Tag: Gravesend Pier

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/

Locking Out

September 17, 2013 / / 0 Comments

Locking out of St Kat’s at the end of the Classic Boat Festival

Cambria’s 8 days in St Kat’s is now over and Maggs Casey Kelly sends us this very nice picture of ‘us’ in the locking out. Maggs tells me she is sorry to see us go and we have certainly enjoyed ourselves, feeling well looked after and getting the chance to show Cambria off to way more people than would normally see her. I was there for the first weekend, of course, but Boss of Volunteers, Basil has now caught me up on the further adventures.

The remaining days of our stay were a bit quieter than the first mad weekend, with a footfall of around 60 on the weekdays and then some busy weekend days, when 700 souls came round each day, so that we estimate that well over 3000 people were shown around during the stay.

On the Tuesday our hold played host to the premiere of the latest Simon North (barge) film “Noble Life” which saw another 30-40 aboard and where plenty of copies of the film were sold. I have asked for one for myself and I will review that for you when I get my copy. Being the biggest vessel in the Festival and that having the biggest possible meeting-space, we also played host to a drinks party for all the boat owners in the Festival, apparently attended by 50-odd folk. I bet that was a bit crammed below decks but I understand they all had a good time and enjoyed their chatting and yarning.

Now it is all over and Ian Ruffles (Skipper) and the crew have sailed Cambria down to Gravesend Pier where they had the usual fun and games getting the anchor to ‘stick’ while they sorted out lines and came alongside. There is no bite on the river bed there and we end up paying out yards and yards of chain to try to create some friction while the barge drifts downstream on tide or wind, threatening to mix it with the mooring buoys. I gather we have 130 yards of dolly line and we needed most of that length this time to get a line ashore so that we could dolly-winch ourselves back upstream to the pier. The joys of engine-less barging. Fair play to Ian for knowing what to do!