Hooked on Fishing

My nose before the piercing

Friday, was another sea fishing trip out of Jersey with my favourite charter skipper Tony Heart. This was the second or third attempt to make the trip this year, most of the previous ones thwarted by unseasonal weather. Fortunately while the rest of the UK was on flood alert with forecasts of a month’s worth of rain falling within a twenty four hour window, the western coast of France and the Channel Islands were spared. 

We had no sunshine to speak of but the winds were light and the visibility was excellent. It was cold, there was an uneasy swell left over from the previous high winds and the tide was wrong – but what the hell, there was a chance so we took it.

The catch wasn’t so bad, given the conditions, about 40 mackerel to share between us, a bream, a gurnard and a sand eel. There were dogfish too but the jury is out as to whether Mario caught three different ones or the same one three times. 

The high spot of the trip was when I managed to hook myself with a mackerel hook through the nose. Fortunately there was a pair of pliers on board and as the hook went clean through the nostril, it was relatively easy to cut the hook and pull it through the hole created by the barb. It’s a technique worth remembering because there is no way you’d manage to pull the hook out against the barb. In truth the main problem was that the boat was rolling like an old tub at the time so it was difficult for the skipper with the pliers to get an accurate grasp of the hook. One interesting thing however, was that throughout the whole incident I was in no pain – even when I was tugging away at the hook trying to yank it out against the barb.  So, does a fish feel pain when it’s hooked?  I don’t think so. I didn’t. And anyway, if it did it wouldn’t fight so hard.

Dogfish 3 or Dogfish 1 for the third time?

So what has gone wrong with our weather this year? Well according to the BBC, the high level 60mph winds referred to as the Jetstream which usually settle into a pattern to the north of the UK in summer, have settled much further south. As a result they are picking up a great deal of energy and humidity from the Atlantic and the warmer climes in the South of France and that energy is being dissipated as wind, thunder, lightning and torrential rain to the north (over the UK). The problem is that weather systems can settle into a pattern and can be difficult to dislodge. The current weather therefore may be as good as it is going to get this summer. Meanwhile America swelters.

So onto another more optimistic point, a reader emailed me recently with what could have been a solution to my search for an ideal boat. It seems a 16 ft fishing boat has sunk in relatively shallow seas and the US coastguard has deemed it to be a navigation hazard. The owner therefore has to refloat or move it and the estimated cost of hiring the kit and expertise is likely to be in excess of $2,500. A sum, either he has not got or is reluctant to pay. He therefore has announced that he is prepared to sign over ownership to anyone who can salvage her.

In effect, providing I am prepared to fly to Florida, and raise this hulk from the seabed, I can have the boat (and contents estimated to be worth $800) for free. All I then have to do is return the vessel to my beloved France, repair, restore and re-register her there and all my boat search problems will be over. Mmm – maybe not – but a good suggestion in any case – keep ‘em coming folks, good ideas are indiscriminate and they don’t care where they land (a bit like fish hooks really). Out there, somewhere, there is the germ of a good idea.

Seaward

It Shouldn’t Happen to a Sailor (7)

Or in this case maybe it should!

The tiny island of Jersey, where I spend a good deal of time, is home to a small community of 90,000. The Island measures 9 miles by five at high tide and gains an additional 44 square miles of sand and rock at low tide. The inhabitants owe allegiance to the Queen of England but not her government. Essentially in all matters other than foreign policy they are independent. The Island is 90 miles south of the UK but only 14 miles from the French coast. As you can imagine, there is a strong French influence and there are families here who can trace their ancestry back to William the Conqueror. Much of the local legal system is based on old Norman French law too. One throwback to the old Norman times is the system of policing used in the Island.

The system works like this. Each Parish (there are twelve) elects a Constable who is responsible for law and order in his parish. The Constable is ‘elected and unpaid’. In order to fulfil his duties he has a team of voluntary Centeniers, each one theoretically responsible for the good behaviour of one hundred families. To assist in carrying out his duties , each Centenier has a team of voluntary Vingteniers responsible for twenty parish families. Their prime duty is to prevent crime. This is no easy job; if they are ‘too eager and enthusiastic’ they are not re-elected. If they are ‘too laid-back or lazy’ they are not re-elected. They walk a fine tightrope.

