Motorboats

I have to say while I'm a sailor at heart, there is nothing quite like a sleek powerful motorboat.

And this is nothing like a sleek powerful motorboat.

Old Portsmouth

Although only a few miles away it's been ages since we visited Old Portsmouth, but with evening coming on around 4 pm it made an interesting walk, watching the sun setting over the Solent.

Our walk ended on a spit which forms part of the old Camber docks, unsurprisingly there are a couple of pubs, this one the "Still and West" has been reputedly serving local sailors since 1300 or so.

Just next door is the Spice Island Inn, so called as a result of the spice trade ships which would land here as far back as Sir Walter Raleigh's day. Today the pub is operated by a brewery chain, but the façade is much more interesting, the decorative stonework advertises "Brickwoods Brilliant Ales & Stouts."

Just across the Camber entrance is Gun Wharf Quay, a development of the old naval docks with the Spinnaker Tower, we've never seen it lit up in colours this this, perhaps its been done especially for Christmas?

Walking back down the old narrow streets we passed the club house for the Victory Class boats, which have raced the Alfred Westmacott designed 21 foot keel boat from Portsmouth since 1934.

A strict one design and distinctively clinker built, the class has recently introduced a GRP version. However to ensure the longevity of some of the older boats the class is offering these boats effectively free to someone who will undertake to restore and campaign them.

Winter Rowing

It was a day just too good to miss, not a cloud in the sky, cool but not the biting cold we've endured during the past weeks. Plans to spend Sunday on DIY were shelved (excuse the pun).

It took a while to get the skiff out of the garage, or at least remove the accumulated junk which has found convenient storage space in an empty boat over the past month or so.

Still as a mill pond, I had the river almost to myself, well me, some oyster catchers, egrets, curlews and a flock of black geese, who have arrived recently for the winter.

Apologies if you missed the brisk exercise followed by a bacon sandwich and steaming cup of tea down at the cafe, but the pictures give a hint of what it was like - bliss!!

Fixer up opportunity?

Spotted this J Boat yacht recently in a local yard, I think she must be J-133 Justice which was wrecked on the north Kent coast last January.

There's some footage and explanation of the event on youtube.

National Maritime Museum's photostream

The National Maritime Museum has put up some of their archive photo's on Flickr. There are some fantastic pictures of sailing ships, the lives and boats of fishing communities and working boats on the Thames.

Some of my favorites are the small working rowing boats, here is a boatman rowing past St Paul's Cathedral in the early days of the 20th Century.

Rowing off St Paul's

Here the Police patrol the London Docks circa 1890, although I don't suppose he's testing for water quality.

Police Patrol

This German U boat the U155 (still flying the German flag) is moored above Tower Bridge, the year was 1919. The U155 was untypically built as a commercial blockade breaking submarine, she was taken over by the German Navy in 1917 and armed with two torpedo tubes and a gun deck. U155 surrendered on 24th November 1918 and was brought to England where she was put on exhibition. She was broken up in Morecambe in 1922.

U155

National Maritime Museum have posted some great examples from their collection, let's hope they add more soon.

Most of the images are marked "no known copywrite" so I hope the National Maritime Museum won't mind me posting them here - if I have infringed any permissions please let me know and I will remove them with apologies.

Local Classics

Just a few classic yachts we're fortunate to have around Bursledon pool.

The first is Clough, built in the 1920's on the east coast, she looks like she's built of teak, her current owners certainly keep her in pristine condition and she has the benefit of a big gaff rig, so she sails as well as she looks.

I don't know much about this double ender, someone suggested that she is an Alfred Westmacott design (famous for the Sunbeam and other keel boats).

Will I ever get my varnish as good as this? Varen as she is named, shows the Clyde Cruising Club on her transom, but is in fact a very local yacht having been built by A H Moody in Swanwick some 50 years ago.

Snow Joke

Down on the south coast we get so little snow that we had it in mind that the recent falls in Dover and Calais meant the snow had passed us by. Couldn't have been more wrong!

A cool five or more inches had fallen in as many hours.

As the day dawned we were greeted with the still falling snow and some abandoned cars.

So in the midst of all this unseasonally early weather, here's a reminder that only two months ago one of us was digging in the sand rather than making snowmen!

Only another three weeks and the nights will start drawing out!!