Tag: Bowsprit

Longstay

An interesting picture today from Boss of Volunteers, Basil accompanied by the following write up.

Cambria's longstay

Cambria’s longstay, rigging by John Barber; Picture by Basil Brambleby.

Basil writes that, “John Barber, since retirement from PLA has worked as a volunteer at Chatham Maritime demonstrating ‘Rigging Skills’ with special emphasis on wire splicing to the many Dockyard  visitors . As you will all
know, he undertook the splicing of Cambria’s rigging for her
restoration as part of this demonstration work.
Now Cambria is in commission he helps out as one of our volunteers as well.
The photograph shows a splice which he has just put in to the end of
Cambria’s longstay; to date she has been sailing with a temporary fix.
Last year he visited the barge at Gravesend to help us rig a whip to
the end of her jibstay; again she had been working with a temporary
fix. Both wires are now as they ought to be. It was difficult to
ascertain the exact lengths of these wires until they were offered up.
We are much indebted to him for this work as it is a dying art.
He also does work on other Heritage Vessels when asked.”

Not being familiar with the term ‘log stay’ I asked Basil what it was and where it fits. Basil tells me that, “the longstay runs from a whip on the jibstay winch to the topmast head, down to the end of the bowsprit and is secured at the inboard end. When the bowsprit is raised, the whip is wound almost fully on to the winch drum; and as the bowsprit is lowered the whip runs up toward the masthead.

The jibstay will have to get back to you since I don’t want to get this wrong, but it essentially runs from the end of the bowsprit to the mainmast head and carries the jib when set.The longstay carries the jib topsail”.
Thanks for that Basil. We will wait for expert advice on jib-stays as you get it.

 

 

 

Julie B-for-Bowsprit

Julie B on the bowsprit

Julie B on the bowsprit (with Ryan Dale); Picture by Den Johnson

Denis Johnson, currently crewing on Cambria’s final 2012 charter with Ryan Dale, Julie Brooks and Skipper Tim Goldsack, posted this picture on Face book. That’s our Julie B leppin’ out along the bowsprit cables like a mountain goat. To the volunteers, it’s a bit more than that. We who paint and scrape, change bedding, man up for the public access visits and haul provisions are generally speaking not skilled crew and we’re like kids at Christmas when we do get a chance to go on board. Through this year and last we’ve been getting increasingly brave and trying to out do each other by (small) feats of rigging climbing – so for example I have been up the ratlines while racing which feat has since also been achieved (with the boat stationary) by Dave B and Mark C but I don’t think any of us had nipped out along the bowsprit. Well now Julie has stolen a march on us buy climbing out there and Den has taken a picture to prove it.

Where next, Julie? Cross trees and top m’st?

 

The Championship so far

It is interesting at this stage, with just one race left to go in the Championship (The Colne Match), to check out the Championship positions. The maximum points for a barge in any one race are 8, which you pick up for all the ‘milestones’ round the course – starting, best away, first round the outer mark, class wins, overall wins and so on. This means you can actually win the course overall but not obtain maximum points. It is interesting this year particularly because there are so many barges in the running what with the returning racers such as Niagara and Thalatta. 24 barges make it to the points table all be it some with just the one race to their name such as Adieu, Centaur, Cygnet, Greta, Dinah, Orinoco, Lady Daphne, Thalatta and Victor.  I’m not knocking them here, you understand. These are expensive, historic boats which are also, in some cases the family home or livelihood and the weather can make the risk not worth the pleasure of racing, or the need to make a living in a tricky season might preclude taking the 3-4 days out of work to get to, compete in and get home again from these matches. We all love to see a good turn-out but we understand when a barge can’t be in the Fleet.

 

Marjorie

Marjorie racing in the Southend Match 2012 where she scored 7 points, Picture by Dave Brooks.

Leading up to now is Edith May who scored points in 6 matches and did well in the Passage Match (7 points), the Blackwater (7), the Thames (6) and the recent Southend (8). Their total is now 34 points. The rules are such that you can discard your worst score for the year but that happens after the Colne when you know all your scores for the year. The discard would currently be the zero points from the Swale, for Edith May, so they’d still be leading. 2nd in the Championship on account of consistent point scoring and being there in every race, is Lady of the Lea who did well in the Medway, the Passage, Blackwater and Southend.  3rd is Repertor who get reasonable places in most races although never the highest scores and 4th is Edme who scored maximum (8) in the Medway and also did well in the Blackwater and Thames.

 

Our own old girl, Cambria is down there at 7th after picking up 6 points each in the Medway and the Thames. I believe we are entered in the Colne. New girl and class rival (Big mulie bowsprit rig), Thalatta  also did well in her one race, the Thames (beating Cambria in the points)   Total 7, leaving her 13th equal with Pudge.

 

Looking ‘down the table’ in the other direction (per race), top points were as follows.

Medway : Edme (8)

Passage : Edith May (7)

Pin Mill : Mirosa (7)

Blackwater : Edith May = Edme (7 each)

Thames : Thalatta (7)

Swale : Cabby = Mirosa (8 each)

Southend : Edith May (8)

Full results table is on http://www.sailingbargeassociation.co.uk/championship2012.html

 

Thanks Dave Brooks for the lovely picture of Marjorie competing in the Southend Match where she scored 7 points, matching the score of Lady of the Lea, 2nd equal to Edith May (8).

Go Live is 29th June!

A nice shot here of Denis Johnson perched at the end of the bowsprit taking yesterday’s picture aft at the bow wave. This one is by Dave B, so thank you for that, both of you, Denis for risking life and limb in the cause of good pictures and Dave for bravely watching while standing with feet firmly planted on our nice big wide strong safe deck!

Denis Johnson perched at the end of the Bowsprit taken by Dave Brooks

Denis Johnson perched at the end of the Bowsprit

On the subject of website changes, I have learned today some good news. Although the new web site will technically be running on a shiny new fast server as the new address www.CambriaBargeCharter.co.uk, we, the Trust, still own the old website name that you have all been using up to now www.CambriaTrust.org.uk . Therefore it has been possible to keep that name and have it re-direct your searches behind the scenes to the new site. So you, the reader, can simply carry on using the same shortcuts or search words you have always used and you should, as at ‘go-live’ date start to pick up the new website. Cathy C, in charge of the Cambria Shop, along with Mark C have also now been given access, so that by go-live you might have some of the shop functions up and running.

Lastly, when we checked our calendars, we found that the pencilled in suggested go-live date of 1st July was a Sunday. So we have changed this to the last working day before that, Friday 29th June. By the end of Friday we should be up there, readable and with the search-targets for Google etc turned on.

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