Davy, has a Channel Island 22 which he uses for crabbing and the occasional trip to France to replenish his supply of red wine and calvados, a sort of fire-water made from apples.Each Spring he takes the boat from his back yard down to the harbour and each Autumn he brings her back to overwinter.

So his road trailer makes four three mile trip each year. A couple of years ago, he became worried that the trailer may no longer be ‘street’ legal. The tyres were bald, the salt had seized the brakes, the brake lights didn’t work and the whole rig was covered in salt induced rust stains. What to do?

He called the local Constable who arranged to visit him and inspect the trailer. The constable brought the Centenier, who brought the Vingtenier with him and the three voluntary officials carried out a thorough inspection. 

        ‘Ah Davy, you have a problem here’, pronounced the Constable. ‘Look here, the tyres are bald, the salt has seized the brakes, the brake lights don’t work and the whole rig is covered in salt induced rust stains. This trailer is illegal. It’s dangerous - that’s what it is’

        ‘I know’, said Davy, ‘that’s why I brought you here. It’s March already and the crabs will be coming in by April, can’t miss the season, what am I going to do?’

The police officers agreed that this was indeed a serious problem and took themselves off out of ear-shot to determine what should be done.

After a few moments they returned

        ‘Well Davy, this is a serious problem’ said the Constable in his most grave and authoritative tone ‘Here’s what you must do. Firstly, you move the boat slowly, at six O clock on Sunday morning when there won’t be too many people about.’

        ‘That’s all very well,’ said Davy, but what if someone reports me? I might get into trouble.’

        ‘It won’t be a problem.’ Said the Constable, ‘we’ll give you a police escort’.

Now why can’t all policemen think that way?

Seaward

 It Shouldn’t Happen to a Sailor (6): Taking DIY Too Far

OK, I have to own up here. Previous ‘shouldn’t happen’ postings have been about other people. This one is about me.

About twenty years ago, I bought a little 19ft Seawytch sailing cruiser to keep and sail at Kielder Water a huge lake in Northumberland UK. Kielder is the largest man-made lake in Europe set among pine forests close to the Scottish border. It was a high altitude windy location and the lake was large enough to allow serious waves to develop, so sailing there was not dissimilar to sailing a Scottish sea loch.

I’d bought the boat from a military guy who did everything by the book. The boat was crammed with gear and equipment, carefully maintained, all shipshape and Bristol fashion. If I had one minor criticism it would be that the previous owner had ‘over-stocked’ the inventory. There was enough anchor cable to secure the boat to the bottom of the deepest Atlantic trench, and the anchor and kedge were large enough to hold a small battleship.  The range of flares stowed aboard exceeded the ‘off-shore’ requirement and the fenders, when not in use, filled the entire forward cabin. 

The fact that the boat was equipped more for an ocean voyage than an afternoon sail around the lake was particularly evident when the first aid medical pack was opened, the quantity and range of equipment in there would have put a military field-hospital to shame.  It even contained a DIY dentistry kit, complete with instructions on how to extract or fill your own tooth.

What's in your kit?

My problem began at the start of the long Easter weekend break, four days of public holiday, a period when most dentists and pharmacies were closed. The start of the break coincided with a dull ache in an upper right molar, a tooth which had shed part of its filling a few weeks before.

Yes, I should have gone to my dentist immediately, but I don’t like pain and dentists scare me. Anyway loosing the filling hadn’t resulted in immediate pain so I presumed it didn’t matter.  Well it did matter, because while friends were away launching their boats for the coming season and enjoying an unusually mild and sunny Easter Saturday,  I was sitting at home, morose, nursing an ever worsening pain in the jaw.Then I had an idea, I could fix the problem myself using the DIY dentistry kit on the boat. 

