Wansworth
Well-Known Member
My tea towel with a nautical motif gives enough information in cojunction with the AA road may to circumnavigate the British Isles?
AA road map and tea towel
- Thread starter Wansworth
- Start date
AntarcticPilot
Well-Known Member
Who needs namby-pamby aids like AA maps and tea-towels? Just set off, keep the coast always on the same side (left or right according to taste), and keep going until you realize you've seen that bit before! No worries!
James_Calvert
Well-Known Member
Heard of someone using just that technique. Managed a partial circumnavigation before coming to grief.
Wrong island! He hadn't catered for Sheppey also being one!
Wrong island! He hadn't catered for Sheppey also being one!
Wansworth
Well-Known Member
That’s my man?
johnalison
Well-Known Member
On our first trip to Boulogne in 1978 a Swede in a scruffy old boat rolled in nearby, having made it from home with only a road map.
We were once in Honfleur with friends and he produced a road map, not used for navigation. When we studied it we found a gap in the retaining wall not shown on our Admiralty charts. We walked out and confirmed that the gap did exist, with a depth of nearly two metres and a channel approaching from the west marked with small buoys.
We were once in Honfleur with friends and he produced a road map, not used for navigation. When we studied it we found a gap in the retaining wall not shown on our Admiralty charts. We walked out and confirmed that the gap did exist, with a depth of nearly two metres and a channel approaching from the west marked with small buoys.
Wansworth
Well-Known Member
I should imagine Ordenance Surveymaps would have a mine of information for coastal sailers
LONG_KEELER
Well-Known Member
How about a bit of Viking enactment in sailing now and then . Just a few sacrifices to Odin
and a decent lodestone should get you round.
and a decent lodestone should get you round.
Wansworth
Well-Known Member
In the1950 Portuguese fishermen’s threw a Pig into the sea and it unfailingly swum towards land,according to the book Sopranino
AntarcticPilot
Well-Known Member
Isn't the Norse god of the sea Ægir?
Pedantic quibble: the Vikings didn't have lodestones, but they did use Iceland spar (calcite) as a polarising filter to determine the direction of the sun in overcast conditions.
LONG_KEELER
Well-Known Member
The above is a common mistake that people make.
I think you will find that Vikings who had sat and passed the VOC (Viking Offshore Certificate), were in possession of much better navigating knowledge and equipment gained from conquest in the Far East.
With regard to gods, I think you will find that they prayed to any god that might be listening when the weather was bad. Just like we do today.
Robert Wilson
Well-Known Member
I planned my circumnavigation with an AA pocket road map.
I did of course take a large number of charts just to make sure the AA hadn't missed any bridges across the North Channel, Irish Sea etc
I did of course take a large number of charts just to make sure the AA hadn't missed any bridges across the North Channel, Irish Sea etc
Bilgediver
Well-Known Member
Some years ago whilst sailing in the Stavanger area we ceased to be amazed at the number of sailor we saw holding a green plastic object to aid their navigation from marina to marina. The green object was a give away plastic shopping bag which had a map of the area showing locations of marinas and facilities.
Leighb
Well-Known Member
Some years ago a delivery crew from Sweden came to Ipswich to take a brand new Oyster back home.
They departed from the Harwich entrance and set a course direct to Kiel. They hit the Cork Sand at full speed, serious damage to keel and hull and only saved from sinking by fast reponse from the Harwich lifeboat with salvage pumps. Lifted out at Shotley where she sat ashore for some time, probably while the insurers were arguing!
It turned out that the only chart on board relating to this side was of the whole of the North Sea on which the Cork appears as a tiny sliver smaller than a finger nail clipping.
They departed from the Harwich entrance and set a course direct to Kiel. They hit the Cork Sand at full speed, serious damage to keel and hull and only saved from sinking by fast reponse from the Harwich lifeboat with salvage pumps. Lifted out at Shotley where she sat ashore for some time, probably while the insurers were arguing!
It turned out that the only chart on board relating to this side was of the whole of the North Sea on which the Cork appears as a tiny sliver smaller than a finger nail clipping.
AntarcticPilot
Well-Known Member
??? Even in the Mediterranean, compasses didn't come along until after the Viking era.
Stemar
Well-Known Member
As someone once said, there are no atheists in a bad storm...
After a bad storm, one old sailor said, "Boy that storm last night was a bad 'un. Sure got me praying!" His mate replied, "Who wouldn't be praying in weather like that" "You're right - I reckon the Almighty will have heard a good few unfamiliar voices last night"
Wansworth
Well-Known Member
Sailors are very superstitious,I used to pat my fifteen foot ocean going yacht on leaving harbour?
AntarcticPilot
Well-Known Member
Nor on battlefields - and I heard that direct from a soldier, as well as the well-known saying about foxholes.
Gary Fox
N/A
However, people are likely to work harder to survive, (and to have trained and made plans in advance), if they are aware that no 2000-yr old, telepathic flying rabbi will be descending from the Ionosphere, clutching a magical talking bilge pump.
Nimrod18
Well-Known Member
I sense that you’ve all missed out on this clear business opportunity. “Porcine-propelled life rafts”. Part of me also wonders if it’s worth sinking some R&D money into magnetised sausages.
chrishscorp
Well-Known Member
The first time i went out on a yacht it was skippered by a chap who openly admitted he went accross the channel with his brother with an AA road map and the only bit of rope they had on board was a piece they found on the tide line on the beach.
