Early Bird 2

 

The morning tide turns before dawn, in the stillness of the night. 

Today we are  "sittin' on the dock of bay, watchin' the tide roll away" (in the words of Otis Redding). Re rigging the topping lift, which wasn't quite to my liking on yesterday's sail downriver; and persuading the new wind instrument to show me apparent, as well as true, windspeed.

Skylarks, high above the salt marsh, pour cascades of silvery notes onto a shoreline alive with, intently feeding, wading birds: Boldly marked Avocet pace the shallows.

Godwit too, still in their winter plumage. Their jaunty red summer feathers still to brighten their breasts.

Steadily the warmth of sun disperses a fine morning mist. The wind turbines begin to rotate in a breeze which is broadly out of the north east. Sometimes a little more northerly. Sometimes a little more easterly. Affected, no doubt by the serpentine banks of the Medway.

Tomorrow, the first day of British Summer Time, the sun should be up and the wind filling in, by the time that the tide turns. We will decide whether to head north, for the Orwell, or east, to Ramsgate once Stargazer is off Garrison Point. According to which course the wind direction, out in the London River, favours.

Early Bird 1

 

The spicy fragrance, of toasted hot cross buns, fills my nostrils. The song, of myriad marsh birds, fills my ears. A peace settles over me.

The whispering north easterly breeze flutters the flag at Stargazer's cross trees.

It spills over the top of the mud walls, which surround us, leaving the water barely ruffled. The cockpit warm and still.

We are at an anchor in the tranquility of, what we call, Godwit Creek. Poised, at the mouth of the Medway, to catch the ebb tide out of the London River.

This morning, once the sea fog lifted, we beat down river. Tweaking our new mainsail. Checking rig tensions. Learning to use the new instrument displays. Enjoying the magic of being under sail once more. A shakedown cruise ahead of us. 

Making Ready, No More

Stargazer's Vectran mainsail arrived this morning, borne by Alan and Sarah of Wilkinson Sails. (Full story behind Stargazer's sail choice here)

It is a perfect day to ascend the mast, to pin the rig; and to bend on the new sail. Sunny and tranquil.

We waste no time in trying it for size.

Even in today's light zephyr, it sets with a purposeful curve. Promising powerful performance.

Wilkinson have done us proud.

 

The day passes quickly. The sail yo-yoing up and down the mast, as I find the best settings for reef lines and halyards. Marking their positions, with coloured whippings, for ease of operation.

Now, after five months of Making Ready, we are ready. All that is needed is a fair breeze, which we have; and a fair tide, which we will have very shortly. Our season is begun!

Making Ready 10

 

The creak of a mooring line. The tap of a halyard. The lap of water. Stargazer has come back to life, after her winter ashore. Her mast is re-stepped, her new instruments are commissioned, the gearbox oil topped off and the genoa bent on.

Below decks a 'teenager's bedroom' turmoil reigns. Necessitated by the requirement to simultaneously access engine, transducers and mast-wiring junction box during the first moments of relaunch.

Soon order is restored. I feel an inner contentment descend.

We have been fortunate. A weekend of calm sunny weather, perfect for antifouling, preceded our March the first lift slot . Which Wayne-the-crane held for us, notwithstanding the backlog of storm postponements.

Now we await the arrival of our new mainsail and the return of of our re-rigged boom.

 The days lengthen. The sun strengthens. Provisions come aboard. We prepare to sail south.

To the east, "The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere

The ceremony of innocence is drowned." (The Second Coming, W B Yeats, 1921).

Help displaced Ukranian civilians here  Disasters Emergency Committee

Help the Ukranian Army here Army SOS

 

Of Freedom

 

Today, on the first day of spring, Stargazer is returned to her element.

A shorebound winter is behind us. A summer of carefree seaborne wandering beckons.

The joyous taste of freedom is on my lips. As it must have been, for the citizens of Eastern Europe, as the Berlin Wall fell and the Soviet empire crumbled, more than three decades ago.

Now Putin's (I will not say Russia's) winter-dark army marches through Ukraine. Laying waste. Seeking to, once more, lower an Iron Curtain across the continent. To shut off the nurturing light of spring. To stifle the fragile blossom of freedom.

Depaul is an established charity, working within Ukraine, to support those made homeless. Please click here to find out more, or to make a donation.

Picture Credits

1. Stargazer, Porth Cressa, Scilly, 2021     Me

2. Ploumanac'h, 2020                                Me

3. Fall of the Berlin Wall, 1989                 John Tlumack, Boston Globe

4. Kyviv drone shot, 2021                          Oleg Petrasiuk

5. Ukranian homeless                                Depaul International

Making Ready 9

A succession of storms, Dudley, Eunice, Franklin and their kin, fed by an active Atlantic jet stream, halt pre-launch preparations.

Stargazer’s tiller, re-varnished over the winter evenings, is shipped. The furling drum serviced and refitted. The mast re-rigged and ready to restep. Cutting has commenced on the Vectran mainsail. But the smooth sweep, of the launch countdown clock’s hands, is stayed.

Wayne-the-crane has been unable to lift for two full weeks. Leaving craft stranded either ashore or afloat. It is too windy even to apply the antifouling, to the now thoroughly cured epoxy. Wet paint would spatter onto the topsides of neighbouring boats. There is nothing to be done but wait patiently, for a lull.

But when Mother Nature closes one door she, often as not, opens another. This is bracing walking weather. I don my boots. Setting out beneath the bare boughed trees, which whip in the breeze, atop the sea wall. Seeking their shelter.

