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The World Cruise of Veleda IV |
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London Log #12d, Thames and East Coast rivers Orford, Suffolk 52 05.4 N 001 32.7 E September 2, 1999 It is a quiet misty morning on the Ore River (thus the town Orford) with the 12th century castle of Edward II and the square Norman spire of St. Bartholemew's Chuch rising above the tree line, as I sit down to update my logs. We have been cruising the Thames estuary and the east coast rivers of Essex and Suffolk for the past week or so since leaving London. Before we left Limehouse Basin in London, we did a bit of touring. The first tourist attraction we visited was the Greenwich Observatory, the Cutty Sark and Chichester's Gypsy Moth. Of course we had to have our pictures taken astride the Prime Meridian with one foot in the Eastern Hemisphere and the other in the Western. It was interesting as we worked our way up to London on the Thames seeing the Longitude readout from the GPS switching from West Longitude to East Longitude several times as we wound our way up the river. The Gypsy Moth, in which Chichester did his solo circumnavigation was not open to see inside, but we could walk around it in its concrete display pad and see the technology used in the 50's on a racing yacht. The Cutty Sark was impressive with its three towering masts and the yardarms and rigging dominating the skyline like a Gothic cathedral. She was used in the India Tea trade and later the American cotton runs showing her speed in these commerce routes for only a twenty year period before being superceded by steam. One of my favourite pictures in the display was of her overtaking a royal mail steamship coming up the channel, for under good wind conditions she was faster than steamships of the day. The observatory itself was interesting and informative. A visit to it should be a must for any navigating cadet to understand the development of celestial and satellite navigation theory and systems. They had on display, with appropriate descriptions, the four chronometers of Harrison, the man who finally won the prize for being able to measure accurately Longitude by the use of reliable portable seagoing timepieces. A large display area focused on time, its meaning, significance and its measurement from primitive understandings to the current technologies used in satellites, and the measurement of microseconds using vibrations of the Cesium atom. A variety of astronomical devices and telescopes used at Greenwich were on display with the history of their use. As well, the several different Prime Meridians, used (prior to the establishment of the current Prime Meridian) by different Astronomers Royal for their astronomical surveys, were shown. When a new, improved, survey telescope was installed, its location became the meridian used as a baseline, so these were spaced fifteen feet or so apart, on the next available wall for the vertical mounting of the telescope. Of course, the spread of London and its city lights has made Greenwich unusable as an actual observatory now, but it is a wonderful museum of the history of navigational astronomy. We will visit Greenwich again as we want to spend a day or more at the Maritime Museum and the Naval College located there. The only other touring we did was to go to the St. Katherine's docks and the Tower Bridge to orient ourselves with that area for future exploration of the Tower of London. We had a good visit with Judy's parents in London, and went with them to Paris via the Chunnel Eurostar train in only three hours. The Chunnel was just a 25 minute ride through a black tunnel. In Paris we had a family reunion of all the Shykoff family, together for the first time in years, and with the newest member, Pierre, who was only one month old. We did not do any touring as we wanted to spend time with the family. But we did (of course) go down to the Seine River and located the Marina in central Paris just upriver from Notre Dame Cathedral where we will probably stay when we go through Paris next year (cost about $1.00 a foot). We also had a chance to talk to several boaters there to get some information on the French canal system. On our return to London we went to Dulwich to a barbeque at Rod Heikell's home, for his crew on 7/10 th's. We met Rod in Key West when another yacht was dragging its anchor down onto 7/10 th's, and again when we were in Cuba. We have kept contact with him via E-mail. We renewed acquaintance with another of his crew that we met in Cuba, Vicki, when we were in Falmouth. We have several other boaters we met in Bermuda and the Azores who will be wintering at St Katherine's Docks, and look forward to renewing their acquaintance. Also at this dock we went through the Grand Turk, a wooden hulled, square rigged frigate that was used as the Indefatigable, Horatio Hornblower's ship, in the TV series about his adventures. This ship will also be