I think that it might cause me some alarm, not to mention an underwear crisis. It is the star picture on the website of the Santa Cruz Rowing Club (thanks to neversealand for the headsup).
Chris went off in pursuit while I went to the car to retrieve that most essential instrument in any salvage operation, my mobile phone. So when I eventually caught up, Snarleyow had come aground after about half a mile and Chris had nobly and valiantly, in the teeth of a bitter sou'westerly, rolled his trousers up and gone in to secure the vessel. His absence from the New Year's Honours list is, frankly, a national scandal.
I'm so excited. My little brother Nick got me Gavin Atkin's new book, Ultrasimple Boatbuilding, for Christmas and I am in it! Practically at the beginning on page 226! There I am, in glorious black-and-white, grinning stupidly out of the page next to my Conrad Natzio-designed Sandpiper. Conrad himself is on the next page, looking properly sailorly rigging his Oystercatcher.
Interest in recreational rowing is increasing. It is just about the best exercise you can get, and gets you out in some of the loveliest places on the planet.
Another glorious day, the sort of weather that makes paddling in winter one of the greatest activities known to man and swan. A clear sky and not a breath of wind so I had the harbour virtually to myself, apart from two irritating buzzy outboards. I hope they got hypothermia. I had to remove a couple of layers to avoid boiling over.
I celebrated the Winter Solstice by going rowing from my new favourite slipway, the ferry hard at Itchenor. It is close to the harbour mouth and is usable at all times, but its great advantage is that access is closed off to vehicles, so only small boats can launch there. The path to the slipway from the car park is rather long so my new kayak trolley comes in very handy.
The weather was crisp and completely calm, lovely for rowing, and a great day to try out the Satmap Action 10 handheld satnav that I have got to play with.
The unit sits nicely in the hand and the display is bright enough to read easily except in the brightest sun. It is controlled entirely by pressing buttons, not by touch screen, so it can be used with gloved hands.
Just after taking that pic, an attractive fleet sailed past towards the harbour entrance, with sails up but only for show - all propulsion was being provided by the engines.
David 'Thorne' Luckhardt sails and rows his Chamberlain dory in northern California, the lucky fellow, mostly with the Sacramento chapter of the Traditional Small Craft Association. His picture of the TSCA row up the Big River from Mendocina CA is exactly what rowing is all about in my opinion - fun, delight, fellowship and a bit of exercise slipped in if any justification is needed.
An added element of a good day out on the river is, of course, beer. David is also a keen English Civil War recreationist and pirate fan - this picture is of Morgan's Company (Arrgh!) on Stone Lagoon. That looks like huge fun.
The TSCA certainly has some nice boats. This is a row on the Petaluma River earlier this year.
Recently I visited Oulu in the Gulf of Bothnia, right at the top end of the Baltic, and we were given dinner in a log cabin in the woods containing an exhibition of the tar industry that flourished there in the 18th and 19th centuries.
Today, the Finns race tarboats and so-called church boats, built, I think, to bring the gospel to the back woods. The women, stuck in Oulu loading barrels, believed that the men got up to all kinds of drunkenness and depravity when they were out in the woods boiling tar all summer. Mika Hiironniemi took this smashing photo of a preserved church boat (it's on his Flickr site here).
There is a lovely print showing a tar boat shooting the rapids in about 1930, on eBay here.
The old huts used by the tar exporters and the fishermen have been beautifully restored but are used either as offices or bars. A reproduction (?) Baltic schooner Mystic Wind is tied up at the wharf, with a rather attractive tarred dinghy hanging from davits at the stern. 
I took these pictures with my Nokia N73 camera phone, whi
ch did a great job, I think.
One last post from the Earls Court Boat Show, where I roamed the floor with the Nokia N95 8GB smartphone I've got on test. The images are spectacular seeing as it's a phone, albeit with a 5megapixel image sensor and top-notch Schneider lens.
