The following links might be helpful if your interest is piqued by these photos:
- the impressive deep sea smack Pioneer is managed by the Pioneer Sailing Trust
- the cute racing dinghies with the tall rigs and the letter ‘C’ on their sails that look such fun to sail are Brightlingsea One Designs
- the sweet little sailing dinghy is a Heron
- the workshop belongs to boat builder Fabian Bush, and the boat is a Morgan Giles designed Royal Dart One Design
- the big cat is coming back from one of the wind farms in the Thames Estuary – which include the enormous London Array
- the small sailing boat with the balanced lug rig and brown sail seems to have local sailmaker, raconteur and ex-barge skipper Jimmy Lawrence at the helm
If anyone’s wondering whether to make the same trip, I say don’t hesitate – we had a great time, despite the occasional jetski or speedboat hauling a donut.
Great pics. Love them.
Nice pics, Gavin. We must have passed each other somewhere, we were over that way at the same time.
Nice to see a Heron. My first boat was Heron no.119, called ‘Plankton’ (no, I don’t know why), bought umpteenth-hand for £55 in about 1962. She was reputed to have been built by the ‘lads’ at Dover Borstal. We had quite a fleet of them at Herne Bay SC (where I’ve been a member for 53 years, although not active there now) and the racing was fierce. After a couple of years of sailing this boat in all weather, all day every day in the school summer holidays, I became a young upstart by winning all the Heron class race series, much to the disgust of the older incumbents. She flew single-handed in a good blow – I recall the club Commodore advising me to reef one dreadful afternoon when I was going out for a single-handed jolly, and me upsetting him by refusing. Well, we wouldn’t go as fast, would we?
I wonder if ‘Plankton’ is still alive? Last seen on the beach at Hampton (Herne Bay) in the 1970’s.
I did wonder if you were around – I saw you leave Oare about half an hour before we did. I waved, but probably a bit too late to be seen.
My son would do the same thing, by the way!
Gav
We went to Pyefleet that day, ‘Crow’ was behind us at the Spitway but went on towards the Orwell where we saw her with a bunch of other gaffers a few days later. We went on to Heybridge Basin and then back down to Bradwell, then to the Orwell where we spent a day with a gang of the great people from Imrays’ office on board before we did the run home in one hit.
We were in Pyefleet too – but you’ll likely know that. Did Dick and Russell catch up with the Old Gaffers with their gorgeous old Strange boat Charm?