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Commodore’s Cruise - June 9th
Speke to New Brighton & Back
Combined with Final Leg of Mersey Baton Relay
When we planned the season’s programme the Commodore’s Cruise was to have been the day after this event, but some time after we had published the Programme the club were invited by the Mersey basin Campaign to take part in what the first occasion of was to become an annual baton relay, to celebrate their success (after a 22-year campaign) in cleaning up the Mersey. Once one of the most polluted rivers in the world, and on the official UN list of dead zones, we have in recent years seen not only a visible improvement in water quality but also the return of salmon and seals to the river. To celebrate this success they were organising a baton relay, during the annual Mersey Basin Week, in which a wooden baton carved to the form of a salmon, was ferried together with a message of good will from the Mayor of Stockport (at the head of the river) to the Lord Mayor of Liverpool (at its mouth). A representative selection of organisations were taking the salmon along successive stages over the course of the week; a walking group who had taken it along part of the Pennine Way, canoeists who had taken it through Salford Docks, a cycling club, and finally two sailing clubs; Fiddlers Ferry Sailing Club who had brought it down to us on the Wednesday, and then ourselves making the final delivery on the Saturday. We therefore decided to accept the invitation and to advance the date of our Commodore’s Cruise so as to combine the two events. On a completely still day, with a forecast of light variable winds but probably settling into the north, and potentially hot sun, we assembled at an almost indecently early hour, the earliest boats arriving at the club from 0730. We were to sail downriver on the ebb, and since the tide was earlier than we would have liked we were rather pushing it for just how late on the tide the slipway would remain useable. My tidal calculations had established that the very latest we could launch would be about 0905, and in due course that was proved right; we were actually launching the last boat at 0910, and we managed to get them off, but only with a degree of difficulty. We had a better turnout than on earlier occasions this year, although I should set that in the context that the club endured several years of enforced inactivity on the water, during which time we have recovered from the ashes (literally) of two devastating arson attacks, and effectively relaunched the club and built a brand new iconic and prestigious Clubhouse. However we have as yet only a very small active membership base. We saw five very disparate sailing dinghies launch from the Club, Tom’s Enterprise, one of the Club Wayfarers, my two GP14s, and Eddie Sabino’s Heron. A sixth, Ray Moulton’s Yachting World 14ft Dayboat, was unable to make the start time join us at New Brighton; Ray had to first collect his son from an incoming flight, so we knew in advance that he might not be able to catch the tide at Speke. Phil Gambrill joined us on the water at the Pier Head in his seriously fast powerboat, having launched at New Brighton; with a boat capable of sixty knots that probably only took him about two minutes! I was crewed for the day by Mike Hughes, a local RYA Yachtmaster Instructor and until recently a busy yacht delivery skipper, whom I had met as the instructor running the Yachtmaster course which I have recently and very belatedly taken. He does most (if not all) of the local authority Yachtmaster and Day Skipper training, and we are hoping to recruit him into the club both as a member and as a possible future Chief Instructor once we are ready to set ourselves up as a recognised training establishment.. He had raced GP14s in his youth, but it is thirty years since he was last in a dinghy; however he enjoyed it so much that his comment was that he failed to understand why he had left it so long! The Youth Afloat team manned both our safety boat and their own one, and once again they turned up trumps. They also borrowed Strait Laced for the occasion, so I had the particular personal pleasure of having both my two near sister ships sailing together in the same event. Mind you, we showed them a clean transom all the way on both legs of the cruise - which is exactly how it should be; we can’t have the kids showing the old hands how to do it, can we!! At first there was barely a breath of wind, and as a non-smoker I couldn’t even resort to the Mick Rhodes technique of taking a packet of cigarettes afloat to tell one the direction of the wind. We all got away more or less on time, although the lads borrowing Strait Laced gave us a little anxiety as to whether they would make it before the tide dropped too far, because they were having to rig an unfamiliar boat and I had left them once I thought that they were on the home straight - but apparently not so. However they did make it, and once we all set off it wasn’t long before A Capella was well in the lead, thanks to the occasional judicious use of our wooden topsail. Being substantially lower on the tide than when I normally sail, for my first time ever I saw Garston Rocks breaking surface. It looked as though there is safe water either side of them, although the chart doesn’t show a safe passage inside, and indeed the Wayfarer safely passed inshore of them but we chose to go outside them in the hope of making the most of the ebb to help us on our way. One of the problems of sailing in this part of the Mersey is that it is very shoal, but about the only thing that one knows for certain about the position of the deepest water is