S.O.I.A. Anglia Group newsletter - February 2004

Dear Castaways

I suspect that for all of us sailing activity remains temporarily suspended while the North Wind slides it's icy fingers down our necks and up our... Oh dear, I've suddenly run out of metaphors. However, there is lots of plotting and planning going on, and e-mails floating back and forth, because there is so much Silhouetting going on this year that even the most retired, keen, rich and energetic are having to choose what to do because events are meeting and overlapping in their enthusiasm.

It gets even worse when you have more than one boat to sail!

For various reasons, Bryan Simpson has reluctantly offered his S111 TeeJar up for adoption, and she trotted off meekly behind Brian's van up to Lancashire. In due course Brian's brother Graham will be taking her to join the Windermere fleet and the logs will no doubt start whizzing through the ether to keep us up to date with Tee- Jar's progress. Ken Hooson has offered to help Graham upgrade the boat with such modern devices as a stainless steel rudder tube, and a carpet-type lining for the interior.

FESTIVE FOOD - Our eating-meeting at The Butt and Oyster pub at Pin Mill was a great success, and likely to be repeated next year, although there has been a suggestion that we eat at lunchtime and combine it with a walk for the masochists amongst us. No groaning - you have to earn your pleasure in the Anglia Group!

THE LAST MEETING at the Orwell Yacht Club was well attended and as the male/female ratio has changed in recent weeks, there was even talk about babies and birth weights. None of the fathers present had any idea of their own children's birth weights. (I bet they know how much their boats weigh.) We were very late due to a malfunctioning car, so missed at least half the fun. As at all Silhouette meetings however, there was a fund of practical knowledge to draw on, so I got some new ideas about what might be wrong with my car! (Two garages have failed to suss it...)

Sailing Dates

East Coast cruise: May 7 - 9th. A date change here to suit various members movements including ours. Launch at Levington. (Anglia Group)

Windermere Rally: 15 - 16th May. Organiser: Ken Hooson.

Falmouth cruise: 22nd - 30th May. Organiser: Colin Campbell.

Rutland International Paints Trophy meeting: 12 - 13th June

Brightlingsea Rally: 10 - 11th July (Anglia Group)

Holland Cruise - 13th - 22nd July - Contact Alf Baldwin.

Plymouth National Rally: 14th - 20th August

Broads Rally: Probably 11 - 12th September. (Anglia Group)

Next meeting: 13th March, at The Orwell Yacht Club, Ipswich, 8pm.

From Bob Legg:

At a recent meeting Bill Julier was telling us about his sail on the Blackwater when his dingy made a nuisance of itself by repeatedly ramming his transom and trying to climb into his cockpit. As you know he is already missing part of an ear which was bitten off by an outboard motor propeller and I wouldn't like to see him suffer any more damage from a tender in his nether regions so perhaps you could pass on to him this idea which I have pinched from a Trident sailor called David Hill.

Tow the dingy on a long painter, which should be floating rope to avoid it getting too friendly with the prop, and pass it through a large funnel with the open end facing the dingy. Tie a knot in the painter each side of the funnel.

When towing correctly the funnel will be clear of the water with no drag. If however the tender starts to catch up with the mother ship the funnel enters the water and becomes a drogue stopping the dingy hitting the stern. Simple!

Included - Bob Legg's bit of gongoozling.

LAST GASP. . . Thanks for the subscriptions and accompanying encouragements - very welcome (And thanks to Bob for the equally welcome copy!)

Best Wishes

Elizabeth Letzer, Feb 2004

========================================

GONGOOZLING with Bob Legg.

As you know I love to do a bit of gongoozling, that is idly watching other peoples boaty mishaps, favourite places for this entertainment being locks, difficult bridges like Potter Heigham, marina entrances etc. This week I managed to do it and get paid at the same time when I was asked to pick up a Trinity House pilot from a Russian bulk carrier the Andrea M, which was due to dock at Ipswich power station quay.

I arrived at the quayside ahead of the ship and parked a few yards from the edge where I could watch the boats on the moorings opposite including Magic Dragon, which was sheering about in the gusty winds, which blew directly onto the quay where I sat. It was a cold, grey and wild scene.

The first I saw of the Andrea M was as she approached the Orwell Bridge at a strange angle and I later learnt that she had come up the Orwell from Felixstowe crabwise all the way. The poor stressed pilot had boarded her off Felixstowe after she had travelled empty from Spain through the Bay of Biscay. It must have been ballasted with sea-water but this had all been pumped out to save time at the docks. She was sitting incredibly high in the water with the bow so high that the hydrodynamic bulb at the base of the bow was clear of the water and the bow was consequently being blown downwind and she was rolling like a drunkard. There was a 42 knot cross wind and the pilot's climb from the Pilot boat up the rope boarding ladder must have been "interesting".

When he reached the deck he entered "the wonderful world of corrosion". Odd flakes of paint hanging grimly onto the rusty topsides, chunks of rust dangling from hydraulic derricks, ropes with pony-tails of loose threads and wires and hawsers frayed into spikes. A health and safety nightmare!

The captain spoke a few words of English but not the rest of the motley Russian crew so communication was going to be a problem. The suggestion that they needed a tug to control the ship was dismissed as too expensive and a request that the bow be flooded to correct the trim was rejected as time wasting so they headed for Felixstowe and the river Orwell.

It soon became apparent that the ship was almost uncontrollable. If the head should fall off the wind there would be no room to recover in the limited confines of the Orwell. She would just plough downwind through the moorings until she stuck fast on the lee shore. The crew took an age to respond to urgent instructions from the pilot because they didn't understand and he grew increasingly stressed about the situation.

They proceeded crabwise up the Orwell keeping the bow up to windward and narrowly missing the moored yachts. I watched her come through the bridge and the pilot was faced with the problem of coming alongside the quay on a lee shore. The aim is to arrive exactly parallel to the quay, with thousand of tons of ship in the right spot and almost stationary at the point of contact, which looked seemingly impossible.

As she crabbed towards the quay the stern was only a few yards off but the bow was in the middle of the river when he instructed the crew to drop the anchor.(A) After allowing sufficient scope and with the helm hard to starboard she motored forward

using the anchor as a spring. This brought the stern out and left her almost stationary and parallel with the quay and about 40 yards off perfectly balanced against the wind. (B) There was a bit of ebb tide but the wind was the dominant force and I don't think the tide affected matters.

The crew gradually let out more chain and the ship moved forward and sideways towards the quay under perfect control. Unfortunately a few yards short of the quay the crew misunderstood an order to snub the chain and dropped a few fathoms instead. The ship shot forwards and the wind slammed the bow into the quay with the force of a minor earthquake.

They had a lot of problems securing the ship with six hawsers, partly because they only had two shot ropes for hauling the hawsers to the dockers on the quay and due to the wind and the height of the ship they had problems throwing them back up to the crew on deck.

It was almost an hour before the poor pilot was able to escape from the ship because the telescopic gang-plank hadn't been prepared and the crew were unable to lower it. At one point there were two crew clinging to the bottom of the gang-plank, which was hanging vertically above the water while they tried to free the frayed wires jammed in the pulleys. When he eventually got ashore the pilot briefly inspected the new gleaming dents and gouges and decided they would soon rust over and blend in with all the other dents. I took him back to his office in Felixstowe where he intended to have a quiet lie down in a darkened room for a couple of hours before setting off to another ship.

I thought the trick of using an off lying anchor as a spring to control your descent onto a lee shore or jetty was worth copying in bad weather when you have no alternative and it has the huge advantage that you can use the anchor to pull you off again.

Has anyone tried this?