I didn’t get underway until 1530 on Friday.
Everyone else seemed in a hurry to get ashore.
Maggie
By 1730 the Sound was empty. The wind was Northerly and light, and I had an enjoyable time tacking from the Eastern entrance of Plymouth Sound to Mount Batten Pier before a comfortable sail up to the Cattewater Wharves.
“Kissing will go out of fashion when the gorse ceases to bloom.”
No chance – the gorse is still looking good.
We have worked all morning and need to walk away from it. The coast path is the obvious choice – a stretch between Brixham and Dartmouth the easiest to reach. As we descend to Scabbacombe Head, a cold wind blows from north of west, sunshine intermittent.
We watch a sloop-rigged yacht working its way up from the south towards Dartmouth. As she closes the shore, the combination of wind and tide is taking her too far to the east of the Mew Stone – by at least a half mile. She tacks and it is immediately obvious that the strength of the tide and the direction of the wind will make the offshore tack even less beneficial. The genoa is furled, she comes about again, motoring strongly under mainsail alone.
Twenty minutes later she rounds the Mew Stone (on the left of the picture below) and lowers the mainsail in the later afternoon light. At the same time, she is joined by another yacht that completes a fast spinnaker run – with the benefit of a favourable wind and tide. She has sailed from Start Point in the background, keeping to the south of the Skerries bank, which stretches for three miles this side of Start, parallel with her course across the bay.
Start Point is on one the great south coast headlands that the sailing ships marked as they came up-Channel – Lizard, Start (Point), Portland (Bill) and (the Isle of) Wight, before heading through the Straights of Dover and on to the Thames Estuary or the North Sea and Baltic ports. Now, thanks to the the Traffic Separation Scheme in the Channel, it is the down-Channel traffic that marks the headlands – but, given modern navigation aids, they do so more often out of interest than necessity.
The yachts head or home, we meet two walkers keen to make the pub in Kingswear before evening, and then we drop down into one of those folds of this coastline that has generated a micro-climate of its own, a complete contrast to the scenery of a few minutes before.
This is the Coleton Fishacre garden - a tiny valley throbbing with pent-up energy – plants ready to burst into spring.
The camellias are coming into flower . . .
. . . and the tree ferns are splendid.
The steep climb takes us level with the house and the stunning rill.
But we have visited before and walk on – intent on a cream tea before the final 3/4 mile climb back to the car. As we drive home, we remember the two yachts that should now be berthed safely in their Dartmouth marina. Only one of us wishes he had been on board!
Google captured Teignmouth entrance at low spring tide. At high tide the sand bars are covered. Teignmouth is a working port. Several ships a week safely navigate this channel.
On 30th January, a large wave picked up the Girl Rona, a local trawler and dropped her onto the sandbank to the north of the channel. The fishing boat capsized and the five crewmen took to the water, to be rescued within half an hour by the local lifeboat. The wind was easterly and strong and remained so for the next three or four days.
The picture below was taken on 4th February. The main hatch had been opened and the catch had floated free, to be consumed by thousands of seagulls – to the relief of the local council
The sand is constantly moving as river meets sea and the channel is continually dredged for shipping to enter and leave the port. The longer the boat lies there, the more the sand will build up around her and fill her hold.
At the first opportunity, a salvage operation must get under way.
Sunday, 5th February, the gear has been unloaded and fuel pumped out.
Lines were attached . . .
. . . and tested
The strain is taken and the boat begins to upright.
There is much discussion. Several hundred ‘experts’ watching from the shore all know how to do this better.
The afternoon wears on. The salvage boats are in the channel. It would seem that the sand has built up between them and the trawler.
As the late afternoon sun catches the pier. . .
. . . she begins to move . . . but rolls over again.
By now the tide has ebbed and the operation is finished for the night.
The boat was finally freed the following night, “floating and stable at 0300 and back in harbour at 0430 on Tuesday morning.”.
This afternoon, there were five men on board . . . working hard. For them the story continues.
