Change and decay in all around I see.

johnalison

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Possibly could be related to the idea of leisure and the “week end” becoming an established time.Working at Hillyards in the late 1960s certainly no boatbuilders had the slightest interest in actually sailing,except the foreman who built his own boat and on the wages at the time a hillyard nine toner would be a dream.Probably it was grp and the cheaper labour force that made yachting more attractive.There are other factors like a generation inheriting,like my father who was fifty at the time and having paid off the mortgage could thing about buying a boat
My father thought about buying a boat In his 50s. He actually ordered one from Mitchell’s in Portmellon but Hitler had other ideas and my sister and I came along instead.
 

Wansworth

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My father thought about buying a boat In his 50s. He actually ordered one from Mitchell’s in Portmellon but Hitler had other ideas and my sister and I came along instead.
So it’s possibly a generational thing,but your fathers aspirations coincided with a war whilst my father had money and more free time in an age of freedom?
 

Cobra

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My recollections of sailing fifty years ago tell me that it was rather more “democratic” then than it is today! I remember lots of smallish wooden boats, and some small GRP boats, kept on moorings, accessed by way of a dinghy, kept either at a boatyard or at a club, and laid up ashore at a boatyard. A Twister was a big boat; Blackwater sloops, Deben four tonners and Folkboats were common, and the Westerly Centaur was starting to become the most popular boat in Britain.

People did their own maintenance, scoured “Practical Boat Owner” for ideas for improvements, and called in the yard for an hour or two for difficult bits.
Thinking back to my first experiences on the water at the tender age of 4 sailing with Mum and Dad in their 28 foot non descript gaffer. Spent many happy hours watching what Mum and Dad did to set the sails and make this seemingly massive boat move through the water so effortlessly. As time went by I helped Dad more and more with the boat, laying her up along the Rope Walk in Brightlingsea (where Morgan Marine are currently trying to stake ownership on 3/4 of the width of the creek!) alongside the old sail lofts. Our next door neighbour in the mud berths was a 60' motor yacht 'Philaddin' owned by someone who only ever visited her during the summer months but caretaken by a local ex smack skipper. There were no yards where you brought your boat ashore, it was mud berths and then onto the hard for a scrub and antifoul for the season. We had two chandlers in Brightlingsea Orton & Wenlock's and French Marine.
Boatyards...well, this was just at the end of the time of Aldous Successors, so their yard was about to become what is now the Smack Dock, the BHC Dinghy Park, the Brightlingsea Wharf and the various small businesses on the Shipyard Estate. James and Stone, the other big commercial yard was still thriving at this time producing gravel barges and other small commercial vessels...now of course the site of 'Cell Block H' aka the Brightlingsea Marina development.
Just alongside James and Stone is Cyril Whites Boatyard (yes, it is still there!) where under Cyrils ownership many Folkboats were built...but only if he liked you and believed you were buying for the right reasons! Sadly Cyril is no longer with us, but the yard and workshops is still very much in business!
The only other wooden boatbuilder that I can recall in Brightlingsea was Fred Mitchell who built clinker dinghies (rowing ,lugsail and canoes) that were used on the boating lake for many years. Fred also designed and built the Sea Ranger sailing dinghy a 10' clinker dinghy in the same vein as the Walker design.
Of course, the one leisure boatbuilder of real note in the town was Reg White with his firm SailCraft now sadly no longer trading.

Brightlingsea has changed in many ways...thinking back to those early days, small coasters going up to wharves at Wivenhoe, Rowhedge and Colchester (all now pretty much covered with 'desirable riverside housing with a lovely eau d'mud of colne at low water'), of gravel barges going up to the Martins Farm works in Brightlingsea Creek, moorings going right out to almost Creekmouth, an active fleet of fishing smacks (motorised) and all the moorings in the South channel either trots (where the pontoons are now) or swinging moorings spaced sensibly and serviced annually!

Time for some Leonard Cohen to get really suicidal!!!
 

michael_w

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Andrew Hurst, the editor of Seahorse Magazine has had a fair bit to say about the state of youth sailing.

A new Optimist campaign is pretty expensive for the parent. Which gets even more expensive when and if the kid progresses to a 29er, Then there is a lot of dissolutionment and drop out as very few make the grade.

Incidentally, a good club standard 505 cost less than an Optimist.
 

Tomahawk

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Tiss an odd thing. People on this thread are bemoaning the loss of businesses and how things appear to be heading downhill at a rate of knots.
Yet when someone says "I will invest in the local economy, create jobs and offer people the facilities to come to a place and enjoy the water" ... why then it seems every man and his dog suddenly appears out the woodwork to object. We don't want change. Suddenly people want decay and decrepitation. Does Underwoods Boatyard full of cheap boats and a rusting hulk of some sort really offer a picture of a future to aspire to?
 

