An Autumn Day in Cornwall

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weeladdie18
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An Autumn Day in Cornwall

Post by weeladdie18 »

Today is Tuesday 2 ND of October ,cooler with temperatures down to 20 C , slight drizzle and gusty winds as a cold front went through.
The farmers are now harvesting their Oil Seed Rape ........
Dingy sailing was cancelled on the Helford River in Cornwall, so the brave went out into Falmouth Bay on a 30 FT yacht ....
Wind strength Westerly 16 gusting 22 Knots...... A pleasant sail for the novice sailors learning to helm a yacht.
Many of the yachts will be laying up the end of this month and staying ashore until Easter.
Still less than 3 inches of rain since August ...an unusually dry year.....looks like poor weather to come for Saturday and Sunday....weeladdie
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Kirbstone
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Re: An Autumn Day in Cornwall

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Our 'Indian Summer' lasted until yesterday, with notably cooler nights & also day temps. than before.

Last w/end however, was a peach. On Saturday my old Alma Mater Rockwell College staged the official opening of their new state-of-the-art sports pavilion. It was a glorious day and I drove the 'old road' down to Co. Tipperary for a trip down memory lane. They served about 500 of us in the refectory a delightful cold luncheon with choice of wine at 1PM, followed at about 2.30 by a sort-of garden fete down by the new pav., with a brass band and refreshments, presumably for those who didn't attend the luncheon. The speechifying went on a bit, but it was such a glorious occasion and day that nobody complained.

Everybody was dressed to the nines and that meant that the ladies present were almost 100% in dresses or skirtsuits. All the blokes were sporting old School ties, of course.

Leaving the place I had had enough sightseeing and I did the tunnel concrete vision thing all the way home on the motorway. No skirting.

Sunday was galley-slaving with other geriatrics, but it's glorious to be out on the water at 08.00 hours, now with the Autumn mist filtering the low Sun. Great work-out and thus fortified with endorphins I relished the drive home to a serious breakfast. There followed a Bridge afternoon with old friends on their penthouse terrace some eleven floors up in South Dublin suburbs, with zero wind, nearly 20 degrees and panoramic views of Dublin Bay and the mountains too. Afterwards there was 'high tea'...literally. All glorious.

Tom
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weeladdie18
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Re: An Autumn Day in Cornwall

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Tom, Pleased you had a weekend to remember...Sailing club Wayfarer sailing was cancelled yesterday afternoon due to low tides and 16 knot winds.
Four of us went out on a 31 foot yacht owned by the one of the club members. This gave the novice adults a chance to helm a yacht.
A pleasant enough sail , given the grey conditions and wind squalling up to 22 Knots. .....First time I have sailed in and out of the Helford River
in all my years of sailing . It is interesting to experience this type of estuary sailing as I have walked much of the cliff paths to get some idea of
how the landmarks show up from the opposite shore of the river. We sailed two miles down the river to get into open waters of Falmouth Bay.
Last winter Storm Emma brought a 21 foot tidal wave up the river and lifted the pontoon system over the top piles holding the pontoons in place.
It is hard to believe a winter storm with waves generated in the Atlantic Ocean can do so much damage to a peaceful traditional
Maritime Community......
The WW11 story tells of the High volume of American G.I.s who embarked from the beaches below the big houses to land Units on the shores of Normandy in the D.Day landings.

Folk law tells of a land of Pirates and Smugglers .....
It is easy to imagine the heritage of the river when voyaging along its wooded shores in a sailing craft......weeladdie
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Kirbstone
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Re: An Autumn Day in Cornwall

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Weeladdie,
Your weekend sailing exploits stir old memories in me. I remember crewing a Wayfarer skipper round the cans in the Solent in the Southern Wayfarer champs. They ran it even though conditions were boystrous/marginal with a long windward leg, long running leg and a short base leg close to Lee-on-Solent. My skipper had us lead the fleet into lap two, but approaching the gybe point around the first downwind buoy we were pitch-poled over the bow, I flew into the water through between mast and left shroud, the mast buried itself in the sand/mud and snapped, so we had to be picked up by rescue boat. So much for pushing a Wayfarer hard.
We sailed our Albacore for years out of the Hamble River SC. Later I shared a Westerley GK29 'Get Kool' and sailed her all along the S coast, edging into Dartmouth, Salcombe, Helford, Falmouth & St Mawes among other beauty spots. Consider yourself privileged to live there, destructive storms notwithstanding.

