An Autumn Day in Cornwall

[weeladdie18]

Tuesday 9 October was a cool start at 12 c. A sunny day with temperatures rising to 18 C....An afternoon to row round the dinghy pontoon
at the Helford River sailing club. ...A late afternoon sail in the club 16 foot wayfarers. ....I sailed with a mum and her two children....
Enough wind to let both children have a go at helming.....We ran out of wind just before sun set and standard procedure prevailed .
The fleet cover boat towed us back to our mooring.
Two boats were taken ashore for the winter. The evening tide rose nearly to the height of the dinghy park. Looking to the local
Shipwrights Arms the coloured lights in the beer garden were shining across the water.......never seen the tide so high..................
about 7.5 metres.......Plenty of fallen leaves on the ground now........the forecast wind did not arrive......

An earlier Mackerel Sky showed there is plenty of wind to come .
A wet day is forecast for Saturday. ....Watch this space... .............................................. Rod

[weeladdie18]

Wednesday.....sunny start.. forecast is S E 4 to 6.......Yachtsmans Gale......heavy dew last night......steamy windows.....Rod

[Kirbstone]

Today was our very best glorious Autumn day, 19deg., surely the last of the season. Forecast says rain on each day until Sunday, which they say will be sunny and dry, but cooler.
With record low water table levels after our driest year so far, we need lots of rain and I fear that the forecast rain will be woefully insufficient. Last year Ophelia arrived and caught our trees in full leaf, which act like a sail and hundreds were felled Country-wide, including two 60-footers in our grounds. We could do with the associated rain, but not the wind.

Rob, I envy your freedom to sail each day if you want. I'm nuts about Drascome Luggers, but they're wet boats and I'm getting to old for that now.

Yes, there were two ferries over to Skye, the Mallaig one which still operates, the other at Kyle of Lochalsh, which was replaced by the bridge. Somewhere I have a photo of the bridge under construction with the two halves just a couple of feet away from joining.....taken from that ferry.

Tom

[crfriend]

Yes, there were two ferries over to Skye, the Mallaig one which still operates, the other at Kyle of Lochalsh, which was replaced by the bridge. Somewhere I have a photo of the bridge under construction with the two halves just a couple of feet away from joining.....taken from that ferry.

Please find that photo and post it. The engineer in me adores that sort of stuff!

One of my treats a number of years ago was driving over the old Jamestown Bridge in Rhode Island to see its replacement (which is already "structurally deficient") rise not more than about 20 metres to the north. The old one was a bit terrifying in certain types of weather. I believe I have a sequence of photos taken by someone else just before the original's demolition, and I have a sequence of stills of the actual shot that put the old girl in the Bay.

[weeladdie18]

Try this one for a story .......Auste ? to Beachley ferry before the bridge was built across the river Severn into Wales. Must have been 1950 / 60
We were waiting for the ferry into Wales .The ferry was postponed due to sea conditions.......Eventually the ferry loaded cars.
There was a turntable in the middle of the deck to position the cars at the gunnel of the vessel with the passengers looking through the windscreen
at the sea......... The ferry got under way and was rolling in the swell.

Suddenly the car next to us rolled forward and hit the gunnel......The driver said to his wife ,

" There is a lot noise, I think we must have gone aground. " ...........................................

My father said to me ......"That gentleman must learn how to use his handbrake. "................

[weeladdie18]

Rossilly ? Bay , Worms head.....1950's belly board surfing country Aberech , Abersoch , Perthelli ? .sailing a Graduate with some fellow campers.

We were camping in the sand dunes between the railway line from Perthelli and the sea . One afternoon the Welsh rain came .
The campsite started to flood. Our frame tent was moved to higher ground whilst still erected......The dog heard a couple of lads
playing a harmonica in a very small tent . He went into the tent out of the rain and started howling at the top of his Voice.

By 9 pm that evening the new sleeping arrangements were agreed. ....My parents and I would sleep on the bench seat in the front of
our Ford Consul..... The dog would have the back seat all to himself.........The dog spent all night washing himself.

At five o'clock in the morning a soggy camper tapped on the outside of the car window and asked ...
" Please can you tell me the time of the next train to Manchester ? ................A Welsh Holiday to remember.............Rod.

[weeladdie18]

There was a local story regarding the manual level crossing used to get across the railway track to the beach and the campsite
Early one morning the local train was coming from the terminus.....The story goes that the driver was in the rear of the train
with the guard, sorting out their bets on the horses for that day.....The level crossing gate attendant was
sleeping off the previous night's beer, and the train went through the gates, while the gates were closed across the line.

[weeladdie18]

Went down to Porthallow on Wednesday morning ....fresh wind from the S.E. ...... Plenty of white horses out in Falmouth Bay.
Back to the Helford River laying up the wayfarers......a sunny afternoon ....shirt sleeves and shorts.
Big tides again with the moon.....Water over the top of the old pier and the dinghy park. Low tide 0.4 M.....High Tide 7.5 M ...Rise 7.1 M

3 days of wind and rain forecast................Sun again on Sunday......................I see they are having problems in Florida ....We might get
the end of that Weather System next month as our November Gales.

Autumn Equinox was 23 of September............................. Wed..... we salvaged a nice little angling boat with a 60 H P outboard.

