Category: Sailing cruisers

Sailing yachts used for cruising, or as cruiser-racers.

Does anyone know the story of gaff rigged cutter Medusa Bay please?

Medusa Bay

Medusa Bay Medusa Bay

A chap called Udo has been in touch to ask for information about a boat he has bought recently.

She’s a strip-planked 37ft gaff-rigged cutter named Medusa Bay and is currently in a marina at Hull – though he plans in the spring to sail her to Blankenberge, Belgium.

Udo was put in touch with intheboatshed.net because has been told that she was built at Faversham. We’ve since learned that she was actually built at Conyer, though her spars came from Faversham. Still, I’m sure Udo would be delighted to learn more about her story, and for any old photos readers may have to hand please!

PS Now in the autumn of 2012 Medusa Bay is for sale. Contact me at gmatkin@gmail.com, and I’ll put you in touch with the owner.

Fabulous new publications from Lodestar Books include classic yachting authors Conor O’Brien, H Alker Tripp, H Lewis Jones and WE Sinclair

Inshore of the Goodwins sample

Shoalwater and Fairway - H Alker Tripp - Christmas gifts from Lodestar Books Swin, Swale and Swatchway - H Lewis Jones - Christmas gifts from Lodestar Books On Going to Sea in Yachts - Conor O'Brien - Christmas gifts from Lodestar Books Cruises of the Joan - W E Sinclair - Christmas gifts from Lodestar Books

I have good news as we come up to the Christmas season – Dick Wynne’s wonderful Lodestar Books is republishing four more sailing classics that will make great gifts for the sailing man or woman:

  • Shoalwater and Fairway – The casual explorations of a sailing main in the shoal seas and tidal waters of Essex and Kent by H Alker Tripp, illustrated by the author. Click on a the image at the top of this post for a sample chapter
  • Swin, Swale and Swatchway by H Lewis Jones – Jones pre-dates both Maurice Griffiths and Francis B Cooke, and gives us the the Thames Estuary and the boats and characters inhabiting it in late Victorian times. His charming adventures and human encounters have an engaging immediacy, and are enhanced by the author’s many photographs, which provide a priceless glimpse of a time long gone
  • Cruises of the Joan by WE Sinclair – the cruises of an engineless, 22-ft Falmouth quay punt in the 1920s, first around Britain, then to Madeira and to the Baltic, and finally across the North Atlantic to Iceland and Greenland. Sinclair’s dry, phlegmatic humour and observation makes his accounts highly entertaining account – and one we might not have today if luck had not played its part
  • On Going to Sea in Yachts – Conor O’Brien’s distilled experience in selecting, equipping and handling sailing craft from the smallest beach cruiser to the ocean-going yacht. The author’s choice of topics and anecdotes, all related in a characteristically down-to-earth manner, makes valuable and engaging reading. His many clear drawings leave us in no doubt as to the practical details, which are born of his own experience over many years and many thousands of sea miles

If these aren’t quite what’s needed, don’t forget Lodestar’s previous publications, Francis B Cooke’s classic Cruising Hints – The Traditional Yachtsman’s Compendium and the outstanding Holmes of the Humber collection of material by and about legendary canoe yawl sailor, boat designer, artist  Humber Estuary figure, George Holmes. Get your great boating reading here!

The mysteries of flag etiquette explained

Do you ever feel second-bested because you don’t understand the rules about flags where they apply to boats and yachts? Do you perhaps feel that its just another way that the world has found of finding fault, and judging you to be wrong in yet another way? Do you think that it’s an area that exists purely for the entertainment of certain fastidious personality types that can safely be ignored? Is it just quaint and fun? Or is it important – so important that others who get it wrong MUST BE TOLD FIRMLY and should SEE DEMONSTRATIONS IMMEDIATELY?

I guess all four points of view may apply at times, though for me the first three come more naturally to an egalitarian, liberal kind of mind, and the last can be either fun or just tiresome, depending.

For the benefit of those who don’t really ‘get’ flags but like to fly the Red Ensign every now and again, here is an explanation of what you’re supposed to know so that you need never again feel at a loss. And it comes complete with a nice story or two…