Tom
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Re: An Autumn Day in Cornwall

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I sailed from Castle Cove in Portland Harbour from the late sixties until 2012 which was the Olympic year.
There was a fleet of Albacores there until 1967 or 1968.
I can remember the Fireflies in Studland Bay back in the fifties .
They were a smaller Uffa Fox Design than the Albacore....
I have sailed in a Flying Dutchman ,....Jolly Boat...Enterprise....Scorpion ,..... a couple of catamarans......
I even sailed a Laser back in 1971.
In my early days of club sailing the local traditional clinker built sixteen footers were still popular ...we had the Viking .....
Weymouth Sailing Club had the Weymouth Falcon...both were modern Burmudan Sloop Rigged Boats.
My first boat was a 12 clinker sliding gunter sloop.....believed to be an Axmouth one design.

I am likely to finish my sailing In my latest boat....a sixteen foot Beer Lugger , she is a Ketch Rigged Yawl with a dipping lug rigged mainsail
Overall length with the sprit and the bumkin is about 23 feet. The original 1880's working boat Lug rig has been modified for Racing at Beer
In Devon ....Google Beer Lugger and there are pictures of the racing rig.
I have sailed on the Barnabus ...which was the last fifty foot lugger to be built on the St Ives beach in North West Cornwall and the
20 foot St Ives Jumbo which was a class of smaller fishing boats from the great days of sail and oar....Also pictures on google.
I will leave my Yachting for another post..... ...............weeladdie
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Kirbstone
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Re: An Autumn Day in Cornwall

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Weeladdie,
It looks like you've wrung more salt water out of your socks than I've seen in my lifetime ! That expression was used yonks ago by a wiley Scot with whom I used have the odd pint in a previous incarnation. By the time I met him he'd already competed in five Fastnet races !

My very first dinghy sail was in 1960 with my UNI. Sailing club which had thee Fireflys. A bit small for a rangy divvil like myself, I was more attracted to their one 505, which was much more complex, of course. I had to do a whole year in Fireflys before they let me crew the Five-oh and I enjoyed being attached to the rigging by my belly-button (trapeze).

Our Albacore was built in 1962 and we acquired her in '68 when we were only engaged and have her to this day. She has proved a great family boat and we've never capsized her. Not true of our Parker-built 505, bought when the kids were rangy teenagers. She unceremoniously dumped us into the Drink many a time.
The boys sold her on in Datchet near Heathrow later on.

My eldest bro-in-law had a Dutchman when I first met him and I got a few outings in her. Fine Olympic class boat at the time.

Tom
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Re: An Autumn Day in Cornwall

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Kirbstone ..... In all my years of sailing I have never heard the expression.. " you have wrung more water out of your socks....." .
I went out on a 31 foot G.R.P. cruising yachts on the Helford River last Tuesday afternoon. First time I have been on a Yacht for about 8 years.

Perhaps your comment explains why I went on deck bare footed with well tanned legs .
When I worked on the Fishing I wore steel toe capped Yellow Wellies.
You may or may not have heard the expression ...." Every foot of boat , Is a yard of misery " ... the implication is that when the yachtsman
has a problem which he takes to a traditional boat builder ;
the old style craftsman has a simple solution to the problems with the traditional wooden yachts.

I remember we used to go drinking in one of the Royal Yacht Clubs in Dorset...One of these old boat builders was a friend of mine.
He used to sit quietly in the corner whilst the elderly yachtsmen got into their serious drinking.
The old style Steward was serving behind the bar. He wore his white jacket and bow tie. ... sooner or later one of the members would go
up to the bar for another round of drinks. ....... The steward would say
" You have had enough to drink tonight ,sir . ....I am calling a Taxi to take you home sir. " Quite often the boat builder would help
his old friends into their taxies........the old sailing club had photos on the wall of the old " J Class " yachts racing out in the Bay .
Out in the gentlemens ' room the brushes and the boot polish were laid out by the full length tailors mirror.

