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The Age of the Tall Ship Has Not Been Forgotten

The age of sail as an epoch may be over, but there is still a fascination with the graceful tall ships that still sail our coasts and oceans. They some how seem to inspire feelings of romance and adventure.

This summer is no exception, as many celebrations that will take place along the coasts of America will allow residents the chance to admire at least one of these swans of the ocean.

In the region of the Great Lakes, eager captains will respond to a maritime war that for 200 years has been absent. In Miami, an impressive Spanish vessel will sail into port to rendezvous with the 500th birthday celebration. The West Coast of the U.S. will see the biggest tall ship festival, which is expecting more than 200,000 visitors.

The Clipper William Mason

William Pierce Stubbs

Both now, and in the past, these boats are and were sailed by sailors who had no fear, and manoeuvred themselves manually without restraint up and down masts that tower 30 metres high into the sky. This is no easy feat as the ship pitches and rolls in the ocean swells and waves. The crew has to synchronize perfectly in order to release the enormous sails that have a width of 15 metres. In a good wind, these sails can confidently move a ship weighing in at 400 tonnes through the water at modest speeds up to 30 kph.

The masters and crew of the tall ships of old were challengers and researchers, as they unravelled the mystery of the shape of the Earth, which was for thousands of years thought to be flat.

There is often a dark side to many things and they are often shrouded in secrecy. The slave trade soon became one of these. The great ships attempted to help in the building of nations by snatching people from faraway lands and taking them to a land that needed developing. These times have never been forgotten.

Today, with their displays of elegance, they show that wind power has, and will always be, a source of renewable energy. The courage and determination of captains and their crew succeeded in opening the door to world travel, which encouraged further explorers to unearth what was on the other side of the world.

There are 5 events taking place this summer off the coasts of America.
The highlight will most likely be the 1813 Battle of Lake Erie, which-celebrates its bicentennial re-enactment. This is to be the first opportunity in 200 years that so many ships will fire black gunpowder cannons against one another. It is the re enacting of the battle waged against the British, which let the U.S.A. secure its present frontier with Canada. The impressive “Sorlandt” from Norway will be present at the event. It is 86 years old and 210 feet in length.

Miami will be welcoming the Juan Sebastian de Elcano. The length of this Spanish boat spans a U.S. football field, at 120 metres. It acts as a training ship for navy midshipmen in the Spanish Naval academy. It was launched in 1927 and has since circumnavigated the world 10 times. The tall ship will show its presence in Miami as a way of celebrating 500 years since the discovery of what is now termed the Sunshine State. It will be in the vicinity in early May.

There are many more tall ships that will be attending these events and others up and down the two coasts of the U.S.A. With the constant discussions over renewable resources of energy, tall ships may never sink back into the past.

April 2, 2013 | Alison Williams

Tall Ships

Modern technology once again saves the day for Polish seafarers

The successful use of modern satellite communication technology when things go wrong at sea was highlighted once again last week when a Polish Tiburon 36 yacht was identified through its GEOS distress system as being in danger of sinking more than 900 nautical miles from land. The three yachtsmen on board were eventually rescued form the distressed vessel and were on their way to Norway, the merchant ship’s destination, when the news report was published.

Safety at sea has certainly come a long way from the first epirbs that came out on the market thirty years ago. These early transmitters were capable of being picked up by satellites and passing aircraft, but were not very accurate and it took a long time for rescue personnel to locate the source of the signal. What usually made a search particularly difficult was that most boats in distress were probably in areas of the ocean where it was rough and stormy, with reduced visibility.

A 47-Ft Lifeboat of the Canadian Coas…

Pete Ryan

The 406 epirbs, which are still in use today, were the next step up and the price of these transmitters has come down appreciably, making them reasonably affordable for anybody contemplating an ocean voyage. They give out a much more accurate GPS position of the vessel in distress, once the transmitter is activated, and it is linked to the name of the boat as well as a telephone number of a land based contact. When a distress signal is received, an emergency services person will ring the contact to make sure that the signal is likely to be genuine and get details of the boat as well as what safety equipment they might have had on board.

The Polish yacht had on board a new type of radio beacon which has come on the market quite recently. It is a small device, a bit like a mobile telephone, which is capable of sending a text message to a land based safety centre as well as friends or relatives, if the distress signal is activated. It has not yet got the same approval ratings as an epirb, but is a lot cheaper and is likely to be much more readily in use in future. One advantage of the device over an epirb is that it is supposed to send out a signal for as much as a week after being activated, rather than the 48 hours which the 406 epirb is expected to last.

In the most recent rescue, an American coastguard station was alerted to the distress signal and initiated a search and rescue operation by long range aircraft. The yacht was located visually and the crew on the plane was able to find the position of ships nearby that could provide a rescue. One ship, the Barbudan registered vessel “Winona”, was selected out of several that responded and was able to pick up the three crew members with some difficulty. The wind was reported to be between 25 and 35 knots at the time with 5 metre seas. One of the yachtsmen was reported to be in the water when the Winona arrived, with the other two still aboard.

