Category: Blog (Page 2 of 27)

Phil Latham Serial (1)

November 2, 2014 / / 2 Comments

Gear-drop Volunteers October 2014 resting after a successful bit of mast-wrangling.

I am delighted to have received a contribution to the blog and website for former Mate in Trade, Phil (Ginger) Latham. Phil got himself talked into helping out when Sea Change, in the Summer, made their heroic, 7-bridges trip up to Great Yarmouth and, even better, agreed to do us a write up. This write up is so generous and fulsome that I have decided to split it across three posts and ‘serialise’ it. I think it needs no further introduction.

Ditch Crawling

and the Cambria Effect

by Phil Latham (Part 1)

“I got pretty short notice from Richard Titchener about the planned trip to Norwich but quickly accepted his invitation. We only went there once when I was aboard in the sixties so it was going to be interesting to see the changes on the river. I arranged to leave the car at Maldon, but was then informed that we were leaving from Pin Mill! So with help from Neil Goldie I left it at Guss’s yard; found that my phone and Richard’s phone wouldn’t talk to each other so I did what any sailorman would have done and repaired to the Butt and Oyster for a pint and a sandwich: then down the hard to thumb a lift off, only to see Stretch arriving with the barge boat to pick up Mark Wakelin, ex-chief navigation officer for the Broads Authority and sponsor of the voyage. So, on board to meet the crew, youngsters Rachael and Simon, Jordan and his school mentor Neil plus the Zeberdees, black and blond, this may seem excessive, but if one Zeb is good then why not two?
In the port watch were Stretch and Tom, to starboard Richard and Hils plus one of their top- notch third hands Anna, bringing up the rear were Mark and myself (the embarked antique) making the stalwart crew for the voyage and so up anchor on the last of the ebb, but the wind died and we had to anchor on the guard as the flood came in. However, this is Cambria’s coastal passage so the wind, due no doubt, to the effect freshened and freed and she was off. We anchored south of Yarmouth Piers at the end of the afternoon, our marine genius (see last year’s report) was not available for 24 hours but the effect kicked in and the sea breeze came in light SE’ly so up anchor, light sail and gybe over to lay the piers and gybe back through Brush Bend and so gently up the harbour over the last of the ebb and land water to chuck round alongside in our designated berth, with the help of a convenient passer-by, on the first drain of flood. That seemed enough for one day so we renewed acquaintance with our old headquarters pub.
Next morning down to serious work; since I was last in Norwich they have added two swing bridges in the old port area and a low, for Cambria, fixed By-pass Bridge!! Passed by some non-marine town planner! So, to get right up we had to lower down flat. “You know”, said Richard, “the great thing about having you along this trip is that you can show us how to lower the mizzen; I’ve never done it”. Er neither had I actually, though I did have a good idea of the procedure. In the sixties it was taken out by crane for the Moll Flanders filming and ripped out by an illegally moored German coaster at Ipswich locks. Not a lot of use in the present circumstances but all went well to the Skipper’s plan and mizzen lowered with boltsprit housed across the fore deck that evening saw us recovering in the appropriate watering hole.

That night, however, serious amounts of midnight and early hours oil was burned by Mark, the Skipper and the Broads Authority on the need /or not for additional clauses in the towing contract. Luckily all was resolved with fifteen minutes to spare so that our tug, the Canonbrook,, an ex-P.L.A. dock tosher could take our rope. Apart from the crew she had the official Norwich pilot on board one Robbo of Sully fame (sully as in G.F.barge owners but more properly Sully Brothers or ‘SUBRO’ given the time that Robbo & Cyril worked there) plus his official understudy, Thalatta Cyril who had been his partner in crime for most of their respective careers. Now Robbo can hold forth on any subject under the sun, in great detail, short of the real meaning of the universe and female psychology (ask his wife), sandwiched between this pair in the wheelhouse was the highly competent skipper. Now I’m not knocking Robbo, he doesn’t beat about the bush, you get the true strength on all these subjects, there are just a lot of them!

So off we started and the Haven Bridge was no problem, but the Skipper got a severe attack of the “Kiniptions” at the Breydon Road Bridge which only opens on the thin side of half-way leaving little wriggle room between whipping the mainmast out of her or clouting the starboard pier fendering; he managed to avoid ,just, on both counts; once through the bridge we were met by a large, new Authority launch with “attitude” and a flashing blue light to proceed a few hundred yards ahead to warn any broads cruisers who hadn’t seen our towering mast over the reed beds that we were coming; we didn’t think this was necessary, but were proved wrong! We successfully negotiated the “apex” at the top of Breydon and avoided going to “Loostoft” eventually to arrive at Reedham with its famous rail bridge, which in the past has witnessed heroic feats of ship-handling and in in depth discussions between coaster skippers and sailormen on one side and railway employees on the other, including in depth discussions of family trees!