Teignmouth (Approaches)
Sunday Jan 15, 2012 UT/GMT
▼ 03:40 1.1m
▲ 10:10 4.4m
▼ 16:00 1.2m
▲ 22:40 4.1m
50º33′.0N 3º29′.0W
Strong winds are forecast.
24 hour forecast
0600 UTC Sun 15 Jan – 0600 UTC Mon 16 Jan
Wind Southeast 5 to 7, occasionally 4 later.
Sea state Moderate or rough.
Weather Occasional rain in far west, otherwise fair.
Visibility Good, occasionally moderate.
10:30 Merle approaching Teignmouth on the top of the tide . . .
. . . an exhilarating ride through the entrance (missed it) . . .
. . . ending in a tricky turn and stern-first into her berth.
Can this be good for a car?
Exmouth and the entrance to the Exe Estuary in the distance
No takers for morning coffee
Thank you, Max, for your comment. I have taken it on board. This is for you.
I stopped writing the blog for a while because the rest of life took over. Now I’m looking back again and wondering where the cumulative experience lies – what am I learning? Hence the following:
I slipped the mooring and motored the mile down to the Citadel. There was no wind, and very few boats out this early. I had Plymouth Sound more or less to myself.
With sails set – mainsail and genoa, we barely made headway, the tide doing most of the work. I poured a coffee from the flask and found a biscuit. Time to enjoy the moment. Time to reflect.
Two or three fishing boats emerged from Sutton Harbour, hustling their separate ways past me and out to the open sea.
This one caught my eye.
They say beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Well, there is beauty here but not necessarily the beauty of lines and colour, not in the magazine-image sense anyway. The beauty here comes from all that has gone before and all that is to come from this boat. It’s not so very different from the Ceres that I have posted on a number of times. We do like her lines but, in reality, she was a Westcountry trading ketch – it was the work she did that made her. (Tugster will understand this).
Passing in front of me now was someone’s livelihood – with all the political, economic, environmental, maritime safety, health and safety, technology and science issues that surround it. Those same issues that are increasingly pressing on you and me.
But, even in the face of all that, there were still elegant lines. For this one moment, for me only, this slightly ungainly metal workshop had created an almost perfect wave in an otherwise table-flat sea. And it was beautiful.
It’s those moments that I go to sea for – not to forget all the other stuff, (how can we?), but to add to the total experience of life.
On 24th November 1936, Ceres went down in Bideford Bay.
“The 125 years old “Ceres”, veteran of the merchant service, her course now run, lies at the bottom of Bideford Bay, somewhere off Baggy Point.
The “Ceres” sprang a leak on Tuesday night while on a voyage from South Wales to Bude, and foundered after her crew had put off in her boat and had been picked up by the Appledore lifeboat. The Captain is Mr Oswald Jeffery, a married man, whose home is in Richmond Road, Appledore, and the mate Mr Walter Ford, a married man of Irsha Street, Appledore. They reached Appledore in the lifeboat at about 11 o’clock, and on arrival the Rev Muller offered a short prayer of thanksgiving for their safety.
Captain Jeffery said,” We left Swansea on Tuesday bound for Bude with a cargo of slag. Because of the weather we intended to go in over the Bar for the night as it was too rough to venture on to Bude. At 8 o’clock I went below to rest for an hour, leaving the mate in charge. An hour later he told me there was water in the engine room. We manned the pumps. We tried to get the ship over the Bar, but the water made her roll badly, and I gave the order for the ship’s rowing boat to be launched. I fired two rockets, and we abandoned the vessel. We lay in the shelter of the “Ceres” which was sinking, and were taken onboard the lifeboat.”
Dr. Valentine stood by in case medical assistance was needed, but although wet through, neither the captain nor his mate appeared any the worse for this ordeal.
The “Ceres” was owed by a Bude firm of coal merchants, and was built in Salcombe.
~~~
“. . . lies at the bottom of Bideford Bay, somewhere off Baggy Point.”
On 12th March 2011, 74 years and 108 days after she went down, we took a walk on Baggy Point.
