two ice-bound S-boats...

One lonely S-boat...

James Cable goes to sea:

In March 1871 we left Saint Katharine's Dock, and were towed to the Downs, where we anchored. While there, a gale came up and we had to slip our anchors and run for Weymouth Roads. Then we saw our captain for the first time. He was drunk all the time. We shipped one big wave, which broke the carpenter's leg. This was my first turn at a ship's wheel, and it took all my time to keep the ship on her course. The pilot, who was a Deal fisherman, made it harder for me, because he would talk to me about fishing all the time. I did my turn at the wheel for two hours and had not left it for ten minutes when the mate had me back again because I was the only one in his watch who conld understand English.

Adrian Morgan writes a love letter to the Vertue:

‘I honestly believe,’ wrote Humphrey Barton in 1950 of Vertue XXXV ‘that she is the best designed, built and equipped small ocean-going yacht that has yet been produced. Her ability to stand up to bad weather, her remarkably high performance under sail and the comfort of her accommodation are outstanding.’ But then he would say that, as a partner of the man who designed her, and having sailed her across the Atlantic to win orders from wealthy Americans at a time when Britain was hungry for postwar dollars.

Penny Minney goes cruising in a ship's lifeboat:

The year was 1955. We had been looking for more than a year for a vessel within our means in which we could sail among the Greek islands during our long vacations from Oxford, investigating the trade routes of the Greeks and Romans. At that time there were almost no yachts in the Eastern Mediterranean. We tried various options. Then, unexpectedly, we heard from a sailing friend’s father who was stationed in Malta. He wrote that he had noticed two seventeen-foot ship’s lifeboats for sale in the Valetta garage where he bought his petrol. He offered to have them surveyed and buy us the better of the two – extraordinary kindness. They looked new, he said, and were built of Welsh oak. It seemed to us an easy proposition to sail coastwise in such a boat till eventually we reached Greece. Our plan for the first season, however, was to sail across to Sicily and back, laying the boat up in Valetta.

Philip K Allan explores the appalling sequel of Trafalgar:

On 21st October 1805, HMS Victory famously led a column of ships of the line into the heart of Vice-Admiral Villeneuve’s Franco-Spanish fleet off Cape Trafalgar for the climactic battle of the age of sail. At the moment of his greatest triumph, Lord Nelson was struck down by a sharpshooter stationed in the rigging of the French ship Redoutable. The hero fell and was carried below. The faithful Hardy delivered his kiss; Lord Nelson murmured, ‘Thank God I have done my duty,’ and died. Many accounts of the battle end at this point. For many of those involved, though, the story was only just beginning.

Richard Ferris, Queen's Messenger at the court of Elizabeth 1, goes dinghy cruising to Bristol for a bet:

The boate wherein I determined to performe my promise was new built, which I procured to be painted with greene, and the oares and sayle of the same collour, with the red crosse for England and her Majesties armes, with a vane standing fast to the sterne of the sayd boate which being in full readinesse, upon Midsommer day last, my selfe with my companions, Andrew Hill, and William Thomas, with a great many of our friends and welwillers, accompanyed us to the Tower Wharfe of London, there wee entred our boate, and so, with a great many of our friends in other like boates, rowed to the court at Greenewitch, where before the court gate we gave a volley of shot: then we landed and went into the court, where we had great entertainment at every office, and many of our friendes were full sorie for our departing. And having obtained leave before of the Right Honorable the Lord Chamberlaine, the Lord Admirall, and M. vize Chamberlaine, for my departure, I tooke my leave and so departed.

Peter Cardy watches the world of Portsmouth Harbour go by:

Portsmouth is HM Naval Base, so unlike most other VTS it does not offer advice to captains, but issues firm instructions, backed up by muscle if necessary. The ten-knot speed limit is enforced. Exclusion zones are permanently in place around the naval quayside and any naval vessel alongside. And such a variety of naval vessels: in recent months the national ensigns flown at the yardarm on the semaphore tower have been Belgian, US, Korean, French, Canadian, Japanese, Italian....

When the aircraft carrier Queen Elizabeth arrives or departs she is surrounded by a swarm of small craft - tugs, Defence Police launches, shadowy RIBs full of Men In Black. On top of the ski-jump at the carrier’s bow stand several sailors. In the middle of the group stands the chaplain, and below it is a drop of fifty metres to the sea. I am happy about all the protection, because even a modest explosion would blow in all my windows. When salutes are fired from the South Railway Jetty a quarter of a mile away they rattle my teeth…..

and of course there are Flotsam and Jetsam, books, sage advice, the writings of Ray Doggett, tugmaster and international entrepreneur, and a salty world of other stuff. Welcome aboard!