To fill your own tooth, the instructions said I had to wash my mouth with a pink solution from the kit. Then I had to take the cotton wool (supplied) to pack between my tooth and cheek, thus drying the area and protecting the rest of my mouth. I then had to heat up a small piece of metal (looking suspiciously like cold solder). I managed this by putting it in a spoon and holding it over the gas cooker. The next bit was more tricky. Somehow I had to get the hot amalgam from the spoon to my tooth. In the end I achieved this by taking a fork from the kitchen drawer, bending all the tines back, except one, dipping the remaining tine into the metal and then rushing the fork into my mouth to smear the metal over the hole in my tooth. It was a long operation and I managed to miss the tooth on several occasions, the result was that I had several pieces of metal attached to innocent teeth which had required no treatment. Worse was to come however. When I attempted to remove the cotton wool, I discovered that it was stuck fast. The metal had effectively glued it to my tooth.  My DIY efforts had given me a furry tooth and the pain hadn’t diminished, if anything it was worse. To add to my woes, sharp bits of metal were cutting into my tongue and all the prodding and poking had made my jaw more painful than ever. 

After a stiff slug of Whiskey, I managed to file away the bits of rogue metal, but the only way to dislodge the cotton wool, was to take the fork and dig out the metal filling the hole. Painful slow work which was not 100% successful. Significant tufts of cotton wool remained firmly attached.

There was nothing for it but to make an appointment with a dentist. He looked at my mouth and listened to my explanation for the wool and bits of shrapnel he found in there. He then left the room and returned with a colleague a few minutes later, wiping his eyes for some reason. The colleague took a look made a choking kind of noise and left the room.

It took about an hour for the dentist to clear the cotton wool and iron from my mouth and then he dropped the real bombshell.

‘Well that’s tidied up the mess. Nothing wrong with the tooth by the way, never was.  It’s a gum infection. It can easily happen, take these tablets that’ll sort it.’

Seaward

It Shouldn’t Happen To a Sailor (5)

Sailing, Mooring and Making a Big Splash At Plouer Sur Rance

It’s Friday evening and I have made a pact with myself. This weekend, hell or high water, I will consider all the options, wood, steel, GRP, gunter, gaff or lugger, sloop or ketch, fin keel or dagger board, inboard or outboard – AND I’ll compile a list of boats which seem to fit my criteria. Next week I’ll start a serious search for the ‘low cost cruiser’.

In the meantime, here is another true tale of misadventure – it really shouldn’t happen to a sailor!

The beautiful French port of St Malo, city of corsairs, lies at the seaward end of the estuary of the River Rance. For cruising folk visiting France, St Malo is the gateway to the beautiful Rance estuary, wide peaceful waters, set in a shallow picturesque valley of beautiful countryside and tiny granite settlements.

Towards the head of the estuary lies the village of Plouer Sur Rance with its tiny yacht harbour, created in the pool of a long-dormant tidal mill. The majority of berths in the marina are taken up by locals but to encourage tourists and to generate income for the local shops and restaurants, the village council reserves ten berths for visitors.

There are two things to know about Plouer Marina. Firstly, it has a wall to retain water within the basin at low tide. At high tide the wall is submerged. This presents no problem, it is well marked, but it does mean that at high tide there is a current of water running through the harbour over the wall. At low tide the wall ensures there is no real current at all.

Secondly, visitor boats are moored in pairs either side of very narrow floating finger pontoons which are perfectly fine most of the time when boats are moored alongside them. Take away the boats however, and stepping out on one of these narrow wobbly fingers is not dissimilar to tightrope walking. Stability comes not from the pontoon, but from the support provided to it by the buoyancy and stability of the boats tied alongside. Locals know this, visitors often discover the hard way.

The way Charles’ learned about the pontoon was particularly spectacular. He arrived aboard a friend’s motor cruisers at about six o’ clock one Friday evening, a time which the French often refer to as ‘The Blue Hour’, that particularly pleasant time after work on a Friday when you have the whole weekend before you; the time when you meet up with friends over a glass of Pernod or perhaps a Kir before heading for home.

At Plouer, ‘La Guitoon’, a waterside bar run by an old salt called Joe, is a particular favourite location. Most of the locals are boatmen, and from here you get a full view of the comings and goings within the harbour.

Charles and his skipper entered Plouer harbour at the top of the tide and were aware of the significant group of locals all of whom turned to see the English boat arrive.

            ‘The visitor berths are over there’, the skipper called to Charles. ‘Get up forward and be ready to jump off with the mooring line when I give the signal. We’ll show these guys how it should be done.’