The day was hazy with rain forecast for the afternoon. The air was warm for March – the sea calm, Lundy Island almost lost in the haze.
There is a green navigation buoy off the Point, guiding ships away from the rocks that mark this coast.
I wondered if it was there the day Ceres went down.
(Which reminds me, the original charts still exist. I will check and let you know.)
You have to get close to the Point and then start to climb down before you discover just how spectacular it is.
The sea and the weather whittle away at this coast hour on hour, day on day, year on year, century on century.
The climbers on the rock face are lost in the sculpture.
~~~
This is no place to be late at night in a westerly gale.
“. . . Because of the weather we intended to go in over the Bar for the night as it was too rough to venture on to Bude.”
It is approximately 12 nautical miles across Bideford Bay from Baggy Point to Hartland Point and another 12 nautical miles or so down an inhospitable, west-facing coast to the difficult entrance to Bude Haven.
Better to make for shelter inside Bideford Bar and accept the twelve nautical miles from there back to Hartland Point as a cost worth bearing.
In noting the features of navigating the Bristol Channel the Cruising Almanac states:
“There are races off many headlands in particular Hartland Point and Bull Point on the S side and St Gowans Head, Oxwich Point and Mumbles Head on the N, together with dangerous races, the Hen and Chickens and White Horses off the NW and NE of Lundy and also S of Lundy. Overfalls are widespread, sometimes in mid-channel and a short, steep sea sets up quickly with wind against tide . . .”
~~~
There are two footpaths from Baggy Point to Croyde.
The lower one gives a perfect view of the Bay across to Bideford Bar.
The Cruising Almanac again: ” Bideford Bar has about 1m (at LAT – the lowest depth at the lowest of low spring tides). Bar and sands are continuously shifting and buoys may be moved to allow for this. It is dangerous if a heavy ground swell is running. Oc Ldg Lts are moved to suit the fairway. If a sea is running on the bar a good rise of tide should be waited. Under bad conditions the entrance may be difficult and dangerous . . . The tide may be awaited in Clovelly Bay with winds S of W. . .
“Approach: In thick weather make Downend or Westward Ho! and thence shape a course for Bideford Fairway RWVS with sph topmark Fl.10s NNW of Rock Nose, Westward Ho! . . .”
So there it is: in the middle of the thin line of sunlit water across the Bay, the Bideford Fairway buoy can be faintly seen . . .
. . . and somewhere beneath this Bay lies Ceres.
~~~
The others walk on and I sit for a while . . .
forget the photographs, forget the newspaper cuttings, forget the family stories, this is here and now.
She’s been down there for nearly 75 years . . .
. . . . and I am left wondering how the loss of a sailing vessel so long ago can be so deeply moving to someone who wasn’t even born then.
What was it about those ships?
~~~
But time it comes to ships and men when sailing days are past,
Even such as hail from Devon where they mostly build to last,
And her seams began to open and the Severn tide came through
And the water kept on gaining spite of all that they could do.
They did their best to beach her but they couldn’t do no more
And she foundered at the finish there in sight of Appledore.
And her bones’ll never flicker blue on any ‘longshore fire,
For she’ll lie there and she’ll moulder as an old ship might desire
And hear the vessels passing by, and dream about the past,
And the great old times in Devon where they built her once to last.
Seb writes that he has bought Mischief.
Found her in a yard at Calstock on the River Tamar.
There is work to do on her but “her hull, decks and mast are sound; she has new standing rigging; a good set of sails etc.”
“Her interior is completely bare however (pure, as the previous owner put it), with no through hull fittings other than the engine water intake, but she does needs a lot of work done on her interior”
He is doing some immediate work on her “. . . gave her a good scrub; fitted a new fore hatch; refit the genoa tracks; tinkered with the engine . . .”
“I will be taking Mischief to Portsmouth from Plymouth as soon as she is sea worthy.”
