Beautiful boats and an inspiring underlying story – even if it does have more than a touch of Hollywood style sentimentality about it.
Thanks for the link Hans-Christian Rieck!
Category: Sailing cruisers
Sailing yachts used for cruising, or as cruiser-racers.
Oare Creek to the Colne – a gallery
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.
Hanging out with Strangers
The Albert Strange Association’s meet this year was a little depleted in boat numbers, as two Albert Strange boats that had been expected weren’t able to make it on the day – one because it was wind-bound.
But the consolation was that after a generally variable summer the Strangers and their friends who were there enjoyed some classic August sunshine and peaceful weather.
I’d just like to say the Strangers made my pal Richard and I very welcome (we had a glorious sail over from North Kent for the event and greatly enjoyed the sail up to Rowhedge) and it was lovely to be able to celebrate the 90th birthdays of Jamie and Tessa Clay’s Firefly and Russell Read and Dick Wynne’s co-owned Charm on the rafted-up decks of Firefly and Galatea.
It was fascinating also to be able to take a long look at Fabian Bush’s cold-moulded sometimes-gaffer, sometimes Bermudan-rigged Hanser, a lean and fast lifting keel yacht that embodied some interesting ideas when it was built in the 1970s and has had quite a few new ones added (and I guess a few removed) since that time.