Charles dutifully went forward and stood holding the pulpit with one hand and the rope in the other as the skipper casually turned the boat toward a gap in the pontoons. As he approached however, the boat speed increased due to the current of water passing across the submerged wall. The skipper reduced throttle but the vessel only seemed to accelerate. Finally, at the last minute, in a desperate attempt to avoid ploughing through the pontoons, he threw both engines into reverse. In so doing, he also threw Charles off the boat.

Fortunately for Charles, he managed to land upright on the pontoon. Unfortunately for Charles, the pontoon immediately sank under his weight and then resurfaced like a springboard - catapulting Charles headlong into the water.  

Of such incidents, legends are made. They’re still talking about this in Joes bar and Charles hasn’t returned. ‘Shame really, there’s a few guys who’d like to buy him a drink and shake his hand. You don’t get free entertainment like that every day.

Seaward

  

It Shouldn’t Happen To A Sailor (4)

Extreme Sailing on Ullswater

April, Lake District in UK, Ullswater lake, land of Wordsworth’s famous daffodils. Gerry has a new boat and can’t wait to launch her on the lake. April can still be pretty raw in these northern regions. Is it Spring yet or is it still winter? The jury is out.

Gerry tows the new boat up from Manchester. The weight of the boat is such that he’s towing at the legal limit for his car  - and the additional gear - rope, anchors, sails, etc makes the rig illegal. One trick he read about though is to pile as much boat-gear as you can into the car. That way, in the eyes of the law, you are not ‘towing’ additional weight; you just have a very heavy vehicle.

This strategy causes some family upset. Gerry’s wife objects to making the trip sitting in the back seat on an anchor with a boat cooker on her lap. A somewhat terse conversation leads to a compromise about the amount of gear that needs to be taken on this first trip and the gear is stripped down to bare essentials. Other, ‘nice to have but not essential’ equipment can be taken on the next trip.

The ground was hard with frost when they arrived. Still, the day was bright and the frozen earth made for an easy haul from the road to lake edge for the launch from the trailer. All went well, the boat was soon floating against the pontoon and Gerry was the proudest of men; probably the first boat owner to launch that season. After a hurried lunch of coffee and sandwiches in the car Gerry suggested a brief trial sail before heading for home.

‘Nothing too long,’ he told his wife, ‘just an hour to make sure the rigging is set up right’

She agreed reluctantly after pointing out that the outboard motor was one of the items left behind in Manchester.

            ‘ It’s OK, we won’t need it.’ Said Gerry, ‘There’s a steady breeze, and we’ll only be out for an hour.’ 

Ullswater Lake is nine miles long; the shores are steep fells side, home to a particularly hardy breed of sheep and not much else. They were half way along the length of the lake, about five miles across the water from their mooring when the wind died. 

By four pm, they were drifting towards the far shore in the gathering darkness of a short winter’s day. No, motor, no paddles, no additional warm clothes.  Even if the boat drifted into the shore, they faced a fourteen mile trek around the lake back to the safety of their car. Gerry studied a map.

‘There’s hotel on the far side.’ He suggested optimistically.’ If we can drift into the shore and secure the boat we could follow a track along the water’s edge. It’s probably no more than a mile away from where we’ll fetch up.’

An hour later the couple were feeling their way along the rough track in absolute darkness. There was no sign of the hotel, which should have been visible by now.

            ‘It’s probably around the next bend’, said Gerry, unable to explain the absence of any welcoming light. They eventually stumbled into the driveway only to find that the hotel was in darkness. It hadn’t opened for the season yet. Nobody home.

Back on the boat, the couple scoured every locker, for anything to add comfort to their miserable lot. No light, no food, no drink, no berth cushions to sleep on, no cooker for heat. Nothing other than the clothes they sat in and a set of keys for a car that was just too far away. Then, just as it seems that things could get no worse… it began to snow.

Seaward

It shouldn’t happen to a sailor (3)

The Shock of the New

Came across an old friend during the Easter break and shared a drink or two with him. Hadn’t seen him for several years but I was saddened and surprised by the tale he had to tell. I share the story here because there might be an important message for all of us.

Mike, made a significant amount of money in building and property development in the UK and decided to take an early retirement. His decision was based on the fact that his parents had both died relatively early due to heart conditions and anyway he wanted to spend a good deal of time on the water, live the dream aboard a large new luxury cruiser.