However, on this occasion all was well, the bridge already opened, with an electric sign informing us that it would remain so for a further ten minutes!! Broads authority tugs do not operate at night or over week-ends so we had to go to a lay-by a mile or so above Reedham, on approaching a port hand bend we saw a broads cruiser on our port bow who, at the last moment before passing us, went hard –a starboard into the reed beds for a third of its length, the lady conning it showing signs of distress; we continued up to our berth around a bend to starboard and were later informed by tug skipper that the lady feeling in need of a rest and recuperation had tried to moor on Reedham front but making a miss-fetch, stemmed the quay! You can’t always account for the Cambria effect but that must go down as unusual.

Meantime, it kicked in for us because our week-end lay-by was the river frontage of a PUB, called the Ferry as our bow was just short of the berth for the chain-ferry across the Yare. Faced with this dilemma – two and a half days moored alongside a pub – your stalwart crew didn’t flinch but explored the terrain, which included a friendly landlady, two barmaids, a phalanx of beer pumps and a launderette at the adjacent caravan park; work out our priorities! We set too on various jobs round the lowered gear and explored the choice of beer. We were after all occupying their river frontage for several days so “ambassing” was called for. We also received a visit from a reporter from the Eastern Daily Press who knew nothing about barges, river navigation or any other important topic so it was a pleasant surprise to read her “piece” which was largely correct.”

To be continued……

All this talk of lowering the gear makes a nice coincidence with the posting on Facebook by Maggs Casey-Kelly of pictures of the volunteers who heroically turned out over the last week to lower our gear down for the end of season, all snugged down in Faversham Creek and now able to put our poly-tunnel cover over . My pic is one such, showing the gang of volunteers resting after completing the task. Thank you Phil for the post and thank you Maggs and all those volunteers for the pic.

Help our old Pal

October 20, 2014 / / 0 Comments

Yachting Monthly (MQ)

Just in from the RSS feed (Yachting Monthly) a piece from Dick Durham saying that the rebuild of Medway Queen has “stalled” due to lack of funds.

http://www.yachtingmonthly.com/news/537466/medway-queen-rebuild-stalls

The Cambria Volunteers always felt as one with the ‘Medway Queen lot’ and members of their team were regularly dropping in on us as we rebuilt, comparing notes on their own steel hull re-vamp, which had to be done the old riveting way to secure their own Lottery Fund money.

The Dick Durham article tells that there is something we can all do to help, if so inclined. There is a book “co-authored by Bob Stokes (Project Manager) and Richard Halton. Cover price is £12-50. The book can be purchased from the Visitor Centre or MQPS event stands or can be ordered by post or through www.medwayqueen.co.uk Please send orders and your cheque to “MQPS (Sales)”, 46 Brockenhurst Close, Wigmore, Gillingham, Kent. ME8 0HG”.

Thanks for that, Dick. Maybe some of our readers will buy the book.

William Collard, Bernard Drew and Golden Miller

October 6, 2014 /

Golden Miller

We don’t hear much from Restoration Project Manager, William Collard these days, but he occasionally pings stuff into my email and when he does it is often to pass me a real gem. During the rebuild phase we had found a horseshoe screwed to the front of the wheelhouse and when the wheelhouse was rebuilt we were careful to reinstate the shoe but curious as to how it had come to be there. We put out a call via this blog but nobody seemed to know. It was no ordinary horse shoe, no rough old bend of iron; it was a cast aluminium alloy affair, so we were pretty sure it must be a racing shoe, the horse racing equivalent of racing alloy wheels on modern cars. We may now have an answer but, surprisingly, that answer refers to two shoes, so where the 2nd now is, we can not tell.

William’s email told of a note he had received from an old school chum from 60 years ago pointing to a collection of journalistic articles called ‘Thames at War’ by one Bernard Drew, and William had already looked through these and found reference to Cambria and the horseshoes.

Bernard Drew writes….

”

Beating the Bombers

Proudly playing their part in the Battle of Britain, many of the picturesque Thames sailing barges daily sally forth into the front line, carrying cargoes around the coasts. Nazi raiders hold no terrors for the tough skippers, who with a rifle as their only means of defence seem more concerned about the weather and the tides. Bombing takes a back seat with these old salts. At least, that was the impression “Cully” Tovell, master of the sailing barge Cambria, gave when, as the first reporter to make awar-time trip in a sea-going barge, I sailed down the Thames and round to an East Coast port with him.