Those astonishing craftsmen Henwood & Dean showed a traditional Thames skiff that is a delight - a delicate confection of varnished wood set off with the occasional glint of brass and a gold leaf cove line. Perfect - although for you could buy a fleet of Duchesses for the price of just one H&D skiff.
Just in case anyone gets the impression that rowing across an ocean is just a matter of slogging away until you get to the other side, and if you get a bit fed up all you have to do is press a button to be rescued, the Ocean Rowing Society showed some examples of what the seas can do to man and boat.
Also on display is Sector Two, the boat Peter built himself to a design by Nic Bailey for the first West to East, continent to continent crossing of the Pacific. He made several attempts, the last in 1996 ending in disaster - the boat was found floating upside down and empty by the US Coast Guard.
Nautica is a particularly depressing exhibit. At only 22 years old, Andrew Wilson was the youngest person ever to attempt a trans-oceanic row in Nautica, which he had designed and built himself. He set off from Newfoundland in 1980 and was never heard from again - the boat was washed up on the Scottish coast the following spring.
The fact that both rowed most of the way stark naked gets him a huge welcome on chat shows. Their boat Spirit of EDS Energy is on display at Earls Court - a 25 footer designed by Phil Morrison and built by Woodvale.
John Fairfax was the first to row the Atlantic solo back in 1969, taking 180 days to get from the Canaries to Florida. The boat, a 25ft GRP cylinder designed by Uffa Fox and built by Clare Lallow in Cowes, was called Britannia. It used techniques developed for lifeboats to create a hull that would right itself from a total capsize, and if swamped would drain automatically within half a minute.
She is just 20ft long, designed and built by Bradford Boat Yard, but the shape is a classic dory, simple and robust.
Thanks to the admirable LA84 Foundation Library for the text.
Outing Magazine 1889
A PAIR-OARED CREW;
Or, Rowing for Pleasure.
By Richard M. Hurd,
How many pleasant hours did we spend, not only in engaging in the various forms of athletic exercises, but in theorizing as to their development, in looking up the fables and facts of their past history, and in collecting statistics to prove beyond question their illimitable value to the race in general. And especially in one branch—the art of rowing a boat—how ardently we discussed the varied styles of rigging and rowing a boat, and how warmly we dwelt upon the power and skill, the pluck and genius of young and old boating men.
How eagerly we studied up the course of the Oxford-Cambridge boat race, the currents, tides and setbacks of the Thames, the system of training of the
Few there were, I am sure, more zealous for true advancement, and more devoted “heelers” and backers in general of Yale’s athletic, and especially aquatic, fortunes than the humble occupants of our pair oar.
To say that the Wanderer was a cedar-built, mahogany-trimmed, lap-straked, pair-oared barge, some twenty feet long and twenty-eight to thirty-four inches beam, with two sliding seats and one stationary one, fitted with triple-barred outriggers, would be but a bald and commonplace description. She was the soul of beauty, riding the ardent waves that kissed her sides in homage like the true queen she was. An obedient mistress, quick to hear and answer, a dozen strokes would send her cleaving the waters and throwing off showers of fine spray, while the word “avast” or “hold” would check her impetuous course, like the curbing of a high-spirited charger. What care we that she had “Meaney” slides and “Kerns” rowlocks, or that her footrests were movable and inclined 37½ from the horizontal, when we know that we loved her as a friend to be trusted in, a companion who never wearied us, and a source of pleasure that never lost its zest.