Not Mike's boat - but similar

So with a pile of money burning a hole in his pocket he visited the London Boatshow and was really impressed by a newly designed large sleek power cruiser made in France.The manufacturer was offering some very attractive ‘one-time-only Boatshow deals’ to anyone prepared to put down a small deposit and so he shook the guy’s hand and parted with £25,000 as a ten percent contribution to the total outlay. Delivery was promised for six months time, (June), the remaining payment (outstanding balance) to be made prior to delivery - in Euros.

What happened next? Well, nothing at all! The manufacturer had been over-optimistic about his production capacity and the June delivery deadline was missed. July came and went, as did August. The boat eventually arrived in late September but during the interval between the January Boatshow and the boat’s arrival the world moved on.

Stirling weakened and the Euro strengthened during that period. When he did the deal in January a Euro was worth £0.66. When the main payment became due in September however, the Euro was worth £0.80. In effect, he had to pay more pounds in order to meet the Euro price. It cost him an additional £31,000. Mike grudgingly paid rather than risk losing his deposit.

Equally disturbing, during the those nine months between the new model’s launch onto the market and Mike’s own boat being launched in the marina, the boating press had run sea trials and generally crawled all over the new design . The unanimous verdict, published in almost every yachting journal, was that the boat was not very good. She was criticised, for her poor quality finish, her lack of power, her uneasy motion in a seaway and poorly designed accommodation.  Mike now has a vessel, which cost him a lot more than he expected and her value has depreciated rapidly due to her poor reputation. Worse still, influenced by the press reviews, he has no great love for his boat and rarely goes out in her. He could try to sell her of course but finding a buyer won’t be easy and the selling price will be low – nothing like his original outlay. In such ways are dreams broken.

Seaward

It shouldn’t happen to a sailor (2)

Encounter with Vikings

A few years ago, I managed to find a couple of days for a trip to Carteret on the Normandy Coast of France. I was living in Jersey Channel Islands UK at the time and the voyage involved a trip along the south coast of the island and then a run up the east coast moving progressively further from the shore as my route took me across the fourteen miles of open sea to my destination. The whole trip was about 25 miles. I could do it in five hours with a fair wind and even faster with a fair tide.

Channel Island waters produce fast moving tides and 30ft rises and falls are not unusual (40ft on some springs) so, you go with the flow or you don’t go at all. My plan was to leave harbour at 5:30 am to catch the best run of tide east along the south coast and pick up the northward flow as I turned the corner. Winds were forecast to be light but there was a possibility of encountering banks of thick fog. There are plenty of land and seamarks along the first part of the route however, so I planned to set off if the visibility was clear enough to see the Demi-de Pas lighthouse, the first mark from St Helier harbour. From there I would continue if I could see Icho Tower (the second mark) on arrival at the Demi. In this fashion I could pilot the boat from mark to mark, and if visibility deteriorated I could anchor and wait for it to lift or abort the trip by cutting and running to Gorey harbour on the east cost of the Island.

Half way through the trip, all was going well, visibility was better than I had expected and with the assistance of a strong favourable tide, the old sloop was making nine knots at times under sail only.

By this time, I was well beyond the point of no-return, a four knot tide assisting a five knot boat produces nine knots but turn the boat around and your speed over the ground reduces to one knot.

The problem arose when we began to approach the French coast. It was shrouded in thick grey fog. I never actually saw the Cap de Carteret lighthouse towering above the headland on that trip even though on previous visits it was visible a good two hours before landfall.

In the murky gloom I was uncomfortable and anxious. I knew I was in the bay of Carteret, the wave pattern and the depth of water was right. The GPS told me I was on top of the harbour entrance buoy. My own calculations and every instrument aboard told me I had arrived but where was the buoy? Where was the river entrance that gave access to the town harbour?

I hove- to and listened. I could hear surf. I was too close to the shore for comfort. What to do? Get the sails off her, drop anchor and wait? How long before the tide starts to fall? How long can I wait before the water sluices away beneath the keel, grounded at the river entrance, on the beach – or worse? Just at that moment, there was another sound close-by, a regular rhythmic, slapping – getting louder, coming closer?