February 27, 2013 | Alison Williams

Maritime Articles

Tall Ship Lord Nelson 1st visit to Cape Town

Often in the news reports are published about people who do daring and amazing things. Normally these people are able bodied and push themselves physically and emotionally to their limits. The crew aboard the Lord Nelson, a British tall ship 55-metre long normally a routine visitor to Irish ports, arrived in Cape Town last week on her first visit to South Africa. Her voyage is all part of the Norton Rose Sail the World Challenge.

This journey is another initiative which is being organized by the Jubilee Sailing Trust, a British charity. It is supported by Norton Rose an international legal practice, which has 5 of its forty two offices in Africa.

The ship is unique in that it has been set up to enable crew who are physically disabled to work alongside crew who are able bodied. The tall ship was escorted by a Cape Town pilot boat into the V&A Waterfront.

The Admiral House, Simon’s Town, Cape…

Lt. Humphrey John Julian

Lord Nelson had just completed a transatlantic crossing in 24 days and this is the first time it has made landfall on South African shores. The 35-strong crew were not short of supporters as they were welcomed back onto land by family and friends and with the sounds of African drummers.

One of the crew that completed the 3,455-mile passage from the Brazilian city of Rio de Janeiro was Gareth Cooper from Essex in England. He has had since birth a form of brittle bone disease and is confined to a wheelchair.

Gareth is not new to the Jubilee Sailing Trust initiatives but he reported that this voyage was a life changing adventure. He is like any able bodied sportsman, he pushes himself to his limits to gain the greatest satisfaction out of life.

The crew are not limited to Europeans but some South Africans will be having their chance too. 55 year old Russell Vollmer who is the Commodore of the Royal Cape Yacht Club and is sponsored by Norton Rose will be part of the South African sailing sector. At the age of 19 he broke his neck while diving in the South African Navy and has since been a quadriplegic. He has already completed a voyage from Cape to Rio in 2000 and he competed in the solo 2,4 metre class in Sydney at the Paralympic Games in 2000.

.Lord Nelson was launched in 1986. The specially designed features on board include wheelchair lifts, hearing loops, speaking compasses and integrated Braille instructions which means a disabled sailor has the chance to contribute to the journey to the same degree as a crew member who is able bodied..

Throughout the 23-month circumnavigation, the tall ship, will cross the Equator 4 times and it will visit thirty countries. At least 1,000 people are being given the chance to take part in this 50,000-mile voyage. Lord Nelson will return to Britain in September 2014.

February 19, 2013 | Alison Williams

Tall Ships

True Life Adventure for Argentinian tall ship Libertad

The Argentinian navy’s pride and joy, the “Libertad”, a 104 metre three masted square rigger, is soon due for release from a modern day adventure on the coast of West Africa.

The Libertad was impounded by Ghananian authorities in an extraordinary turn of events two months ago and it, its captain and crew have been languishing in the port town of Tema since then, waiting for resolution of a dispute that had little to do with the sea and sailing.

The Libertad was caught up in a financial melodrama involving the Argentinian government (which owns the Libertad) and an American hedge fund, the Elliott Management Fund, which had accused the Argentinians of not paying a debt of some 370 million dollars.

Top sails. by Pablo Avanzini

Quite how the Ghanaians came into the picture is still unclear, but one can only assume that a few dollars were to be sent their way for help in keeping the boat and its crew hostage while the debt was settled.

The Libertad had not set out to have an adventure on the Ghanaian coast, but in all innocence had dropped in for a goodwill visit, part of an extended cruise taking in South American ports as well as European and West African ones.

The Libertad is nearly 60 years old now and was built in a shipyard near Buenos Aires on the banks of the La Plata estuary.

She has served the Argentinian navy for years as a sail training venue and has taken part in many tall ship events. To the ship’s credit she has won a number of races, including the Cape Race in Canada to Dursey Island (Ireland) Trans Atlantic Classic. She completed the 1716 nautical miles under sail alone in less than 7 days and was duly awarded the Boston Teapot Trophy by Britain’s Duke of Edinburgh in 1966. She also represented Argentina in the U.S. bicentenary in 1976 and has taken part in numerous events since then. She received a major overhaul 5 years ago, which saw her improve facilities, including accommodation for female naval cadets.

The present predicament came about in October, when the Libertad docked at Tema. The Ghanaian court, apparently acting as agents for the U.S. hedge fund, seized both the boat and its crew and refused the crew’s release until the Argentinian Government posted a bail of $20 million. The government not only refused to do this, while paying a whopping $50,000 a day in mooring charges, it also refused to settle its supposed 10 year old debt with the hedge fund, calling it a “vulture fund”.