Reports of Big bass , Little Joeys ( small Mackerel ) and squid; coming inshore.........
Plenty of mackerel some days back in the summer when local sea temperature was up to 19 C ......

[weeladdie18]

Windows 8.1. has now upgraded itself......but it is still playing up......one of the old theories was that windows was not powerful enough
to keep pace with the systems the big American forums use.....I think I will stick to voyaging under sail......................Rod.

[weeladdie18]

Tom...I do not know much about Drasccombe Luggers..... nice sailing boat for messing about on the river...... we have not had much
serious wind to put her through her paces....we usually had to motor home to catch the ferry ashore.
One story I heard was that the boat was designed for a troup of boy scouts to sail, so the boat had plenty of bits of string for
the crew to pull.
The first question is the value of the mizzen....some folks are trying to tell me the boat does not need a mizzen.
Another theory is to tighten the mizzen when going about....and pay the sail off when going through the eye of the wind.
There is probably a theory regarding the slot effect between the mizzen and the main.
I would personally use a large mizzen and a large genoa, and loose sail area by reefing the main.

Do you have any advice regarding the best way to use the sail plan , or thoughts on modifying the sail plan to make it more efficient ?......rod

[Kirbstone]

Rob,
I'm no expert on Drascomes either, never having owned one. I've had a few sails in two specimens, one in Baltimore, Co. Cork, 'Lugnasa', which later was sailed right round Ireland in 2015 by two grandsons of close friends, the other on Lough Derg on the Shannon, fresh water of course.

Suffice it to say that both were happier off the wind and not beating into it. I suspect the mizzen mostly aft of the transom was used when hove-to fishing, to keep the bow to windward. A trick gleaned no doubt from larger old fishing boats. The main is gunther-rig, like a Mirror dinghy, very practical as spars are short for transportation. The jib is small with minimal overlap. Can self-tack, useful for single-handed sailing. Performance to windward only so-so as minimal overlap with the mains'l. Slot effect between mizzen & main? Forget it. They're too far apart.

Carl, 1995 was the year. We attended a daughter's graduation in Manchester and headed N. to Skye via the Lake District in Cumbria & Fort William/Lochaber. That year we accessed Skye via the Mallaig ferry, South of the Sound of Sleat. We departed the island on the Northerly, or Kyle of Lochalsh ferry and there I took the attached pic. No great quality alas as it's been scannned from an album. The other bridge pics were found on 'The Net'.

Tom

[Kirbstone]

Rs Lugnasa.png

Drascome 'Lugnasa' rounding Ireland in 29 days. Pic. taken from 'Classic Boat' Dec. 2015

[crfriend]

Drascome 'Lugnasa' rounding Ireland in 29 days. Pic. taken from 'Classic Boat' Dec. 2015

That, to the very best of my knowledge, is the only vessel I have seen with a stern-sprit.

Close-hauling the mizzen must've been close to impossible -- and absolutely no "slot" effect.

[weeladdie18]

We call the sternsprit a bumpkin....as far as I can remember the mizzen mast is on the centreline if the vessel and the bumpkin is offset
at its mounting point in the transom. The outboard end of the bumpkin with the block for the mizzen sheet is on the centreline of the vessel.

You are correct regarding the slot effect as the main sail is what I would call a sliding gunter rig, and the mizzen is burmudian rig.
If the vessel has a good sailing wind the outboard engine will not be in use and should be tilted out of the water using the slot in the transom.
the hull length is about 19 feet.
If you have time , look at the Beer Lugger.....My new boat is number 12...Moon Dance. This class of boat has a dipping lugsail rig on the main sail and
a standing lug sail rig on the mizzen....This is a Ketch Rigged Vessel. The mizzen mast is offset to starboard with the Tack of the mizzen forward of the mast. ......The rig is an 1880 Rig modified for racing.....The yards are more vertically raked and the third mast has been removed from its position
between the now main mast and the mizzen. ....in the position of the step of the third mast there is now an " Iron Topsail " sitting in the bilges.
On my vessel this is a 10 H.P. Japanese Diesel Engine.

The other major difference is that the Drascombe Lugger has a rudder forward of the mizzen mast and a lifting centre board
and the Beer Lugger has a full length Rocker Keel. Moon Dance has a transom hung rudder, and when sailing ,...the blade of the rudder is below
the propeller and the rocker keel. The Beer Lugger also has twin bilge keels for launching and recovery straight off the steep pebble beach.

The modern 26 foot Beer working boats launch stern first down the beach on Hard Holly Boughs lubricated with chip fat oil.
Must be forty years ago , I had one of the old 24 foot beer Motor Fishing Boats. Back in the Great Days of Sail and Oar these vessels would work
two handed off the beach and land 2000 mackerel in a days handlining......that is another story......................Rod

[weeladdie18]

Tom, Thanks for the Drascombe photo.....The lads are sailing at a good pace.....the helmsman is using the tiller extentention.
The mizzen sheet is visible going through the transom just to starboard of the bumpkin.

The more modern boats would have probably have a main sheet running on a skate or a horse across the inside of the transom.
This boat looks as if she has only one main sheet block attached to the hull. The sliding gunter main is loose footed.
The problem is getting the clew of the sail in the best position.

Nice to see a white cottage on the shore line.