A moment later a fully rigged Viking long-ship emerged from the gloom, rowed by a fearsome looking bunch of blond-haired warriors in full battledress, iron helmets, leather shirts and armed to the teeth.  What had happened? A faulty GPS would place you in the wrong geographical location but this was different. I’d crossed fourteen miles of open sea and somehow it seemed I travelled through a similar number of centuries.

            ‘Where is the river entrance?’ I called out to them in French

The reply, if you can call it that, came as a series of guttural grunts not French, not English. I tried again in English. At this the Viking in the bows, stood up, unsheathed his sword and pointed back along the long-ship’s track.

‘There’

I made a quick estimate of the bearing, started the engine and followed the line filled with feelings of disassociation and foreboding. Twenty minutes ago I had been in the 21^st Century, five minutes ago, it seemed as if I had been in the first century AD. And now?

Within minutes, I was in the river and the murky outline of hotels and shore-side buildings began to take shape around me – the yacht harbour was close by.

As I came out of the main channel and set a course for the harbour entrance a TV film crew and a few bystanders on the shore began calling out to me

            ‘You’re not a Viking! Get out of the picture. Where is the long-ship?’

I stood up in the cockpit, took the boathook in hand and aimed down-river.

            Your long-ship is there’, I replied.

Minutes later after tying up alongside a pontoon in the yacht harbour, I spoke to one of the staff

            ‘What’s going on?’ I asked

            ‘Carteret is in Normandy’, he replied. ‘Normandy used to be a Viking stronghold – William the Conqueror’s grandfather was a Norseman - hence Normandy – the land of the Northmen, the Vikings.’

            ‘so?’

            ‘So , you arrived just in time to see the re-enactment of the Viking’s arrival in Carteret. Today is Carteret’s  Fete of the Vikings – pity about the fog.’

            ‘And what about the entrance buoy – how did I miss it?’

            ‘Ah well Capitaine – there were no marker buoys in Viking times so we took it away – didn’t want to spoil the TV shot – it needed re-painting anyway.’

I met the Vikings later that evening in the Café du Port and got on pretty well with them, they were from Sweden. Communication with them seemed to become less of a problem with each glass of calvados consumed. 

Seaward

It shouldn’t happen to a sailor (1) 

Life Threatening Life Raft

A friend was almost killed recently by a six man inflatable life raft – read on.

Jersey UK is a small island 9m x 5m, home to some 90,000 inhabitants none of whom live more than three miles from the sea. Sailing is a major activity here and the local government invests a great deal in teaching sailing, boating seamanship etc.  My friend (let’s call him John, to save his embarrassment) is an instructor at the Island’s sailing base. Each spring he organises a sea-safety course for young people. The highlight of the programme is to motor out into the bay and throw an inflatable life raft overboard for the kids to scramble into.

This can be an expensive exercise because afterwards the raft has to be deflated and professionally checked, restocked and repacked with a new CO2 gas bottle. One way to keep costs down is to use liferafts which are due their regular mandatory maintenance checks, they have to be inflated checked, deflated and repacked anyway.

John collected one such raft from the office in town, put it on the passenger seat of his Land Rover and set of for the harbour. En route, the vehicle bounced over a pot-hole and – you guessed it – the life raft began to inflate. In john’s own words:-

‘…dam thing went off life a firecracker… filled the cab and pushed my face against the screen and crushed me against the door… the pressure was building and building… thought it was going to push the windows out… couldn’t move my head… hit the brakes hoping there was no other vehicle on my tail.’

Then, just as he thought he was about to die, the inflating raft snagged something sharp in the cab and it began to deflate but John’s troubles were not over:-

‘the pressure came off and I heaved a huge sigh of relief… a moment later I realised my heart was pounding and I was taking in huge gulps of air but I couldn’t get my breath … something wasn’t right…  was I having a heart attack brought on by the shock and stress of the incident? ‘

No, this wasn’t a heart attack, this was suffocation. The CO2 gas which had initially inflated the raft had escaped through the life-saving puncture and now it had filled the cab, expelling all the air:-

‘so for a second time in as many minutes I thought I was going to die all over again… fortunately, I managed to push the cab door open, and fall onto the road… fresh air never tasted sweeter. Hey! Listen, this is quite embarrassing. You won’t tell anyone about this will you? 

No John. I won’t breathe a word!

Seaward