Cambria is the most famous of London barges. She holds both the championships of the Thames and Medway, won in the last races before the War, in 1937. The trip was not without dramatic incidents, though we were not attacked. I boarded the Cambria at her home port, where she was built 35 years ago “come November”, as the skipper figured it. “We occasionally get bombed”, he told me, “but I don’t take much notice of the planes. Not long ago one dropped two bombs 50 or 100 yards away. I thought he was one of ours. Two or three Hurricanes were up in a second, and he was gone like a flash”.

Hazards Braved

With sails hoisted, we got under way, tacking down river, and I learned something of how these barges, despite all the hazards, are carrying on with their job almost as in peace time. There are regulations, of course, which have to be obeyed, and sailing is not made easier by minefields. But the skippers put up with these additional inconveniences, and trust in the Navy and R.A.F. to guard them. So far, I gathered, the only casualties among the Thames barge fleets in this war have been due to Acts of God. As we stood in the little wheelhouse, which should give the barge its quota of good luck, for two horseshoes hanging in it were once worn by the famous steeplechaser Golden Miller, the skipper told me something about his crew of two – Alf the mate, aged 19, and Jim, the 18-year-old cook and deck hand. “They are good lads and so they should be”, he said. “I was a barge master at 20, but some of the youngsters you get to-day won’t be at 40. My first trip was to Antwerp, and I shall never forget it”.

I found Jim the stuff of which British lads are made. Two weeks previously he was working at a factory in Essex – both Alf and he hail from Grays. Though he did not know it, there was salt water in his veins. Bombs, mines, U-boats or E-boats did not worry him. He tried to get away deep-sea, but being without the necessary experience had no luck. So Jim became half the crew of the Cambria, and with us made his first trip to sea. Alf has been in barges since he left school.”

Fascinating stuff. You can link to the original (long!) document at

The horse, (says Wikipedia) “Golden Miller (1927–1957) was a Thoroughbred racehorse who is the most successful Cheltenham Gold Cup horse ever, having won the race in five consecutive years between 1932 and 1936. He also is the only horse to have won both of the United Kingdom’s premier steeplechase races – the Cheltenham Gold Cup and the Grand National in the same year (1934).” on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Miller.

Thank you very very much for that, William. Nice one.

Richard Walsh new book news!

September 22, 2014 /

This just in from Richard Walsh

On the Blocks at Pinmill

“A new book which covers barges, steam coasters and the motor ships of Cambria’s builder F T Everard, which were served aboard by Charlie Fielder ‘between the wars’ publishes later this month. A collaborative venture between SSBR and Chaffcutter Books, the book, entitled The Prowess of Charlie Fielder, has half a dozen short mentions of Cambria and a couple of pictures of her. The level of trade of Everard barges in the River Yare, at Gt Yarmouth and Norwich is prominent within this account. Full details of the book are on Chaffcutter Books new website which went live today! If you are a member of the Society for Sailing Barge Research, do not rush to order it as members will be getting it free in a few weeks time. Hardback, 192 pages and 135 photos – that’s what I call good value. For the rest of you Cambria supporters, hurry and join SSBR, or order and pay £16 (inc p+p) for it online now at www.chaffcutter.com.”

Thanks for that, Richard!

Sailing Opportunity

September 22, 2014 / / 0 Comments

This just in from Dave Brooks.

Sailing Opportunities on Cambria

Sailing Opportunity

Sail on Britain’s most unique classic sailing vessel, Cambria, famed for being the last ever British registered sailing vessel to carry cargo under sail alone. Enjoy the experience of sailing without an engine.

27^th and 28^th Sept 2014 Short Weekend Sail

Muster at Gillingham Pier Kent 1.00pm for 3.00pm depart return following day 1.00pm

Pier Approach Road ME7 1RU

Catered

Kit list

Wet and dry weather clothing. Bedding i.e. Sleeping bag, pillow.

Cost £100.00

Min of 10

4^th and 5^th Oct 2014 Short Weekend Sail

Muster at Gillingham Pier Kent 07.30am for 9.00am depart return following morning 10.00am

Pier Approach Road ME7 1RU

Catered

Kit list

Wet and dry weather clothing. Bedding ie. Sleeping bag, pillow.