‘Twas in early spring when first we stepped into our pair oar, and, though the sky was a little dark and chill, we donned our rowing suits, loosened our girths, tightened our foot straps, and glided steadily up the Quinipiac. The waves were rolling in gray, with soapy crests from the harbor, but duck-like we rode them, and so gaily kept on past the four bridges to the marshes, where the reeds were shooting up bright green from the brown earth. The clouds floated away one by one, and the sun came out to brown our arms and backs, white with the winter’s covering. On the sunny side of a hill thick with bushes we lolled away our lunch hour, making our meal of a box of crackers, a bag of oranges and a tiny bottle of champagne (from
What so rare as that day in June when we rowed out into the broad harbor where the shining undulating waves were reflecting the deep blue of the sky above. As the shores receded all things seemed melted into a world of blue, sky and sea meeting and blending in shifting tones of light, of pearl gray, of cobalt, of warm and restful blue. Alone, seeming in a world of calm and sweet light and color, with lazy sails in the distance and ducks flapping by overhead, we drifted and dreamed for a brief hour. A plunge in the water from a creamy sand spit and a long, lazy swim awoke us to the realities of life, and it was with sharpened appetites that we sought the little hotel at Savin Rock, famous for its sea food dinners. We will pass by the oysters, raw and broiled; the clams, stewed and fried; the crabs, the lobster, the fish, all served by the blackest and most obsequious of darkies, and retake our seats as we start idly homeward. A glory of the setting sun fills all the heavens and is flashed back and forth from drifting clouds, pink, saffron, pale purple and crimson. The abundant rays bathe the Sound in soft and hazy light and show the sand hills of
We throw our heads back, bareheaded, regardless of “form” or “style” in our rowing. We have no sharp-eyed ‘Varsity coach in the stern to remind us to “keep our eyes in the boat,” our “backs up,” etc., ad nauseam, and breathe in the fragrant air and revel in the world of richness and light above and about us. The colors grow warmer and deeper, the shores reflect deep browns and madders and purples, and at length are clear cut in black against the transparent lemon yellows and pale greens of the dying day.
It had been a cold and rainy summer up to the end of August, when the good Wanderer brought us together for a week of life on the water, in which Nature amply compensated for her cool behavior by a lavish bestowal of smiles and caresses. Ignoring as much as possible such dull things as names and dates and facts, let us recall only the sweet essence of this joyous trip, the memory of which comes back to us in our routine life like a parched flower’s recollection of a refreshing dew.
The day of our start was one to be remembered, with life and vim in the air, in which all things stood out strong and clear and real. From the old city of
We pass now little villages on either bank of the river, all alike, a cluster of white houses with green blinds, in a bower of elms, with here and there an old white steeple pointing upward. Occasionally also a long narrow island, the gift of the river, with, perhaps, a hay house or a corn field to indicate its human ownership, is left behind.
As the rays of the sun fall more and more obliquely upon us, the long bridge of the Shore Line Railroad assures us that the mouth of the
And so in the soft twilight we reach Fenwick, and are not ashamed that it is but slowly that we stow away our boat, for we have put forty odd miles to our credit since 8 in the morning, and we are well pleased with our first day’s work. If it were not that the athlete, the oarsman, is a Spartan ever, and disdains to recount the bodily ills suffered in the enjoyment of his pastime, some mention might be made of sunburnt backs, of cold cream, of intermittent slumbers, but, under the circumstances, we forbear.
We were somewhat lazy, it must be confessed, the next day, and after a fine morning plunge in the salt waves did not get under way till about 4 in the afternoon. It was a glorious time to row, however, the water still and a gentle breeze fanning our sunburnt limbs. And a rare old supper we had, sitting on the bank of the river, some eight miles up, discussing a roasted chicken, a loaf of fresh bread and a bottle of new milk. With beauty ever fresh, the sun, about to end another day of labor, painted the glowing clouds, which in turn reflected their changing colors on the calm river. We lingered on and on, loath to leave, and it was black darkness when we reached
Our search for an hotel brought us to what had been evidently in former years a flourishing hostelry, and one that might yet be restored to somewhat of its lost prosperity. “Wal, yaas,” the young owner said, “folks hey bin daoun from
A solid night’s rest and a swim in the river put us in good trim for breakfast, where we met a number of typical
We were not sorry to settle down to work again under the blue canopy of heaven, with the sunshine playing about us on river and fields and hills. A pleasing triumph of the day’s row was our defeat of a steam launch on a three-mile stretch into
After half a day’s rest in
The cliff, once harsh and bare, is now covered with drooping bushes of birch and sumach, while mosses and lichens and maidenhair fern hide the gashes in the rock and show only bits of soft red color. We revelled in the beauty of the scene, the tranquillity of the limpid stream and the absence of human life that lent to our advance all the charm of a discovery.