that it is not where it is shown on the chart. Since commercial shipping ceased to use the river above Garston the official survey has never been updated, so that current chart is till based on a 1976 survey, and although rocks don’t move sand banks and mud flats most certainly do. Our intention as a club is to do our own survey and to buoy the channel, and indeed both projects are currently in hand, but are still a long way from complete. The original arrangement for the baton relay was that Tom would take it downriver, and he would then be ferried ashore in one of the powerboats in time to present it to the Lord Mayor at 1100. Meanwhile the fleet would sail within photographic distance of the Pier Head for a photo-shoot. In the event Tom had to dip out of going afloat, because Kath had had a bad fall a couple of days earlier and had to have an operation to replace a shattered elbow, so I stood in for him on the water, but he turned up at the club to see us off (and at the end of the day to see us home), and he turned up at the Pier Head to make the presentation. Having ghosted all the way down the Garston Channel, and into the main river, it was abundantly clear that we weren’t going to have enough wind to make the Pier Head for the scheduled time, so the power boats took over and I was duly conveyed there at high speed, leaving Mike single-handing A Capella. We then had the Mayoral presentation, and the associated photo-calls, and there was subsequently a nice write-up and photo in the Liverpool Daily Post. Meanwhile the wind perked up, at last, and the fleet enjoyed a good sail and most of them managed to make it to the Pier Head in time for the photos after all. After all the photos I was ferried back in the Zodiac to rejoin Mike, and we enjoyed a brisk sail the rest of the way down to New Brighton. Before heading downriver however we went a little way back upriver to rendezvous with Strait Laced, who were some way astern of the other boats of comparable speed, just to check that they were alright. We did suggest to them that their main halliard needed to be tighter, as the main was settling like a pair of old lady’s drawers; that is not a harsh criticism of the crew, but rather a quirk of that particular sail, which is more than usually insistent upon being properly mastheaded, and I had found it myself the first time I used this sail last season. Even so, they finally came in at New Brighton a very long time after the rest of us, but it transpired that they had not actually sailed all that directly, and that they had had several changes of helm and crew during the trip - swapping with the lads in the two safety boats - so all praise to them for sharing the sailing around. Then after a picnic lunch at new Brighton, on what was becoming a scorcher of a day, we set off back upriver, making it generously early just in case the wind dropped again. This time we had an 8-mile spinnaker run home - a pleasure the racing types rarely have (!) - and since Mike professed himself unfamiliar with spinnaker handling we swapped ends of the boat, and he brought us home while I flew the kite. As we were sailing up to the Pier Head we were passed by an incoming French catamaran fast ferry. To our great surprise, particularly since in our not exactly inexpert opinion they had all the room they could possibly need and more, the Vice-Commodore’s boat, helmed by this massively-experienced yachtsman and Yachtmaster Instructor and one-time merchant seaman, and crewed by the Vice-Commodore (who is himself not exactly inexperienced) was hailed from the bridge of the ferry, demanding to know why we weren’t over the other side of the river! It was about a mile wide at that point, and we were well out of their path and did not impede their progress in the slightest degree.
8 mile spinnaker run home, up the Mersey
Strait Laced, sailed by Youth Afloat members, off Egremont (?); Rendezvous to change (or add) crew
Strait Laced a long way astern. Exactly as she should be - we can’t have young lads showing the old hands how to do it!
In the event the wind held, at least until we were home and dry, so we actually arrived back at the club a little too early to recover the boats immediately. Nearing the club, and still very low on the tide, we decided to go for caution once we reached Garston Rocks, and go outside them. There may or may not have been water inside them, but until we have done our own survey we don’t know, and we certainly didn’t want to scrape her bottom if there turned out not to be enough depth. Having gone outside them, and with a still incomplete knowledge of the channel, we then very slightly misjudged how soon after then we would need to stand inshore to pick up the inner channel past the slip. Once we did realise, we were in the position of having to scrub across the tail of the bank with the centreboard and the rudder blade only barely projecting below the boat, and even so we were touching most of the way across; I reckon we close-reached across the tip in about 12 inches of water. And once we reached the slip, having enjoyed enough wind for reasonably brisk sailing for the second half of the downriver leg and then all the way home, there was not enough wind at the club to rotate the wind turbine! However that may have been just a temporary lull, as it did start operating while we were recovering the boats, and it was just about up to full operating voltage by the time we locked up and went home. More pictures Please Click on the thumbnail pictures to view them full size.
For pictures of the whole baton relay please visit http://www.flickr.com/photos/merseybasin/ |
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