London Museum Docklands

Thinking about State Barges recalled my visit to the Museum of London Docklands last year. The museum has several models and pictures of the barges of the Guilds or Livery Companies, and the shallops operated by the rich and powerful.

Picture quality is fairly rubbish, I'm afraid, due to everything being behind glass. If you want to see better, go and see them! Now!
The model to the right is the barge of the Company of Fishmongers, built in 1773. It was 75m long and had gilded figures of St Peter and various mercreatures including mermaids, mermen, boys riding on dolphins, and merhorses or hippocampi.
Shallops were smaller and plainer, operated by the livery companies to attend their ceremonial barges on big occasions such as the Lord Mayor's Show, and by aristocrats as water carriages.
Watermen were dressed in the uniform that is still familiar from the Doggett's Coat and Badge prize. The scarlet cap, tunic and knee breeches must have made a splendid sight. I think the outfit ought to be compulsory for all oarsmen at the Olympics this year.

Queen's Diamond Jubilee Pageant

I'm so exited - Langstone Cutters has been invited to send two boats, the Solent galley Bembridge and Clayton skiff Mabel, to the Queen's Diamond Jubilee Pageant, a flotilla of a thousand boats going down the Thames from  Richmond to Tower Bridge on June 3.
Time to break out the bunting that was last used to dress my grandparents' launch to celebrate the Coronation.
It looks set to be a great occasion, bringing rowers together from all over the country including Ullapool Coastal Rowing Club who will be bringing their St Ayles Skiff Ulla from the north of Scotland. It will be great to meet up with them.
The Queen will be riding in style in a Royal Barge converted from a pleasure boat, the Spirit of Chartwell, decorated to a design by film and TV designer Joseph Bennett. This caused raised eyebrows in the stuffier papers, but there is a precedent - the most lavish and impressive Royal Barge in history was designed by William Kent, not a boatbuilder but a sign painter before turning to furniture design and architecture.
His State Barge is preserved in the National Maritime Museum.
The ideal Royal Barge for the Diamond Jubilee would be a new rowing boat, designed by Lord Linley with Iain Oughtred, and crewed by the Royal Watermen and Doggett's Coat and Badge winners in their regalia, but there would be tedious security objections. The Spirit of Chartwell will have to do.

Evening Row

Well, we did get out rowing briefly last night. Many frustrated rowers went out for a lunchtime bike ride, and the wind declined during the day. There was just enough time between the arrival of water at the Langstone Mill slipway and sundown to get out for a quick bash round the harbour.
As we returned, a shadowy presence of a single rower in a Teifi skiff was seen under a rather dramatic sunset.
In the pub later, we got to discussing what the two stars we could see actually might be, and one of our number flashed his iPhone and demonstrated a star chart application that showed them to be Jupiter and Venus. It really is a wonderful app, all you do is point the phone at the part of the sky you are interested in and it tells you exactly what you are looking at. So I have downloaded Google Star Maps for my Android phone, and now I am an instant expert.

Winter Rowing

What with the tides and the weather, rowing is very hit and miss at the moment. High tides right now are before dawn and after dark, and a line of fronts rolling in from the Atlantic has brought rain seemingly on most of the times when the tide was in and the light on simultaneously.
On the last day of the year, there was a window of opportunity at the end of the day so I went out in Kittiwake to Marker Point, a sticky-out bit of Thorney Island. You can tell it is Marker Point because opposite is this great big post, which has 'Marker' on it in big letters.

As I rounded the post I heard a distant voice. Someone on shore was hailing, but I couldn't see who it was or hear properly. I think it was Steve - if it was you, why weren't you out rowing in your Alden, eh?
Today, the plan was to row to the Isle of Wight from Lee-on-the-Solent and meet Henley Whalers for lunch. Unfortunately, the low tide means we are restricted to the slipways that go all the way, and all of them are blocked by banks of shingle. And the wind is predicted to be an easterly F4/5 right onto the slipways, which will mean launching will be wild and wet. So it is all off. Today I will go and photograph all the mass dials in Sussex.

Rowing for Heroes

I recently posted a lengthy whine about the condition known to doctors as 'skiffer's arse', but the latest blog post from transatlantic rower Rory Mackenzie puts it all in perspective.
Cpl Mackenzie, an Army medic, had his right leg blown off by a roadside bomb in Basra. Now he is taking part in the Atlantic Challenge with an Army crew including three other amputees - Row2Recovery.
However hard you train, the real thing is always tougher and Rory discovered as then pushed westwards that the pain was unbearable. Some previously undetected fragments of shrapnel, just pinhead size, were working their way to the skin as the muscles were working.
So this was Rory's Christmas:
"On Christmas Day I dosed myself up on some pretty hard core painkillers and spent ages gazing in the mirror at my behind – not recommended – and picking away with a pair of tweezers to try and pull out the offending shrapnel. I also scrubbed the area pretty aggressively as well. To be honest I was pretty spaced out while I was doing it but it seems to have done the trick."

Amazingly, he is back in the rowing seat and pleased as Punch: "I feel like I’ve been given a new lease of life. It’s so good to really feel like I’m playing my part in things rather than just being a big lump that the rest of the boys have to row across to Barbados."

We saw Row2Recovery come in at the Great River Race, when they got a storm of applause. They are clearly going from strength to strength, currently positioned fourth in the twelve boats still in the race.

You can follow them here, and please donate lavishly here.

Ralph Stockton's Rowing Girls

I love this. Modelmaker Ralph Stockton, based at Setley Pond in the New Forest, has created a remote control coxless pair.
The girls have a very odd circular rowing action and they can't feather, but they have the boat under complete control and manage to avoid a threatening narrowboat half way through the film.
I'm almost inspired to create a model rowing boat with a proper stroke including feathering, but I'm too busy rowing.

Slow Rowing

This should be the worst rowing boat ever. She is short, fat, flat-bottomed and has a 'bow' that is even wider and blunter than my Simbo. Rowing should be a mighty pain, taking huge amounts of effort to get nowhere in a very long time.
But for Water Dancer's builder, Thomas Mauer in Pennsylvania, she is the best rowing boat ever. As he relates in an article in the brilliant online boating magazine Duckworks, she is great for fishing from, as a base for swimming and as a picnic table (as shown in the picture).

The design is the Puddle Duck Racer (PDR), a sailing boat for youngsters designed to be as much fun as an Optimist at a tiny fraction of the price. The box shape makes it easy and quick to build, and she sails well because it forms a V in the water when heeling. But she was not designed to row.

Thomas's big discovery is that you can often go out under oars when sailing is impractical, and that a wide, stable boat is great for a lot of things that aren't rowing, such as fishing, birdwatching and picnicking.

I have discovered this recently. My sliding seat skiff Snarleyow (pictured in the masthead) is not getting used as much as she used to be, because I like doing the stuff that you can't do in a boat so narrow you can't let go of the oars without risking a sudden immersion.

There are always times, of course, when nothing will hit the spot except a fast and furious bash round the harbour in Snarleyow. For all those other times, a boat designed for comfort rather than speed is what I need. 

Slow Rowing? Yes please!