Tag: Whimbrel

Barnacles, Fish and Chips

July 9, 2013 / / 0 Comments

It’s not all sailing around in the warm sunshine enjoying yourself, even when you are a volunteer, unpaid, sail trainee with Sea Change. We don’t want to be spoiling them now, do we?

 

Barnacles

Barnacles scraping, Zeb and Ben take one for the team; Picture by Hilary Halajko.

Hilary sends two trainees, Zeb and Ben down under to scrape the barnacles off while Cambria is up on Pin Mill Blocks. Good job lads! At least they have these very nice roller trolleys to lie on to keep them up out of the worst muck. I say ‘worst’ – I’ve done this job and no matter how careful you are, you always get some of the debris on yourself.

As Hilary says, “Zeb and Ben hoe off barnacles from Cambria on Pin Mill Hard using the Webb Brothers’ patent wheeled trollies”

Hilary, yesterday, also has this Cambria Update.

“A cracking sail from the Stour to Brightlingsea today. Hard work on the wheel and the foredeck busy with rolling vangs, but just the one gybe. A small crew allows everyone to get real hands on experience. All a bit sun burnt but happy (and tired) a row up the creek for fish and chips soon (no we’re not allowed to use the outboard!!) A fair wind back down the creek though!”

Our good friend Nick Ardley responds with “Wonderful… Fish & Chips eh, whatever is the barging world coming to … boiled pots and a bit of ham knuckle was good fare once…!! Well done SCST crew and good luck at the weekend.” Hey Nick. Should we tell them about your plush new carpets in Whimbrel? OK. Maybe not.

Finally from Hilary, “Our Youth Sailing Scheme is working hard to make Cambria match ready for the weekend. Why? here’s why” and she posts a good link to a story about the Ship Owners P+I Club decision to sponsor the 150th Thames (Mark Boyle Memorial) Match this year – details on….

 

http://isiscommunications.co.uk/2013/07/08/shipowners-pi-club-sponsors-thames-sailing-barge-match-in-its-150th-year/

Thank you for all that and for all the comments now coming in to the website.

 

A Chunk of Montreal

March 11, 2013 / / 3 Comments

I get a nice email in from barge book and sailing book author, friend of the Cambria, Nick Ardley. He’s been out exploring the foreshores again and has come across a chunk of the barge, SB Montreal. Nick Takes up the story. Picture is from Nick.

Montreal bow badge

Montreal bow badge found by Nick Ardley; Picture by Nick.

“A little something for you… I was walking (with ‘the Mate’*) between Tilbury Fort and Coal House Fort along the Thames shore last weekend and came across a barge’s ‘badge’ sitting up on the tide line near Tilbury power station. It looked familiar – I photographed it, of course.

Comparing the badge pictures with pictures of the badges that were on the Montreal, now broken up at Erith, it is clear it has come from her. It is possible to see the tip of the arrow head on the carved yellow line. Looking at my pictures (from Nigel Field a member of the Erith YC) it is clear that the badge was from her starboard bow.
If anyone wants the badge it sits about mid distance from turn of wall by West Tilbury Creek and the power station’s jetty. It is up high, but tides are coming towards springs … so it might go wandering about.”
*For those not familiar with Nick’s writings of his meanderings on the good ship ‘Whimbrel’, ‘the Mate’ is how he describes his Good Lady when she is crewing the boat and keeping him out of mischief. Nick tells me that his sailing season has been relatively good to them on Whimbrel so far this year … they have been out a dozen times for some lazy (cold), gentle and exhilarating sails. ‘The Mate’ is now ‘retired’ so has done more during a tide than she has for many years… The boat has also been in a spot of filming. Nick invites us to go see this on his website at http://www.nickardley.com/
Thanks for all that, Nick, and good sailing. Regards to The Mate also. Get the bacon sandwiches on!

Nick Ardley and the Docklands History Group

November 21, 2012 / / 0 Comments

Friend of Cambria and barge and sailing book author, Nick Ardley emails with a tip off about a symposium being held by the Docklands History Group, called

“There She Blows!
Aspects of the London Whaling Trade”

This is an early warning and a date for your diary really, as it’s not till March 2013, but if you are interested then the link here should steer you home.

http://www.docklandshistorygroup.org.uk/events.html

“It’ll not be specifically about barges/their trade on Thames”, says Nick, “but barges surely carried whale oil products so it might be of interest to web readers”.

Those who know, or know of, Nick and his books will also know of his Mother, Gwen who features strongly (obviously) in “A Barging Childhood” but is now hanging up her shore-living, view-of-barge-out-of-the-window sea boots. As Nick puts it,

Gwen Ardley sailing Whimbrel

Gwen Ardley sailing Whimbrel; picture by Nick Ardley

“My mother departed the Medway’s shores last week to begin a new life at a warden flat in Devizes, Wiltshire. It was a sad event really: she has spent her entire life on and around the Thames and Medway, which included 30 years on the May Flower…

My mother had a sail on Edith May shortly after rigging out back in May … and aptly … her last meal before the move was aboard that lovely barge. It was a glorious day and the sun sparkled. Evocatively, the barge’s reflections were mirrored on the calm spring tide that filled the dock, reminding her of days long gone…
Jane and Geoff Gransden, according to my youngest brother, Andrew, made a real fuss of her and they all enjoyed a bargeman’s stew. My mother is going to miss the dock and the barge… Bless her.
It is the end of an era, and sadly, for me, I really have left my ‘childhood home…’ It is a place I have visited so often, by land and water since growing up. Of course, I’ll still be sailing into the dock, that’s for sure, roll on 2013!”
Thanks for that, Nick, and I am sure everyone here with Cambria and all our readers will wish Gwen all the best in her land-locked future.

Nick Ardley’s Swale

August 12, 2012 / / 0 Comments

Barge and sailing book author and friend of the Cambria, Nick Ardley is first off the marks this time with his report and some superb pictures of the Swale Match yesterday. I publish here a love photo of Repertor and the newly restored barge Niagara crossing the line, borrowed from Nicks’s lovely website http://www.nickardley.com/ but I’ll leave it to you to nip across there and ‘read all about it’ and look through the excellent pictures. Nick generally takes his own sloop, Whimbrel out to go look at these matches, so he can position himself exactly where he wants and can get pictures you would never get from shore-based viewpoints. Nick grew up on the barge May Flower and has a life long love for and interest in all things barge and Suffolk/Essex/Kent sailing (he refers to it rather tongue-in-cheek, as ‘mud-larking’ and ‘ditch-crawling’) and if you’ve not yet caught up with his various books, they are well worth hunting down. Start your hunt on the website above.

Repertor and Niagara

Repertor and Niagara cross the line in the Swale Match 2012, picture from Nick Ardley’s website.

Meanwhile, Nick also chips in on the subject of the ‘stone heaps’ with a comment “The barge anchorage was not over the shingle spit running out from Shotley, but further into the Orwell close into the Shotley shore – almost opposite the Fagbury buoy. Unfortunately since the extension to the huge port on the Felixstowe shore the ‘mud’ has gone or been diminished by the channel running harder into what was a fine anchorage. I have seen barges using the ‘dead’ gound upstream of the port…
Th spit is not the Stone Heaps as far as I am aware, it is a natural geographical feature due to the run of two rivers. The name did refer to areas where ballast was dumped though – however ballast was mostly, latterly, landed ashore for re-use before ships had ballast water tanks…” Thanks for that clarification, Nick.

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