Gavin Atkin's weblog for the sort of people who like looking inside boat sheds. It's about old boats, traditional boats, boat building, restoration, the sea and the North Kent Coast
My friend Mike Goodwin is bubbling: having been involved in building her some years ago, he now crews on board, and this weekend she set a course new record of 11 hours, one minute and 41 seconds in the The Great Chesapeake Bay Schooner Race!
‘We broke our old record and the race record by 17 minutes and 12 seconds,’ he says. ‘What a night it was: we were pushing well above 13 knots at times!
Bubble all you like fella!
Here’s another video for Facebookers.
And another.
Portsmouth Naval Base volunteers are to sail the schooner Pickle from Hull to the Solent to attend a celebration of the original HMS Pickle’s voyage to Falmouth carrying the news of the victory at Trafalgar and the death of Admiral Lord Nelson.
The battle took place off Cape Trafalgar (not far from the Southern tip of the country) and the journey took ten days – and then it took another 37 hours for captain Lieutenant John Lapenotiere to reach the Admiralty in London.
On arrival, it’s recorded that he announced: ‘Sir, we have gained a great victory but we have lost Lord Nelson.’
The accomplishments of Lapenotiere and his small boat are celebrated each November 4 – the anniversary of Pickle’s arrival in Falmouth – with Pickle Night, an evening for naval ratings to remember the heroes of 1805 and generally let their hair down, often dressed in the uniform of the day.
HMS Victory hosts a special Pickle Night event on the great ship’s lower gun deck with 104 specially-nominated ratings dining with Second Sea Lord Vice Admiral Jonathan Woodcock.
HMS Victory executive officer WO1 Dickie Henderson along with some senior ratings serving aboard Nelson’s flagship thought this year the presence of a replica (the original Pickle was wrecked more than two centuries ago) berthed next to Victory, would add to the proceedings.
The current Pickle was built 20 years ago in the Baltic, has a hull similar to the original and was adapted to look more like the original HMS Pickle to mark the 200th anniversary of Trafalgar.
The crew will live in more comfort than sailors of Nelson’s era but he sailing gear would have been recognisable to old time sailors. On her planned way south from the 25th-30th October, she is to call at Harwich, Dover and Eastbourne, and reach Portsmouth on the 30th.
Thanks to support from long-time Navy supporter Sir Donald Gosling and his foundation, and the RN RM Charity, up to six sailors, at a time, from HMS Victory and Portsmouth Flotilla will be able to crew the Pickle on each leg (the longest is 36 hours)… I gather there has been no shortage of volunteers.
The expected planning application to build housing on the Matings site on Burnham’s waterfront – and the town’s councillors have voted not to recommend the application. The issue now lies with the folks at Maldon District Council Planning, who can be reached at planning@maldon.gov.uk. The deadline for comments is the 6th October.
The story is the same in too many places around our coast – so often, nprofitable, high value housing is so often replacing port buildings, wharves and boatyards. Local campaigner Ed Maggs put it very well in an email he sent to to me ‘Burnham should be one of the homes of wooden boat culture, rather than continuing on its way to a commuter town suburb.’ He’s right…