featured at the Southampton Boat Show in mid September. We like the community in which Limehouse Basin is located. In addition to the good marina facilities there, a small industrial stretch under an old bridge houses a machine and metal shop, and a marine wire and rope shop. We got our stove burner repaired at the metal shop, and they will be able to fix the broken whisker pole. There is a community library nearby. The Leeds and Regent canals flow into Limehouse Basin providing me an opportunity to explore London in the dinghy via these canals. So we are looking forward to a winter in downtown London to greet the millennium. Log #12e Thames Estuary, Essex & Suffolk rivers Pin Mill on the Orwell River Suffolk County 51 59.9 N, 001 13.1 E Sept. 4, 1999 We left London on Aug. 24 for a last five or six weeks cruising the east and south coasts of England before returning to Limehouse Basin by September 30 for the winter. We locked through into the Thames with no problems, and after refuelling at a fuel barge just below Tower Bridge, set off for the Medway River. The motor down the Thames is a boring, bleak run, and after rounding the protruding masts of the Richard Montgomery, a sunken American supply ship, where the Medway River enters the Thames Estuary, we picked up a mooring at Queensborough on a grey mud flat industrial shoreline. This is one of the closest anchorages to London, yet it was a 47 mile run. Incidentally, on this run we passed the 10,000 nautical mile mark since we set sail July 3, 1998. Orwell Yacht Club Orwell River, Ipswich 52 02.1 N, 001 09.0 E Sept. 6, 1990 We are a few miles up the Orwell River near Ipswich as we write this. I say we as I am going to ask Judy to write about her experiences in reliving the sagas of Swallows and Amazons in the locales in which they took place, that is, in Walton Back Waters (Secret Water) But first we had to get there, - what should have been a comfortable sail across the Thames Estuary on a rising tide and keeping off the many sand bars and shoals that are strung out along this stretch of water. We started off very early for a change, at 0550, in order to start with a falling tide to help us out of Sheerness, and then to capture a rising tide to help us in to Walton Back Waters on the far (northern) side of the estuary. We had good currents helping us and a following wind in which we hoisted our spinnaker for a few hours. However, as the wind worked up and backed to dead astern we tried to take down the spinnaker, a few minutes too late, as it wrapped itself tightly around the headstay. We could not unwrap it from the deck regardless of how hard we tried. We tried motoring around in circles to clear it, but the wind was too strong, billowing into the ballooning upper half of this large, flogging sail to prevent us from tacking through the eye of the wind. We couldn't come round! Ultimately Judy had to go up the mast, with me backing up her lines, to clear it at the mast head. All this in 15 to 25 knot winds and rising seas, although they were only about six feet at the time. We finally got it down with a considerable amount of physical and emotional pressure. It took over an hour to get it down, but fortunately we were motoring in the proper direction and our autopilot was working well. We made good time as we had the tide ebbing with us leaving Queensborough at Sheerness and flooding with us going into Walton Channel. We passed Pye End Buoy at 1337 and by 1430 were anchored inside Stone Point, the northern tip of what is called The Naze (the nose) in Essex County. Incidentally, many of the buoys in England are given names instead of numbers, with the names being printed in large white letters on them. Several of the buoys mentioned in the Ransome story We Didn't Mean To Go To Sea are still on station with the same names of sixty years ago when the stories were published. Also the colours are reversed. Over here it is GREEN RIGHT RETURNING instead of the RED RIGHT RETURNING used in North America. Frankly it make more sense with green right for a starboard hand buoy, doesn't it? Don't get confused now! We met and visited Martin, a spritsail barge skipper and his daughter, Ellen on their boat. On the outside Manon looked like a converted working barge, which it was, but the inside was quite spacious and comfortable, including a bathtub in the heads area. Mind you, it displaced 50,000 pounds as compared to Veleda's 10,000 pounds. We had a few good visits with them and saw the boat again a week later when we were up in Pinmill. Also that weekend was an Old Gaffers Reunion, a rendezvous of old gaff rigged boats. They looked beautiful, whether at anchor with sails furled, or out with their tanbark wings supported by gaff booms with cutter foresails and flying fisherman topsails. I'll let Judy describe her reaction to the few days we spent here and to the explorations we made in Sprite: Judy's Commentary:
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