Seb has plans for Mischief and originally contacted me about self-steering gear:
I posted on this and two useful links came back – thank you again for those. In the meantime, he (Seb) has noted:
“It seems that few Folksong’s have been fitted with mechanical self-steering gear, so I have been using the Contessa 26 as a source of information regarding the suitability of wind-vanes (given that they are both loosely based on the Folkboat). So far the Windpilot pacific light servo-pendulum gear, or the Hydra Autosteer trim-tab system, seem the most likely candidates, mainly due to their weight and cost.”
My choice would be the Pacific Light but that’s based on study and other people’s preferences – not practical experience.
Here is a clip of one in action following last year’s Jester Challenge.
“Crossing Lyme Bay after returning from 2 months away on Jester Challenge to Azores. Big following sea and wind around F5.”
I’m sorry, I don’t know who made the clip – perhaps somebody could let me know so I can thank them personally.
Any further comments would be welcome.
And Calstock looks the perfect place to find a Folksong!
Talking of tides and waves (here and here):
The ebb tide is running fast leaving wakes trailing from both the buoy and the fixed mark.
The buoy is floating, attached only by its anchor line. The water is passing more or less unimpeded below it, leaving a clean wake; whereas the fixed mark totally disrupts the flow, resulting in very confused water downtide.
Between the two, you can see the wake from another buoy – dying down but still confusing both of the above wakes.
A short while later, the tide has built up enough to submerge the buoy.
In the foreground are eddies from the uneven bottom, causing smooth upwellings of water.
Should we be interested in this?
Aren’t the two images merely pictures of a spring tide ebbing?
Well, it’s a matter of scale. If we want to know more about the sea, this is a good place to be.
Now we move on.
Below is a an image of Ham Stone, between Bolt Head and Bolt Tail on the South Devon Coast.
The effect of the rock on the tide can clearly be seen. Although the tide is not running as fast as in the images above, the water will be confused here especially at the border with the main flow. However, for a small boat, there will be temporary shelter from the main flow of the tide.
In fact, this boat is fishing downtide of a wreck on the sea floor, the disturbing currents attracting food for the fish, the fish attracting the fishermen.
Ham Stone, South Devon
Compare this with another phenomenon – this time rocks interrupting the swell.
These are waves in motion over the surface of the sea rather than the sea itself being in motion.
Instead of causing the waves to spread outwards, the drag effect of the rocks causes them to slow down and swing inwards, so that the sea is confused on what might have been the sheltered side.
Even if the water was deep enough for a small boat, there would be no shelter from the swell here.
Rocks between St Ives and Zennor, Cornwall
In practice, what happens around the coast depends on the swell, the tide and the size of the various obstructions, whether above the surface of the sea or on the seabed – (not to mention the weather).
So, let’s up the scale again.
The fishing boat on the right has chosen to go between the headland and Godrevy Light, avoiding the long haul out round the off-lying reefs.
It’s about one hour after low water and the tide is running against him – the direction of the tidal stream can be seen to the right of the island
Godrevy Light, Cornwall
It’s running faster between the island and the mainland than further out to sea – but nowhere near fast enough to hold him up.
Although, as you can see, he is having to work at it.
At the western end, the swell is swinging round the end of the island against him, just as in the image of the rocks near Zennor.
He is keeping well over to the right to minimise the effects.
And when he leaves the local effect of the island he makes appreciably faster progress towards his home port.
It’s a matter of scale.
The sea is doing its thing on a vast scale – slopping around the planet under the firm but distant control of the moon and the sun and the vagaries of the weather.
For the most part, we see it locally – we watch it, we study it, often we eulogise it (as you will see in the next two posts), but in the end we have no control over it.
The fisherman chose his time according to the tide and the weather.
He could not choose the tide or the weather to suit his time.
There are a few occasions in the year when my journey to work coincides with sunrise.
from Labrador Bay, 1st December 2009
These are the ships I mentioned in a post from Southwold last September – still there, still waiting for trade.
I have learnt more about them since, in particular the concern they have created in some quarters – here.
~~~
Fifteen minutes later, five miles further on, the sun higher, the perspective lower, the same ships . . .
from Meadfoot Beach, 1st December 2009
