Mataji
Well-Known Member
A film made by Eric and Susan Hiscock in 1959 has appeared on YouTube. Not technically one of the best sailing videos I've seen but a real piece of history. Look up "Beyond the West Horizon".
Hiscock - Beyond the West Horizon on Youtube
- Thread starter Mataji
- Start date
dom
Well-Known Member
Agree, style is a bit stiff but very interesting once one gets into it. Tks for recommendation ...I'm going to watch the remaining hour this evening!
http://youtu.be/fL8sBp850Hc
Wooden Boat Fittings
Well-Known Member
I watched that a few months ago. It's a good film. The Hiscocks were history-makers, and much of the information in their books is still current today. (Cruising Under Sail is still my cruising bible.)
Eric's 'cut-glass' accent sounds very strange to Australian ears, but I understand it's also unusual to hear it in the UK too today.
Mike
Eric's 'cut-glass' accent sounds very strange to Australian ears, but I understand it's also unusual to hear it in the UK too today.
Mike
dylanwinter
Well-Known Member
interesting headsails I thought
good film
D
good film
D
dom
Well-Known Member
Yup, "Gosh that's Posh!" would apply here too!
dylanwinter
Well-Known Member
silver-fox
Well-Known Member
Thanks for posting that link.
The Hiscocks have been heroes of mine since childhood and I have read all his books. I wasn't aware of the film and thoroughly enjoyed watching it,
Cut glass accent yes! But a clear intellect, an observant eye and a great command of English.
Whilst the film is dated, it is a remarkable bit of social history of a world long gone. It also progresses at a fair clip and avoids a lot of the amateur video sins even though it was made on primitive equipment by comparison with today's technology.
His praise for the new terylene (dacron) sails when compared with cotton made me smile too.
A circumnavigation without self steering - doesn't bear thinking about!!!
The Hiscocks have been heroes of mine since childhood and I have read all his books. I wasn't aware of the film and thoroughly enjoyed watching it,
Cut glass accent yes! But a clear intellect, an observant eye and a great command of English.
Whilst the film is dated, it is a remarkable bit of social history of a world long gone. It also progresses at a fair clip and avoids a lot of the amateur video sins even though it was made on primitive equipment by comparison with today's technology.
His praise for the new terylene (dacron) sails when compared with cotton made me smile too.
A circumnavigation without self steering - doesn't bear thinking about!!!
Babylon
Well-Known Member
Thank you so much for posting that link. Hugely enjoyable and no ludicrous imposition of stupid music.
I've got to the bit where they're stuffing themselves silly with bananas before they go off - the bananas that is!
I've got to the bit where they're stuffing themselves silly with bananas before they go off - the bananas that is!
prv
Well-Known Member
They don't sound like Mr Cholmondely-Warner nowadays, though
"The bulk of the work is done by oxen, or, more often, by women"
Pete
Cloona
Well-Known Member
brilliant - what an incredible couple.
The boat is obviously tough but does seem to roll a lot ...
and what different expectations they had then - ten days beating through the Straits of Gibralter - just mentioned with no poor me MOANING and bad weather just mentioned in passing
The boat is obviously tough but does seem to roll a lot ...
and what different expectations they had then - ten days beating through the Straits of Gibralter - just mentioned with no poor me MOANING and bad weather just mentioned in passing
harry potter
Well-Known Member
Brilliant - thank you for the post
AlanBoatman
Member
Thank you so much for this - I have been looking for this video for ages.
Also "Lin & Larry Pardey Remember Sailors, Eric & Susan Hiscock" is interesting as it shows how the Hiscocks pioneered film making for Yachting documentaries. Also if you get the chance watch "Hold Fast" - anarchy sailing on a shoestring. Lovely story!
Also "Lin & Larry Pardey Remember Sailors, Eric & Susan Hiscock" is interesting as it shows how the Hiscocks pioneered film making for Yachting documentaries. Also if you get the chance watch "Hold Fast" - anarchy sailing on a shoestring. Lovely story!
chrisbitz
Well-Known Member
Wonderful and genuine historical document, preserved forever now too!
antares
Well-Known Member
Would just like to add my thanks for the tip off about this film on U tube. We really enjoyed it, captivating stuff and extraordinary to think he did all that filming and such on cine , 8mm or whatever,must have been miles of the stuff ,saving it all in an organised manner meanwhile sailing his small, by any standards, boat and completing an inspirational voyage.Quite a guy!!
FWB
N/A
Thanks for the heads up. Really enjoyed it.
BrianH
Well-Known Member
'Cruising under Sail' is in my book rack on board and often opened when I need to consult the oracle, for example if I need to remember a certain whipping or splice - it is indeed a bible. I have read all Hiscock's books and followed the rationale for all his boats, up to Wanderer IV; he has been a hero for me for all of the 60 years of my sailing life. So, in the film it raised my eyebrows to watch him tie a reef-knot (or a couple of half-hitches) around the palm tree for a stern line on Moorea, where I would have preferred to see a bowline.
But he proved to be the ultimate, consummate sailor, definitively proved by all the circumnavigations he did without any drama or disaster, and without all the technology that many of us now consider essential - not even wind-vane steering. He and Susan fulfilled all I had ever dreamed of accomplishing but never even started.
The film is a great historical record and a tribute to a cruising legend - thanks to the OP for posting.
prv
Well-Known Member
Round turn and two half-hitches is surely the textbook knot for that purpose? If he started with a round turn (I wasn't watching that closely) then that's what your "couple of half hitches" comes out as.
Pete
BrianH
Well-Known Member
Your comment made me watch again (40:25). Round the tree, over and under the standing part and once again with what looked like a reef-knot to me. "Textbook", really? Hmm, after a strong offshore wind I'd sooner be releasing a bowline. Admittedly with any strain on easier to make your round turn with two half-hitches, but there wasn't any tension on the line, that was taken up back on board.
But if Eric Hiscock did it then it must be textbook, I suppose, I always religiously follow all his other tips.
prv
Well-Known Member
I can't easily watch it here at work, but if the turns went round the standing part both in the same direction then it was topologically two half hitches rather than a reef knot. A reef knot capsizes into a lark's head when one of the lines is straight, ie one turn one way and the other back the other way.
(Or, with the the two half hitches progressing in towards the trunk rather than out towards the boat, it would have been a buntline hitch, but that would have been very wrong as the whole point of a buntline hitch is that you can't undo the bugger. I've used it for its namesake purpose when bending on a new upper topsail. Though, with a turn round a rough tree-trunk, it's unlikely to draw itself up too tight.)
Did he do a round turn round the tree trunk, or just a half-turn?
Yep, literally textbook
. Look in any RYA beginner's book and it will tell you that the "proper" knot for the shore end of a mooring line is a round turn and two half hitches.That said, I think if I was rigging this shoreline I'd probably have made a round turn to reduce chafe, and then a bowline just like you
Pete
BrianH
Well-Known Member
Quite right, sloppy terminology on my part, can't call it a reef-knot in a single line. I should have written two half hitches, which I couldn't see the detail of.
Half-turn then the two half hitches. It's really what raised the eyebrows. Sorry, shouldn't have been so pedantic, it would have done the job and held the ship in what was calm water.
[Note to self: stop being a nit-picking old git]
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