Cost £100.00

Min of 10

Contact

Dave Brooks on 07779 716453 or email cambriatrustsecretary@live.co.uk

Back to Work

September 21, 2014 /

Barnet Hill Lifeboat Crew

Well, our brief and lovely ‘holiday’ in St Kat’s Marina is all over, and the barge locked out on Wednesday morning early, got tugged down to below the barrier, and set sail in a favourable wind (Skipper Ian Ruffles had said “I don’t mind a bit of North but I don’t want anything with an ‘E’ on the front of it!”) for Gravesend Pier which they tell me they were able to get alongside under sail power for the first time. Normally they’d get close and then warp in, though Hilary Halajko of the ‘Sea Change’ team tells me that they have managed the sail-in a couple of times in the past. Cambria will by now have picked up her next Rotary Club charter which, as well as having a lovely time, move her down to Gillingham Pier, so she’s back to real work for a small while, till the end of the season.

Boat Owners’ Prize Giving

Dave Brooks asked me to Thank the Management of St Katharine Docks via this blog, for the superb time we all had during our stay and to thank the 15 volunteers who all helped us to achieve the overwhelming success we had there. This both in terms of visitors seen come through the barge, but also in record money raised in donations, in shop sales and in the raffle for the Jeroboam of red wine with the hand-painted (Cambria picture) on the bottle. I would also like to thank the shanty singers, the Barnet Hill Lifeboat Crew (pictured). These guys volunteered to sing their shanties all around the Marina while dragging behind them one of our deck-sluicing buckets on a rope to raise money for us. On the Saturday afternoon they then came aboard and did us an impromptu concert from our wheel house even though one of them was running a bit tight for time on his train journey up to Barnsley. They were excellent, and raised for us a brilliant and very welsome £161.97. Good job lads!

More from them on http://barnet-hill-lifeboat-crew.weebly.com/

Saint Katharine Docks

September 17, 2014 / / 0 Comments

Cambria at Night

At least once a year I like to get back to the UK and clap eyes and hands on Cambria and any other barges I can locate. Last year and this, my opportunity came as she was moored up in St Katharine Docks as part of the Classic Boat Festival which was, in turn, part of Bo-Jo’s “Totally Thames” event. There are other barges ‘living’ in St Kat’s (Adieu, Gladys etc) but we moor up in a ‘pole position’ just by the inner lock entrance and Marina offices, dressed over with bunting and, if Skipper Ian Ruffles thinks it is safe, flying our huge logo’d tops’l, the mizzen sail and with the brails on our mains’l loosened to let the red sailcloth down as far as the sprit pole. We look magnificent and can be seen for miles – certainly by anyone walking across Tower Bridge – so we are a big draw for the show itself and always get plenty of punters on board.

The Royal Nose contrasts with the Sailorman. Gloriana and us.

We staff up with a goodly collection of volunteers (Thank you everybody) manning the access stairs, guiding people around, working in the shop (brilliant new range of hats, polo shirts, mugs etc), selling raffle tickets and, this year, selling teas, coffees, home made cakes and so on. I generally go ‘guide’ and they tell me that I have a natural gift of the gab and a way with the guests (Blarney, maybe?) as I waffle away happily about loads, freeboard, spritsail rigs and respite care. This year we saw record numbers through the barge, easily knocking last year’s proud ‘thousand a day’ record into a cocked hat. We started tentatively on Friday pm – we weren’t meant to be open yet but it was a sunny afternoon and a few tourists were starting to gather against the rail near to us. That was 45 folk shown round, but on Saturday it went a bit crazy in the sunshine, with 1705 people getting the tour. On Sunday we ‘did’ 1125 ‘real’ people and then at 4 pm we had to close the ‘shop’ while Cambria’s deck became the venue for a Prize Giving Reception for the boat owners (another 71 heads!). The prizes were bottles of fizz and these were doled out to some light hearted and fun categories dreamed up, judged and presented by former Mate of Cambria in Trade, Dick Durham. There was champagne for best ‘dressed over all’ but also best fairy lights, best “dog and deck furniture” , for ‘Traveling Light’ (a Belgian sailor who had forgotten his clothes) and to ‘Spirit of the Show’ ( a boat owner found some jewelry left in the Marina washrooms and managed to return them to their owner). All great fun.

Portwey, Cambria and Gloriana

The volunteers were exhausted from all those hours on our feet and speechifying but St Kat’s is now all very done up, with nice apartments in all the buildings and chi-chi restaurants and cafés on all the quays, so it was lovely to retreat to an eaterie, sip our wine and watch the craft and the lights reflected on the water. These were all sunny days and balmy evenings; we were very lucky with our weather.

