How did you learn to row?

I seem to be doing a lot more rowing than sailing these days, and certainly a lot of my posts (and indeed the blogs I follow) are about rowing. Which all got me to thinking about how I got started in rowing and how maybe others didn't perhaps get the opportunity to learn to row as youngsters and develop a skill which frankly I tend to take for granted.

There was no opportunity for rowing at school , but my Dad always messed around with boats on the Thames near our home. In my early years we had a collection of rather tatty wooden motorboats, all of which spent rather more time in the back garden than they did on the water. One exception was a small clinker sailing dinghy, which was small enough for me to row when I was around six or seven.

It was in the Sea Scouts that I really had the chance to develop some rowing experience (1st Datchet troop, which was actually based in Langley close to the Ford factory but who's counting) . The scout leader was an ex merchant navy stoker called Tony Mann, rough as they come, but good hearted with it.

We would go off to weekend camp (at every opportunity) to a site called Longridge near Marlow, where the Scout Association had an activity centre on the Thames. There we learned to row in wooded four man gigs. The Skipper would tell us, "you're Sea Scouts so it's up to you to show these green 'brussel sprouts' how it's done".

The routine was to come alongside smartly, at the command "way enough" oars were brought aboard, crutches (no such thing as rowlocks) fitted into holes in the thwarts, fenders put out and at the last moment the cox would ship the rudder, as the boat slipped to a halt alongside the main jetty and the "bridge" where the skipper would be keeping watch. Woe betide anyone who dropped a crutch or forgot to put a fender out, or the cox who dropped the rudder on the bottom boards with a thud. "Round again" and we'd set off to do it right next time; round again meant once around the island, about a 15 minute row. We all learned pretty fast and for those who were especially lax or lazy there was the occasional "volunteer" for man overboard drill!

For three or four years in my early teens, that's how I would spend summer weekends, cycling the 12 miles or so each way to go rowing at any and every opportunity. All too soon though the rowing gave way to other teenage pursuits, motorcycles and girls. For a while the rowing was forgotten. The university I attended was as far from the sea in any direction as it's possible to be in the United Kingdom, there was little scope for rowing other than the occasional hire boat on the river at Stratford-Upon -Avon.

It wasn't until I bought a small yacht a few years later than I realised how much I enjoyed rowing, there was as much fun to be had pottering around the anchorage in the tender, as there was sailing.

Thirty odd years later and those lessons are still with me, I find as much pleasure rowing along the river in the quiet of a cold winter day as I do giving it all in the local regatta.

So drop me a line - how did you get started?

Keep on - Keep turning Left

I’m sure many of you will have seen Dylan Winter’s “Keep Turning Left” series of video’s on youtube, which document his circumnavigation of these British Isles in an elderly Mirror Offshore yacht.

I got a really nice email from Dylan the other day and asked him for some more background to his trip.

Episode one started locally, on the Isle of Wight, covering a trip from Bembridge to Chichester Harbour.

Dylan admits that in the early stages of the trip he was just working out how to combine the camera and the sailing. In his own words “Lots of wobble- vision and wind noise in the early vids.”

Does anyone remember Hot Metal the sit com from the 1980’s, editor Russell Spam (Thomas Hardy) introduced a different version of “wobble vision” on page 3 of the fictional newspaper – send me an email if you want more detail!

Dylan has been doing both sailing and working as a cameraman for many years – but not at the same time. He seems to have mastered both disciplines, his later progams are all shot HD.

He reports on the trip.

“When I started out I had intended to do just a series of coastal hops – like most circumnavigators. I thought it might take me two summers. But work commitments meant that I stopped on the Medway for two months. I hired a drying pontoon mooring for £10 a month and had a fantastic time on a river I barely knew existed. I now feel bad about having swept past some great rivers – the Arun looks wonderful from google earth (fantastic resource) and to spend just one night in Chichester harbour was bordering on the criminal.

I then realized that to sail past the mouth of Britain’s splendid rivers was a terrible wasted opportunity – so plans changed and the journey is much more about the rivers than the sea passages. I have resolved to go as far up all the rivers I come across, as my keels, mast and tide will allow – and I am even prepared to drop the mast and venture inland. The upper Medway was beautiful but I hate the sound of the engine. I am working on a viable sculling set up.

I love old boats and birds – and even mud”

Just as a bit of background Dylan is really an east coast sailor and used to race E-Boats and Sonatas, as well as dinghies (Enterprises, Firefly’s, GP14s and Hornets).