I always remember the Fireflies in Studland Bay ... There is one of these dinghies displayed in the National Maritime Museum at Falmouth
The vessel was claimed to be economically priced. This is possibly because it was smaller than the Albacore.

Well done for keeping your Albacore in commission. It is nice to have a reflection of the past.
We used to sink our twelve foot clinker dinghy down to her gunnels for a week at the start of every season to plimb her up.
Those were the days .....weeladdie
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Re: An Autumn Day in Cornwall

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Ah, but that came from the mouth of a canny Scot. We used to meet on a Friday evening after everyone's week's work. Another of our 'number' announced that he was off up to Oban on a business trip and promised to bring some kippers back for our delectation. This he did and we each took one home to eat.

The week afterwards we met again and our Scot pronounced his verdict in his highland burr:....A good kipperr, RRuperrt, but no' a grreat kipperr!'

The only clinker boat we possessed was a 24 foot Thames Traditional double rowing Skiff, 'Folly', dated 1904 which we bought in Windsor, had for nigh-on 20 years and kept her on her sling-trailer winched high overhead in our barn. When a trip was planned, part of the preparation was to fill her half-way to the gun'ls for 2-3 days so she wouldn't leak on us. Over the years we did many long river and canal trips in her. We sold her finally, back to a bloke who lives in Oxford, so she's back on the Thames again now. During our tenure of her it could be said that I familiarized myself with the use of a varnish brush!

Friends of my parents kept a 27' Folkboat on our S. coast here. She was clinker and I only remember her from my childhood, when they took us out sailing a few times in her. She must have been the very devil to maintain. Since 1977 I've shared sloops with friends, syndicates. First 'Get Kool' the Westerley GK29 on the Hamble until 1986, then spent time in the 'Riddle of the Sands' country in N.Germany, where I 'did' my skipper certificates, Nordenham near Bremerhaven, to be precise. After that we hired boats for a week at a time in Ireland, France & Turkey, then simultaneously in 2003 (me) taking a share in a 40' Moody 'Vivienne' in Dun Laoighre and (my friend) buying a brand-new Bavaria 44 delivered to Marmaris in Turkey. Since then I've been out on the water quite a lot. In 2015 a partner bought us out of the Vivienne, sailed her to Antigua and sold her there. In 2016 my friend sailed his Bavaria West to S. France where she is now based, so Turkey will now be just a lot of great memories.

Just a month ago I had a great week hauling ropes aboard an old traditional gaff sailer with my German Shanty-choir, reported here under 'Cracking day before the wind', and tomorrow I take part in a single sculling time trial at Tullamore on our Grand Canal. 2.75 Km. of what used be torture but nowadays is a pleasant paddle! Weather forecast very good.......

Tom
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weeladdie18
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Re: An Autumn Day in Cornwall

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Tom. Your sailing experiences are much the same as mine....I am going to start a new thread.....My Folk Heroes....Possibly these folk
gave me plenty of information for my lifestyle ..most of them are long gone.....I will try to keep this thread to the weather,the sea and ships.

In the Weymouth Harbour and Portland Harbour I have see varnished carvel folkboats , clinker folkboats and the more modern
G.R.P. folkboats.
One of the A.N.Z.A.B. folkboats came into Weymouth Harbour on her way to Plymouth to start the Race.
There is some deep routed connection between Hazler and his self steering vane gear regarding this folkboat and her Junk Rigged Main Sail.
Must have been early seventies.

These old styles of rig are very under rated by the modern yachtsmen. If you have not done so already ,
Google : ... Barnabus... , .. Beer luggers.... , .. Falmouth Quay Punt, ...Falmouth Oyster Dredgers... , ...St Ives Jumbo Association ...,
Cornish maritime Trust .... Cornish Skiff .... Cornish Pilot Gigs ....and National Maritime Museum in Falmouth.