At Hollowshore, where Oare and Faversham creeks meet, before flowing into the Swale, the Shipwrights Arms hunkers down in the shelter of the dyke.

A RIB (Rigid Hulled Inflatable) skims upriver, on the flood. An outsize Union Jack at her stern. The sound of her engine whipped away, by the buffeting bellow of the wind.

It streaks toward Faversham's Iron Wharf boatyard. Where whitecaps dot the turbid brown water. A fierce wind fighting a determined tide, between low grassy banks.

The stalwart yard launch butts up the swirling river, spray blowing back from her bluff bows.

Until the shelter of the saltings is reached. Where hibernating sailing barges slumber peacefully, in their mud berths, as they have every winter since time immemorial.

The tongue, of making tide, advances inexorably toward the head of the creek. Wind wracked sedge and meadow land give way to neatly tended gardens. Houses line the banks, offering a welcome lee. Calming the waters.

As each storm heads west, to make more mischief in mainland Europe, it is replaced with another. Stargazer is safe. But, day by day, fallen roof slates, fencing and guttering accumulate in my garden. Chin stroking contractors pace through the debris, pursing their lips, as they prepare their quotes. Happily my roof is tiled, meaning that the slates have blown in from elsewhere.

It seems that Stargazer may not be relaunched, as scheduled, on the first of March. There is no hurrying Mother Nature. Nor, once she relents, and the winds subside, Wayne and his crane crew, who must work to clear a backlog of boats. Our sailing season has begun with a judicious reminder, that wind and weather are the ultimate arbiters, in any cruising plan.

Picture Credits

 1.   Storm Eunice, Porthcawl                          Getty Images

 2,3 Stargazer, Chatham Dockyard                  Me

 4 ,5,6,7,8, 9,10  Faversham Creek                  Me 

11. Storm Eunice, Le Four, Chenal du Four    Ewan Lebourdais

12. Stargazer, Ile de Brehat                              Me

Saxon Shore 10

 

From China, across the squall strewn Indian Ocean . Through the steep, ship-breaking seas, of the Mozambique Channel . To round the Cape of Good Hope, where the meeting of three oceans mounds the waves high . Then the long haul north, the length of the Atlantic, to England . Crowding on canvas for every hour of that fifteen thousand mile passage. 

Taeping and Aeriel vie for the title of first clipper home . Cradling the precious new season's crop, of China tea, in their holds . For the glory . For the fame . For the wealth that it will bring .

Cutty Sark floats serenely on a sea of mullioned glass . The gingerbread work, on her shapely stern, aflame in the winter sun . Framing her famous name.

Her cut-water hull . Built for sea-kindly fast passage-making - and for cargo carrying capacity . Toned and taut.

She reclines resplendent in a Greenwich dry dock berth . Her mighty rig dwarfing skeletal trees and waterfront buildings alike . Standing ready to harness the wind's energy . And transform it, once more, into a silent rush of globe circling speed.

Cutty Sark was launched, on the twenty second of November 1869, into a mercantile world on the cusp of a paradigm shift . 

For the day of the steamship had dawned . And the shortcut Suez canal had opened .  Cementing the economic advantage, of piston power over sail, on the China sea-trade route . She fought to be home first, from Fuzhou, for just eight short years . Before the era of the China tea clippers ended forever.

 Undaunted, Cutty Sark carved a new niche, on the merino wool run, from Australia . Through the Southern Ocean . Riding the icy unfettered winds, of the Furious Fifties and the Roaring Forties, with the wandering albatross . Rounding the tempestuous tumult of Cape Horn ; where steamships feared to swim.

 Storming past the stoic penguins of Patagonia and the Falkland Isles . Slowing in the heat soaked, wind starved, Doldrums ; with the lazily soaring tropic bird circling her mastheads . Leaving Recife, on the bulge of Brazil, to port . Seeking out the north east trades . Swooping home, over the swells of the western approaches.

 Tired and travel worn . Bought and sold . Changing owners, renamed, multiple times . Her fortunes slowly declined, along with her cargoes, over ensuing decades. 

Until, stormbound and disheveled, she sought shelter in Falmouth’s Carrick Roads . Where the seafaring eye, of captain Wilfred Dowman, piercing her crusting of salt rime, perceived her true pedigree . Recognised her as the last of a noble line .  He vowed to preserve her for national posterity.

Cutty Sark's return to the London River has proved her salvation . Likewise, my return today, to the streets of London, has borne fruit. A Visa de Long Sejour is proudly pasted into my passport. Granting, Stargazer and I, the freedom to roam French waters at will, for a full six months this summer.

Picture Credits:

1. 'The Mighty Clippers' by Montague Dawson    Bonhams Auction House

2. Cutty Sark cargo hold                                       Roamingrequired.com

3. Cutty sark stern view                                         CNN

4. Cutty Sark bow view                                          Roamingrequired.com

5. Cutty Sark                                                          Krzystof Belczynski

6. 'Cutty Sark' by Louis Papaluca                         Getty Images

7. Felixstowe container port                                 Me 

8. 'Wandering Albatross in Flight'                        Mike Double

9. Cutty Sark                                                         Lloyd's Register archive

10. Cutty Sark, renamed Ferreira                        National Maritime Museum

11. Stargazer, Carrick Roads, Falmouth              Me

12. 'Sailing into the Sunset,' Falmouth                Me