Saturday 10 July 2010

Smuggissimo

Brian Pearson puts his home waters up for the 'loveliest waters on the planet' title. He has a case, as he sails at Keyhaven, a pretty little village squeezed between the New Forest on one side and the Isle of Wight on the other.
Unfortunately, he backs up his claim with a bunch of pictures showing him and a fleet of friends sailing Lymington Scows. Now, they look like they are having a lot of fun, but the sun's out innit? For all-weather enjoyment, rowing's the ticket.
Coincidentally, pulling boat Gladys (the picture shows Richard coxing loudly) passed through a huge fleet of small plastic boats with a sort of starburst logo on the sail on our way to Emsworth today. Can't think what they might be, but they look as though they might get sailors wet, cold and miserable when the weather gets shirty.

2 comments:

Doc Häagen-Dazs said...

There are some gaff-rigged dinghies in my sailing venue. I do not understand what attracts this rig to the modern sailor. There have go to be more moving parts to this than in the Bermuda/Marconi rig; they don't sail as well in to the wind. It must be that some people just want archaic and quaint look.....

Anonymous said...

Hi Chris, Robert from BC here.

For smugger-ing-est places to row and sail, I have to note the waters of the Salish Sea, from Campbell River on Vancouver Island, BC Canada, South through the Inside Passage and Gulf Islands down to the end of Puget Sound, Washington State USA. From the West, Port Renfrew in the Straits of Juan de Fuca, East to the coastal fjords and then the tidal lakes and waters on the Fraser River.

Sadly, we have not had 2 millennia to develop pubs, launch sites and pull-outs, but we are working on it. And there are certainly treacherous places that are best treated with frontier respect.

Meanwhile we need take a keen look at the tide tables and the distance to the next launch, which may be 30 km. And phone for a pickup. The coast line is very abrupt, rocky, so most bits that are flat enough to land a boat have been leased to moneybags and elitist yachting types. It benefits to develop friends along the shores so one might use their private floats.

But extremely beautiful territory. A google-search on "Indian Arm" produces a a number of online photo sites demonstrating the typical quality of the coastline.

Blessings,