Category: History

Panoramic photos 1938 THPV Bembridge being restored in Poland

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Pilot vessel Bembridge being restored in Poland

Check out these panoramic photos of 1938 pilot vessel THPV Bembridge, currently under restoration in Poland, where she is to become the offices of a company, Magemar Polska.

She has had quite a history: for example she was involved in the Normandy landings and, following her career as a pilot ship, became a sea training vessel and later got involved in oil exploration in the North Sea.

East Coast yachties know here well as she was the Essex Yacht Club’s clubhouse at Leigh on Sea for many years. It’s great to see her being cared for.

See her current owners’ extensive website: www.bembridge.pl

Tait’s Seamanship, 1913, part I, or how to sail a ship

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Tait's Seamanship 1913 Cover

Tait's Seamanship 1913 Cover adverts 1 Tait's Seamanship 1913 adverts 2 Tait's Seamanship 1913 Compass and frontispiece

Tait's Seamanship 1913 preface Tait's Seamanship 1913 Introductory note and contents Tait's Seamanship 1913 contents

I’ve often wondered what ‘seamanship’ really is and who, if anyone, has the definitive article in their posession.

It’s not that I don’t understand or approve of the aims of seamanship – it’s about keep lives safe and protecting boats from harm while successfully travelling on the water. But, like the proverbial skinners of cats,  boat users all have their own methods, and there seems to be at least as many forms of correct seamanship as there are sailors.

Whatever sea-related activity you care to name, someone somewhere does it differently and will tell you all about it in a very firm and authoritative way – in the club bar, online or, sometimes, even on our own boats.

So I thought it might be fun and informative (and hopefully uncontroversial) to consider what seamanship was thought to be a century or so ago. So here are the cover and first few pages of Tait’s Seamanship, a splendid little document produced by a Glasgow maritime educational establishment whose principals had the good sense to provide courses for masters discreetly in a separate room.

I hope you enjoy the scans – as usual, click on the images for much larger, easily readable images.

Embarrassing RN submarine grounding in the Kyle of Lochalsh

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Kyle of Lochalsh

The story of high-tech Naval submarine HMS Astute getting stuck in the Kyle of Lochalsh is possibly disappointing for  tax payers who paid for all the technology and training that’s meant to prevent this kind of thing – and probably even worse for the officers involved.

Still, it does make me feel a little better able to forgive myself for all errors I’ve made in sailing over the years – and leads me to fervently hope all my future mistakes will have equally minor consequences. I also recommend reading Ewan Kennedy’s musings about the event – he knows the area, and argues that it is in fact well charted though it’s lucky the big, expensive boat hit gravel and not rock. My thanks to John Lockwood for tipping me off about this.

One other thought thought is this. I’ve never has occasion to look at a map of the area before, but I must say the Kyle looks like a super cruising ground for small boats.

PS – Thanks to John again, I’ve learned that the sub got damaged by the tug that pulled it free.