The Museum is on the Falmouth Waterfront with its own café looking out over the harbour and a lookout tower from which one can see
the Gin Palaces and the Old Naval Dock Yard..... I have a ticket which I gives me access to the museum and the Archive Library for a year.

In the Museum there is a boat building shop where replicas are built for the forthcoming Exhibitions...this is all tied up with the
Falmouth Boat Building College and the Archive Library.

I will soon be getting back into my winter routine Visits to the Museum... Perhaps I am recognised when I visit the museum as I usually wear
My Scottish Highland Day Wear......This is all tied up with my ancestors and the migration of the Old Scottish Sea Captains who migrated
all over the World....

It has been said that the Sea Captains left a son in every port they visited ....I have certainly found evidence of my Grand Mother' s Maiden Name
in every port I have sailed into , along the S.W. Coast of U.K.

To complete my reply to your last post...My father rowed in Eights , launched off the Boscombe Beach just east of Bournemouth.
When it was too rough to launch the skiffs ,they continued their training routines by surfing with four men in a traditional clinker Punt.

I have been surfing under sail in my 12 foot clinker sailing Dinghy. .....A handy size boat for one man to row.
Now I have a 13 foot G.R.P Orkney Spinner ...she has now been fitted with a four inch deep rocker keel and heavy beach keels.
That is another complete story.
To get back to the thread .....Rain at 0645...FX.. N 4 gusting 6 .....possible rain till 1200 perhaps sun PM
Weather was mild and partly sunny for Thursday and Friday ....heavy evening mist and dew.

Best of luck with your rowing today......Rod.
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Re: An Autumn Day in Cornwall

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Rod,
It's jolly nice to live right on the Sea. My year-round existence is very much inland and as a rule I have to drive 200+ miles to get down to our Kerry bolthole, Ballinskelligs. Since the sale of 'Vivienne' I rarely visit Dun Laoighre near Dublin, where we kept her.

Our very first camping holiday in 1969 after we got hitched was to Cornwall, towing our Albacore. We put her in at all sorts of places, most memorably Plymouth and a trip up under the Tamar bridges, also Falmouth/St Mawes, where the future grandmother of our grandchildren caught her very first mackerel.

For me the display which interested me most at the Maritime Museum by Falmouth pier was that devoted to the freighter ship 'Flying Enterprise' which hit the headlines in mid-winter 1951. She developed a 30-odd degree list to Starboard and engine failure well South of Ireland and the tug 'Turmoil' was deployed from Falmouth (I think) to tow her to safety. Even though Cork Harbourd was closer, the decision was made to tow her E. to Falmouth in continuing stormy conditions. Captain Carlsson remained alone on board her and was later joined by a guy called Dancy, winched down to keep him company. Alas the list increased and it was evident that despite their best efforts she was going to founder, which she did just 27 miles off Falmouth. Both Carlsson and Dancy ran out the horizontal funnel, jumped into the water and were plucked to safety shortly before the Flying Enterprise went down. As a nine-year-old I was fascinated by the whole thing.

Tom
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Re: An Autumn Day in Cornwall

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Tom ,thanks for the photo of your albacore off the Irish Coast...Does not look like any Land Fall I can remember....
Does look very Scottish to me with my interest in Scotland and land visits to Scotland over the years.
Must have been in the late 1960 ' s that the last of the Albacore fleet sailed in Portland Harbour. ...
Linnet ...owned by Commander John Mac Hattie...He was an old time Suez Canal Pilot before he came to Weymouth.