Now it’s all over for this year and I hear from Dave Brooks that the barge locked out of St Kat’s this morning on schedule at 08:00 and is under tow down to the barrier, from whence it will set a few sails and head for Gillingham Pier ready for the next charter. It was a very successful event, so if you were part of helping or even if you were one of our very welcome guests and visitors, then thank you very very much. It is pure joy to be aboard, to show off the barge as we do.

Another Chance to Sail

September 2, 2014 /

Just in from Dave Brooks on Facebook

“Cambria will be leaving Gravesend on the 9th Sept at 5.00 am in the morning to travel up to St Katharine Dock. There are a limited number of places priced £75.00. Travel up the Thames and a chance of seeing some of the Tall Ships. Email Cambria Trust for further details on CambriaTrustSecretary@live.co.uk”

A bit short notice and a nice early start for you, but get in touch if you fancy it.

The barge will be in St Katharine Dock over the weekend of 13th/14th September and open to the public with lots of we helpful volunteers to show you around. Please drop in if you are free.

Dave also tells me that the 2015 Calendar will soon be ready and for sale. Watch this space.

New Twitter Account

August 29, 2014 / / 0 Comments

Faversham Creek Hotel Signage

I apologise for the lack of postings on here for a couple of weeks – the barge has been properly busy on a mission to Great Yarmouth under the Skippership of Richard Titchener of the Sea Change Sailing Trust but the reporting suffered a techie problem and was not able to supply me with the usual “Cambria Watch” stories. I hope you were able to pic up the stories and comment running on either Facebook, or re-tweeted by me from Sea Change on the @SB Cambria twitter feed.

Talking of which, I am pleased to be able to tell you the twitter feed has now been replaced and ‘official-ised’, and is re-born as @Cambria Trust. You may know that I had been running the old twitter feed from my own personal email as the Trust did not have one; this being by way of a pilot project. It went well. I ended up ‘following’ 105 barge and Thames related feeds and had gained 106 ‘followers’ of my own, and was getting a regular supply of comment. ‘re-tweets’ and ‘favourites’ (which are how feeds are judged and measured). I had posted 364 posts. Well, now the Trust have decided to take it ‘in-house’ and we do not want the confusion of 2 sites with one (mine) not necessarily speaking for the Trust, so I am taking mine down and would ask you all to transfer your following to the new site. Thank you for your support over the time I was at the helm. It has been enjoyable and a privilege.

Meanwhile, I loved this bit of sign-writing found by Cambria Shipwright Ryan Dale on the wall of the Faversham Creek Hotel (formerly the Swan and Harlequin and before that the Coal Exhange if memory serves. This re-vamp has happened since I left Faversham for Irish waters, but looking at the website, it looks well worth a visit, especially the Red Sails Restaurant. More on this on https://www.facebook.com/FavershamCreekHotelAndRestaurant

A Trip to Norwich?

July 24, 2014 / / 1 Comment

Just into Face book from Sea Change…..

“Sea-Change to visit Norwich

A voyage to Norwich might have been routine in the 1940s but today it is less simple, getting all the 7 road and rail bridges between Gt. Yarmouth and Norwich to open for the first time in years will be quite a trick and the Thames sailing barge Cambria will have to lower both masts to pass under the A47 Southern bypass. As Sea-Change skipper Richard Titchener says “Well, it wouldn’t be worthwhile if it was easy!”
He added “Cambria used to be a regular trader to Norwich in 1940s and 50s so we thought it would be fun and very worthwhile to make the Port of Norwich the destination for our training voyage this year and re-establish Norwich’s almost forgotten links with the sea”.
The barge’s crew on the passages up and down the coast will be a mixture of experienced sailing barge hands and young people from Essex and Norfolk who are members of Sea-Change’s Youth Sailing Scheme, their places having been sponsored by charities and other organisations.
In Norwich, during the evening of Wednesday 13th August the barge will host a session of ‘Flying Folk’, the traditional music and singing group that usually meets each month in pubs around the county – especially appropriate as a previous owner/skipper of Cambria, Bob Roberts was a traditional singer and musician of note.
On 13th August Cambria will be joined at her mooring near Carrow Bridge, Norwich by Norfolk Wherry Trust’s ‘Albion’ – The last engineless coastal sailing barge meets the last engineless trading wherry in the Port of Norwich! Surely a notable occasion in the maritime heritage of Nelson’s County!”

Exciting stuff – good luck with that you Sea Change-ers!