One more blissful day, down the canal, into the
A couple of years back I navigated the Hilsea Channel that connects Portsmouth and Langstone harbours, in company with Conrad Natzio, designer of my Sandpiper spritsail boat. He sailed his own Oystercatcher.
We went east to west, starting from the hospitable Tudor Sailing Club. The first bridge is the Eastern Road, which is not a problem.
A member of the Langstone Cutters who had done the trip told me that the railway bridge was so low they had to lie down in their seats and hand themselves under it, avoiding threatening-looking ducting with 'High Voltage - Danger of Death' on which must have been alarming but we had plenty of room at this state of the tide.
This is a footbridge with a great big water pipe (at least, I assume it was water...) slung under it. This is looking back towards the railway bridge (rower's viewpoint).
This flying footbridge is not a problem for sailors but we might as well be complete.
Next challenge is the bridge under the Cosham Roundabout, which is actually a pair of bridges separated by a short culvert. Dark and uninviting but not a problem. It is entertaining to note that the older bridge (1920s?) has fancy stone balustrades but the later one, built when the roundabout was constructed in the 1970s, is brutally functional. I don't know which is worse - the half-hearted ornament or the don't-care functionalism.
That is the last of the low bridges. The next problem was that the new lagoon formed by the loop of the M275 didn't have enough water in it. Here is Cap'n Conrad scouring the horizon for a channel.
An inexplicable thing floats in the middle of the lagoon. Is it art, or some sort of beacon, possibly to attract alien spacecraft to Pompey?
In America, a skiff is quite a large power boat, and in Scotland the term refers to double-ended fishing boats that can be 40ft or more. Film makers can have some very odd ideas about what a skiff looks like.
The best thing I have bought for my dinghy Nessy is a pair of square rowlocks, very like the ones in both the pre-war Snarleyow boats in the previous post.
My mother Pat Partridge died a couple of weeks back, which is why I was looking through the family photo albums. Cousin John sent me this picture of her getting out of Snarleyyow I, the Norfolk punt used for fishing the Thames at Wallingford. This must have been taken just after the War. I remember it well, though in the 1960s it was replaced by a nearly identical one, called Snarleyow Too.
The reason my grandparents chose the name is lost in the mists of time. Snarleyyow, or The Dog Fiend is an entertaining book of the sea by Captain Marryat. Snarleyow was a heroic artillery horse in Kipling's poem of the same name. Neither seem obviously appropriate for boats, but it is a strong and unusual word so I have named my small skiff Snarleyow in tribute.
Everyone’s favourite boat is the sandolo, very small, light and fast. They are rowed standing up, facing forwards, with crossed oars. Every Venetian learns how to do this while we were learning to ride bikes. The complex wooden oarlocks are called forcole, and come in everyday and luxury versions. The everyday ones built for strength and utility, and are deliberately made plain so that no one will steal them! Luxury forcole are works of art, carved in ornate shapes from walnut or wood from a fruit tree, and often decorated with gold leaf. I snapped the young man sculling his sandolo down the Grand Canal, perfectly at ease despite the motorway traffic of water buses, water taxis, phut-phut boats and, of course, gondolas.
The UPS truck of Venice is the topa, a traditional barge that used to be sculled but is now inevitably engine driven. Here is a topa delivering stock to a corner shop in the San Polo district.
I could not go to Venice without taking the obligatory picture of gondolas.