Kukri

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Tiss an odd thing. People on this thread are bemoaning the loss of businesses and how things appear to be heading downhill at a rate of knots.
Yet when someone says "I will invest in the local economy, create jobs and offer people the facilities to come to a place and enjoy the water" ... why then it seems every man and his dog suddenly appears out the woodwork to object. We don't want change. Suddenly people want decay and decrepitation. Does Underwoods Boatyard full of cheap boats and a rusting hulk of some sort really offer a picture of a future to aspire to?

Please explain what you mean by :

“…invest in the local economy, create jobs and offer people the facilities to come to a place and enjoy the water.”
 

AntarcticPilot

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Andrew Hurst, the editor of Seahorse Magazine has had a fair bit to say about the state of youth sailing.

A new Optimist campaign is pretty expensive for the parent. Which gets even more expensive when and if the kid progresses to a 29er, Then there is a lot of dissolutionment and drop out as very few make the grade.

Incidentally, a good club standard 505 cost less than an Optimist.
The son of one of my former colleagues worked his way up through the Topper ranks, and was, I believe, national champion in his year group several times. But then he hit the upper age limit for Toppers(I forget what it was; teens somewhere), and he and his parents were suddenly hit with a VAST hike in the cost of his hobby. It was bad enough in Toppers- the travel to national championships was considerable, and of course, at that level, he had to have top-quality equipment. But to graduate to the next level of dinghy sailing was about an order of magnitude more expensive (29ers, I think), not to mention the requirement for things like a more substantial towing vehicle etc.

I've just looked at the internet and it seems that he did continue to the next class, but I suspect it got too much for a family of relatively modest means.
 

Kukri

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The waterside world that I remember was summed up in a typed notice hanging on the end of the handsaw rack in Frank Knights’ shed in Woodbridge. I wish I had photographed it.

Labour Rates:
£5 per hour
Owner watching: £10 per hour
Owner helping: £12 per hour


This actually tells us something… namely that “owners” knew enough about the wooden boatbuilder’s trade to want to “help”. This was really important. It built trust.

There were certain rules which the customer of a small boatyard did well to observe. You did not turn up swinging a London Yacht Centre, Thomas Foulkes, etc., carrier bag. You did order fittings and suchlike through the yard. You did give the yard a few hours of work, each year. You did try to help the yard out by using up some of their old stock of paint, etc. Indeed, my father knew these rules so well that I recall Ron Wyatt of Bedwells in Walton, asked for something that he didn’t have in stock, telling my father to go to Simpson Lawrence’s warehouse in Manningtree and use his trade account!
 

PeterWright

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I remember what I used to do on arrival at a strange place, or even a place that I knew quite well. I used to row ashore, fill the water container, look at the boatyard and any interesting boats, visit the village shop, or, given a fair sized place the High Street, look at the church and anything else of tourist value, and of course look in at the chandlers, before the regulation pint at the pub.

There was usually something interesting in the chandlers. I’ve still got some of Tony Ward’s excellent linen tea towels, and every chandlery in Britain seemed to sell those red cotton trousers…

These days it’s just church and pub.

At Ramsholt, there has only ever been:
- Pay respects to George ( the harbour master, not a seal, here)
- Church ( round tower but interesting Georgian internals, candle lighting only)
- pub.

The real Kirby Creek enthusiast, like John Passmore (“Old Man Sailing”) and I, and others here, having paid his respects to George ( a seal, not a harbour master, here) will do the route march into Kirby le Soken where there is a pub, a church and a shop…

… John Passmore stored for a voyage to
the Azores via Rockall from that shop, during the first lock down, which was a bit keen, and no doubt the hiking kept him fit.?

But in most places boatyards and chandleries have gone.
Hi Kukri,

I share your sentiments but next time you visit Ramsholt Church, take a closer look at the tower - it's more oval than round in plan and has a slight taper being smaller at the top than at ground level. A really unique building in my experience!

Peter.
 

TLouth7

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However you were once or twice called upon to crew in a N12 at the club and no doubt you learnt a lot from the legendary helm....
Indeed, it was the only dinghy I have ever sailed in which you had to kick wedges into the daggerboard slot to keep the board up or down!

I would point out that the RYA system involves sailing doublehanders for the more advanced levels. Also when RHYC training was done in conjunction with Neptune we would start everyone off for a couple of days (at least) in Wayfarers, we didn't just push beginners into Oppies!

As for how people who exclusively race singlehanders learn tactics; they actually train, with actual coaches, just like in any other individual sport. I don't claim that putting people in singlehanders is the only way to teach sailing (indeed now I take great pleasure in taking lots of beginners out yachting) but it can be a valid and effective method.