I was one of the early post war babies. One of these days , probably when I retire from being retired, I will try to write the history of
my family....My first Camping holiday in Cornwall would have been 56 or 57...That was when I first went belly board surfing at Westward Ho
in Devon and Perranporth, in North Cornwall, camping with a Boy Scout Bell Tent and my parents with their first family car
A 1932 Ford 8. ....Up at Westward Ho there was a Depot for the Military Water Proofing of Vehicles. ...
Every morning a Dukw Duck would drive out of the depot cross the beach and swim up the coast to Instow ..the main depot.
Visted the museum at Instow probably 10 years ago. There was lots of information on the Funnies for the D.Day Normandie Landings.
I saw all the articles on this Military Engineering in My Fathers John Bull Magazine. For a few years I worked with an Ex Major in the R.E.M.E.
He was up at Instow for a Draught. He was far more technically qualified than I was....He was a farmers son from the lowlands.
He was one of the speakers at the Burns Night in the Military Officers Mess. I was one of the members of the local Caledonian Society
for about 35 years in Weymouth. Back in the 50's approx. 400 families transferred from the Clyde to the new Underwater Weapons Establishment
at Portland . Then the Atomic Energy Moved to Windfrith, just outside the Military Ranges , more Scots move into the area.
The Caledonian Societies did the tour of all the events between Exeter , Bristol and Southampton for the whole of the winter season
The whole network does not have the number of active members in Cornwall. The whole migration of the Communities moving their
Trades and Professions around S.W.U.K. is an Interesting Subject......Rod
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Re: An Autumn Day in Cornwall

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Saturday weather report. 0 .3 inches of rain last night ...rain did not clear till 1100 wind started to rise from the north....
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Re: An Autumn Day in Cornwall

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Saturday weather report 0.3 ins of rain last night did not stop till 1100 wind rose at 1100. temp dropped 12C at 1600
wind rose to force 5 N 12C at 1600
I went to the ferry office In Truro to enquire about the ..." one trip a day " up the river on the top of tide to Truro Town
The return trip is made by bus to Mylor, East of Falmouth, then the ferry connection is made back to Falmouth Pier.
Unfortunately the Truro trip is now cancelled till April next year. Every thing is winding down for the winter, when the
Atlantic Systems affect the big rivers .
If I remember correctly , I have already stated that The Helford River sailing Club is 2 miles up the river. Last winter a tidal wave
7 metres high , came up the river and lifted the dinghy mooring pontoon system over the top of the pile which moored it to the river bed.

There are always winter problems with the elements. This is why I prefer to keep my boats in my garden, 50 metre above sea level and half a mile
in land....One local claimed that the old fishermen go mad if they can view the sea from their home in the winter.
Ever since the 2012 Olympic season in Weymouth ,when the jet stream moved 500 miles south from Scotland , we have had problems
with moorings......the swell from France came from the south east and up through the Northern Entrance of Portland Harbour, right into the
middle of the Castle Cove moorings on the North shore of the Harbour.
Down here We are on the most southerly peninsular in Mainland U.K....I can walk a mile east ,south or West and be on a beach.
An interesting area to explore.
weather now looks O.K. no rain or serious wind till Friday ....
At 0730 Sunday ... Temperature 5 C ..wind.. light and variable. ..high cloud patches........
Enough blue sky to make a pair of sailors trousers...........Rod.
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Kirbstone
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Re: An Autumn Day in Cornwall

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Rod,
Interesting history of Scots migration South and setting up of your local Caledonian Society. When I read that I couldn't get this out of my head: At the football match between Caledonian and Celtic, the Caledonian supporters were heard to chant: 'SuperCaligoballistic-Celticareatrocious!'

I know the West coast of Scotland best, having motored up to friends on Skye and also sailed 'Get-Kool' up there just once in relays, i.e. crew changes on the way. Staffa was the most interesting stop.
As comparison I submit two pics of the South rim of Ballinskelligs Bay as viewed from our beach and B'skelligs village itself. The white house that appears low down near the shoreline aft of the Albacore is again visible in wide angle between my Granddaughter and the rocks in the foreground. Different lighting conditions. Hogs Head to the right, low saddle, over which is flat-topped Slieve Meekish on the Beara Peninsula, then two lumps, between which the N70 ring-of-Kerry road climbs the Cumnakista Pass as it snakes South from Waterville to Derrynane. Interesting country, to say the least. Pic 2 is a better view of that topography, but I'm standing in front of that house.

Tom
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Re: An Autumn Day in Cornwall

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Down to Helford River Sailing Club this afternoon , sat in the sun watching the tide go by. Then a drive home , watching the sunset across
Goonhilly Down ......The Satellite Dishes and the wind vanes were silloueted in the sunset.

Evening temperature down to 5 C .......Rod....
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