“The reason for doing the journey is that I feel it is a bit sad to have lived on an island all my life and never sailed around it.

I know the mirror offshore is probably one of the ugliest boats ever made – but it is the smallest boat I could find with a diesel inboard and a separate heads – mine was built in 1965 in the days before they invented osmosis.

And it’s British.
It sails like a slug compared to the E-Boat and Sonata but it does offer full crouching headroom, two six foot six inch berths.

But it was cheap (£2,200) and sits on the mud or sand or concrete and I intend to keep on abandoning her to return home for work.

I can lower the mast by myself as it is only 17 foot long – I lay it along the cabin top and put a giant tarpaulin over the whole thing. It’s a mobile boat shed.

I have a massive list of jobs to do on it – but decided to set off and do them as I go. You would be amazed to find out how many “essentials” seem unnecessary – although a gear box that allowed me to select fwd or reverse without removing the companionway steps would be nice. The roller reefing is in a pretty dire condition and the boat leaks a little – but I don’t know where from. “

Dylan’s in good company with his choice of a Mirror Offshore, I recall an account in the early 80’s of a trip the length of the Danube in one, when the Danube was still in the eastern block.

You can find his videos

http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=DCCD9E425AB79637

The old ones are all here in the right order

http://www.youtube.com/user/KeepTurningLeft

http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=9D27C44BBBB3FD10

Finally Dylan would welcome any feedback from sailors about the mix of boats, birds and battles.

I think it’s all great, clearly the more gaffers the better, I also agree with him about the rivers, please leave your comments.

Back in the Water

One of the good things about living close to the boatyard, is being able to take equipment off the boat and store it safely for the winter. Here's my father-in-law wheeling the main mast back to the boat. It's been in the garage since November, safe and dry. With four new coats of varnish as a "touch up" over winter, the spars are looking really nice (see post Winter Work).

Greta is a Cornish Yawl, built by Cornish Crabbers she was in fact the prototype which was owned and fitted out by the designer Roger Dongray and exhibited at the Earls Court Boat show London in 1988. Over winter she's been ashore at a local boatyard where I replaced the cutlass bearing and repacked the stern gland along with the normal winter work of polishing and anti fouling.

When we arrived with the mast, Greta was already on the slipway, there was a big spring tide and the yard was taking the opportunity to launch as many boats as possible ahead of the upcoming Easter weekend.

Just as I was motoring her down the river to her berth there was an unexpected hailstorm and of course I had forgotten my wet weather gear. I got completely soaked. However the sun eventually came back out once she was safely on her mooring.

This is Greta at the end of last season, one of the really frustrating aspects of a counter stern is the water splashing over the boot line staining her otherwise gleaming topsides. This year I'm going to make much more of an effort to keep her well scrubbed. But then again I might just go sailing!!!

Volvo Ocean Race

I went to get a haircut yesterday. 'Little Sean' the barber, who knows I sail, announced that he was "doing the Volvo Ocean Race".

Suitable impressed, I asked him when it was leaving, only to be told that he's an online competitor in a virtual version of the race.

Check out the link http://www.volvooceanracegame.org/home.php there are over 100,000 competitors sailing virtual yachts around the virtual world.

If you read Tillerman http://propercourse.blogspot.com/ who's Laser sailing exploits include trying to sail more than 100 days during 2008, a virtual Laser event might be just the thing,or maybe not.

Misty Morning

Running along the river first thing this morning was fantastic, it was misty and still, but very noisy as if the local bird population were using the mist as cover.

Further down river where the outgoing tide revealed the mud flats, the wading birds were having a great time at the water's edge. There were Curlews, Oyster Catchers and several other varieties. I'm not especially good at identification so there might have been Sanderlings, Redshanks, definitely a duck or three, including a Shellduck and some Brent Geese who are regular winter visitors.

These two Oyster Catchers were making quite a racket, despite being safely perched on top of the old wrecked MFV (Motor Fishing Boat) out in the river.

Winter Work

Three masts, three booms, two gaffs and a bowsprit, all needing a few coats of varnish before the start of the season - there are also two sets of oars which could do with some attention but they will have to wait!!

The aim is to have them all looking like poured honey, but the reality is they will look smart, but no where near the polished perfection to which I secretly aspire.

Work, life and getting out on the water all get in the way!