My recollections of sailing fifty years ago tell me that it was rather more “democratic” then than it is today!
Fair enough! When did the demise of the chandlers and boatyards start?

By the way here on the East coast of Scotland a Centaur is still a large boat, and fully DIY clubs are the rule rather than the exception.
 

Cobra

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...and when you look closely at the proposals and the impact that they will have on the river and the local environs, you will quickly see just why so many are saying "NO!"
Tiss an odd thing. People on this thread are bemoaning the loss of businesses and how things appear to be heading downhill at a rate of knots.
Yet when someone says "I will invest in the local economy, create jobs and offer people the facilities to come to a place and enjoy the water" ... why then it seems every man and his dog suddenly appears out the woodwork to object. We don't want change. Suddenly people want decay and decrepitation. Does Underwoods Boatyard full of cheap boats and a rusting hulk of some sort really offer a picture of a future to aspire to?
Please explain what you mean by :

“…invest in the local economy, create jobs and offer people the facilities to come to a place and enjoy the water.”
...and when you look closely at the proposals and the impact that they will have on the river and the local environs, you will quickly see just why so many are saying "NO! to the proposal as it stands"

I recall a discussion I had with the then owner of the business back in 2008/9 something around that time. He described the plan of dredging out the area to the west of the current pontoons to allow a marina type development not dissimilar to Blackwater Marina down at Maylandsea...so the two rows nearest the channel would be close to all tide access dependant on draught and the remaining berths would vary from half tide access to only top of tide access and rates would vary according to access.

Strange that there are several others who also had a very similar conversation with said individual, so one can only assume that the new proposal is a much cheaper option?

I don't think anyone has an issue with their new proposed pontoons extending to their current limit of MLWN, but when they are looking at taking over 60% of the usable low water channel for their own gain...really?

Just imagine if Tesco (other supermarkets are available) were to extend their car park onto a dual carriageway because it would give easier access to their customers!

I would add that Underwoods Hard is a traditional East Coast boatyard where self help is encouraged and specialists are not charged a premium for carrying out work on a boat kept there. BTW...I do not keep my boat there, but do know a couple of people who do!
 

Tomahawk

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We can agree to differ on some points..
Tis an odd thing but I never see people sailing past Morgans at low water. That is probably because looking on Google Satellite the pontoons at Underwoods are inaccessible at LW. In fact they have less tide access than the East Pontoon outside Morgans office. Therefore I find arguments about significant loss of navigation to be less than convincing.

Then we need to consider how much of what is being proposed. It is right that the present proposal will probably have an (note an) effect on navigation upriver. But I suggest we should look at how many people actually need that access. I count some 15 boats at Underwoods pontoons and 4 buoys. There are no sailing boats at S Osyth. So for the benefit of a max of bout 15 sailing boats at Underwoods some 40 boats must be denied the opportunity afforded by the Morgan Marine proposal.
 

Kukri

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As a non-resident of Brightlingsea I should perhaps not rush in where angels fear to tread, but in the past - over centuries, in fact - Trinity House were very zealous in asserting and protecting the right of free navigation on our estuaries and creeks. They stopped land reclamation on the Deben, far from the LW mark, just in case it affected the flow of the river, they stopped (thank Goodness!) the demolition of the towers of Robert Adam’s only church, at Mistley, because it was a sea mark, and so on.
 

Aquaboy

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Mariners are to blame for the demise of traditional yachting and that has led to the old fashion chandlery closing.

.........and as we have become richer but in many...... (most)...... cases more useless we want to pay someone else to work on our boats and they will go to the wholesalers etc.
 

johnalison

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We can agree to differ on some points..
Tis an odd thing but I never see people sailing past Morgans at low water. That is probably because looking on Google Satellite the pontoons at Underwoods are inaccessible at LW. In fact they have less tide access than the East Pontoon outside Morgans office. Therefore I find arguments about significant loss of navigation to be less than convincing.

Then we need to consider how much of what is being proposed. It is right that the present proposal will probably have an (note an) effect on navigation upriver. But I suggest we should look at how many people actually need that access. I count some 15 boats at Underwoods pontoons and 4 buoys. There are no sailing boats at S Osyth. So for the benefit of a max of bout 15 sailing boats at Underwoods some 40 boats must be denied the opportunity afforded by the Morgan Marine proposal.
It is not a stretch of water that I am familiar with but it looks to me as if your first point is misleading. It doesn't matter whether or not people are able to pass at low water but whether they are able to pass at any time of their choosing. It also appears to me that there is no automatic right of any group of people to ride roughshod over the rights of others just because they outnumber them.
 
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