Have you ever felt small?

[doug748]

Have you?

One day I was chatting to the old bloke next door in the yard, with his equally old and rather battered carvel ketch. We were talking about engines.

In a quiet and low key, rather manly, way I told I once brought the boat back form France singlehanded, with no engine, after a breakdown.

He said just the same thing had happened to him: "I was very lucky" he said "some fishermen towed me out" and "and when I got back to Plymouth, blow me, the Harbourmaster towed me in from Cawsand"

"Ah" I said "that was good, where did you have the breakdown?"

"Florida" He said.

 

[Talbot]

That concept goes back to sailing half a century ago, when boat engines were very small and very unreliable. These days, provided you do not have any time restraint (!!!!!) a reliable engine is needed primarily to enter or leave the marina/harbour.

IIRC the Pardy's are fanatical about this approach - personally if technology has given me a means of making things a bit easier, I am perfectly happy to accept it.

 

[Kukri]

Reminds me of HW Tilman lying to an anchor off Jack in the Basket, waiting for the tide up Lymington creek, in 1973 - another boat anchored nearby and hailed him - "We're from Poole - where have you just come from?"

 

[Allan]

Fake real sailing.

I was on a delivery trip from Plymouth to Cardiff a couple of weeks ago. Just out of Plymouth we found the alternator was not charging. I decided, "it was good enough for the old sailors, it will be good enough for us". So we carried on, no instruments, interior only lit but an oil lamp, saving the batteries by only using nav lights when there were other boats around. Paper charts spread out on the chart table. When we needed the engine it could be started by hand. I felt so proud!
Of course, we did have two handheld GPS units, Navionics on an iPhone, web based AIS on two other phones and a couple of VHF radios!
You have admire the proper sailors of old.
Allan

 

[Twister_Ken]

Don Street sailed Iolaire everywhere with no engine. Mind, he was adept at getting himself towed into tricky berths.

 

[jimi]

Don Street sailed Iolaire everywhere with no engine.

tautological, dear boy!

 

[BobPrell]

That concept goes back to sailing half a century ago, when boat engines were very small and very unreliable. These days, provided you do not have any time restraint (!!!!!) a reliable engine is needed primarily to enter or leave the marina/harbour.

IIRC the Pardy's are fanatical about this approach - personally if technology has given me a means of making things a bit easier, I am perfectly happy to accept it.

I have the 1965 revision of Eric Hiscock, Cruising Under Sail. He said that the facilities such as warping buoys which made it possible to enter the smaller and more difficult harbours had mostly been removed, and all harbours were more crowded than previously, so working engineless endangered and inconvenienced other yachts. That was 47 years ago.

BTW the word marina does not appear in the index of his book.

 

[Nostrodamus]

That is the thing about sailing. We all have stories and "characters" are still allowed to exist.
Wonderful people we have met along the way are usually very modest but when the adventures come out it leaves you with your mouth open dribbling and tugging your forelock.

 

[Twister_Ken]

tautological, dear boy!

Not sure. You couldn't sail an ocean liner anywhere without an engine.

 

[jimi]

Not sure. You couldn't sail an ocean liner anywhere without an engine.

Hmm .. clutching at straws noo, laddie! Bit like saying the Bayliner 23000 sailed from Southampton to New York .. not really quite correct!

 

[snowleopard]

I recall hearing about an old salt coming into a marina after a cruise (to Patagonia IIRC). He was asked by a pompous yottie type where he had been. The reply was 'here and there'. 'Ever been to France?' says yottie. Old Salt shakes his head. 'Not been far then' says yottie.

 

[Twister_Ken]

Hmm .. clutching at straws noo, laddie! Bit like saying the Bayliner 23000 sailed from Southampton to New York .. not really quite correct!

But maybe you'll accept that the QE2 did, on many occasions.

 

[jimi]

But maybe you'll accept that the QE2 did, on many occasions.

Nope, the QE2 was a big motor boat and motored back and forward.

 

[Twister_Ken]

Nope, the QE2 was a big motor boat and motored back and forward.

No one even said "I'm on the QE2's next motoring to New York.

 

[jimi]

No one even said "I'm on the QE2's next motoring to New York.

hah you have started using a noun rather than a verb. Not only that, very few of the QE2's passangers could talk anyway, they were all verbally incapacitated by either age or alcohol.

 

[AndrewB]

That concept [towing into harbour] goes back to sailing half a century ago, when boat engines were very small and very unreliable. These days, provided you do not have any time restraint (!!!!!) a reliable engine is needed primarily to enter or leave the marina/harbour.

IIRC the Pardy's are fanatical about this approach - personally if technology has given me a means of making things a bit easier, I am perfectly happy to accept it.

They say you can't call yourself a real blue-water sailor until you have towed the Pardys into harbour somewhere or other!

AndrewB.
Blue Water Sailor (Failed).

 

[Koeketiene]

They say you can't call yourself a real blue-water sailor until you have towed the Pardys into harbour somewhere or other!

Friend encountered them on his travels. Said they were forever scrounging for a tow. 'Not quite as self-sufficient as they claim to be' was his comment.

 

[Nostrodamus]

hah you have started using a noun rather than a verb. Not only that, very few of the QE2's passangers could talk anyway, they were all verbally incapacitated by either age or alcohol.

Where do I book (Hic)

 

[Fourbees]

Where do I book (Hic)

You can't - QE2 is decommissioned and lurking in Dubai. But you CAN book the Queen Mary 2 for an Atlantic passage - now that's a big mobo (150,000 tons).

 

[Bon Accord]

Nope, the QE2 was a big motor boat and motored back and forward.

Not for all of her life, twas only in the late 80s she gained diesel engines, as built she was steam powered.