The International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea has now ruled in the Libertad’s favour and requested the release of the ship on the 22nd December. It is yet to be seen whether the Ghanaians will accede to the request. The ship’s captain and 45 of his remaining crew are expected to be bolstered by over 90 more sailors from the Argentinian Navy and the ship is then expected to arrive back in Argentinian waters some time by January 9th. If the Ghanaians stay firm, the dockside at Tema could become a very interesting spot on December 22nd!

December 19, 2012 | Alison Williams

Air Canada Passengers Help Out in Air Sea Rescue Operation

It is quite unusual in this era of modern technology that the untrained eye is used to spot the small dot of a missing yacht on a large ocean, from a viewing platform 2,000 metres above sea level. However, this actually happened this week when a single-handed yacht lost its mast 275 nautical miles out from Sydney harbour in Australia. What was even more unusual was the fact that ordinary passengers on a jet were the ones who spotted the yacht.

The Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA) received a signal from an onboard emergency beacon which was activated at 8:15 a.m. local time on Tuesday this week out in the notorious Tasman Sea. To ensure they didn’t waste any time deploying aircraft to search for the yacht in distress they requested assistance to confirm the GPS position.

Sea Rescue

English School

Civilian aircraft that were transiting the area at the time, which included crew and passengers on board an Air Canada flight, were asked to peer out of the porthole sized windows at an altitude of around 2,000 metres, to assist in the location of the yacht, reported to be 275 nautical miles from Sydney. An Air New Zealand flight then joined in the action and flew above the yacht to confirm its location and the actual incident.

Crew and passengers aboard the Air Canada flight were thanked for their help in finding the yacht. Both the Air Canada flight number 033 from Vancouver and a second Air New Zealand jet which was on passage from Auckland, were both on route to Sydney when they were requested to change their course.

AMSA said in a statement that it wished to thank the captains and crew of the Air New Zealand and Air Canada aircraft for their help in the search and rescue operation, and the passengers for being patient in the incident. Once the vessel’s location had been confirmed, both the Air New Zealand A320 and Air New Canada Boeing 777, continued on to Sydney. A search and rescue aircraft then took off to the location, where it made contact with the single handed yachtsman. He said his yacht had been dismasted and would be unable to make land fall, as he was short of fuel.

While awaiting sea assistance, a merchant ship provided shelter and help until the Police ship “OPV Nemesis” from New South Wales arrived to rescue the yachtsperson.

Most sea going yachts these days have aboard what is called a 406 emergency beacon (epirb) which, once its signal is activated, will be picked up thousands of kilometres away by monitoring services such as AMSA, giving the exact location of the beacon and the vessel’s name. It is quite unusual for a maritime authority to require confirmation from anything but another maritime vessel when it comes to confirming the actual position of a ship. The beacons confirm accuracy down to a few metres, but time can’t be lost as the signal will only be emitted for up to 48 hours and once the signal stops, it will become increasingly difficult to locate the exact position of the vessel in distress.

November 15, 2012 | Alison Williams

Maritime News and Events

Disabled Sailors Set Sail on Exciting Voyage Around the World

The first ever round the world voyage on a tall ship carrying disabled sailors as crew has set off from Southampton in England.

The ship is the “Lord Nelson”, named after the half blind British admiral who led the British fleet at Trafalgar, so the ship is suitably named to carry the collection of people with a variety of disabilities on its mission.

The disabilities range from blindness and multiple sclerosis to paraplegia and the ship has been fitted out to help cater for the full range of abilities that the crew will be able to demonstrate.

The Battle of Trafalgar and the Victo…

Not only are the abilities and disabilities very varied, so are the ages. One of the oldest crew members who signed up for the 23 month voyage, which is expected to travel 50,000 miles around the world, is Beryl Jones at 69 years old. When asked for her reasons for joining the trip, she said that her great grandfather had been an ocean going captain and thought that she was following the tradition he had kept.

She said that the thought of doing all the normal chores as well as changing sails and spying on the horizon from the crow’s nest was an exciting thought.

The “Lord Nelson” is skippered by a female captain, Barbara Campbell, and is part of the Jubilee Trust, which has set out to administer a purpose built ship that can carry able bodied as well as disabled sailors alike.

The “Lord Nelson” is 55 metres long and will visit more than 30 countries on its historic voyage on all 7 continents. Some of the key ports on its itinerary will include Rio De Janeiro, Cape Town, Kochi in India, Singapore, Sydney, Auckland and Ushuaia. The last named stop, at the Southern end of Argentina, will also be the port of embarcation for a side trip to Antarctica. The Antarctic explorer, Skip Novak, who has made dozens of trips to the Antarctic Peninsula in his own sailing yacht will be piloting the “Lord Nelson” on the trip to the frozen South.

The Jubilee Trust has also been sponsored and supported by a number of celebrities, including Peter Snow, the BBC commentator and global explorer, Sarah Outen.

Not all of the crew have had sailing experience, but they are all determined to enjoy the experience of sailing on a tall ship and discover how their disabilities can be challenged to the full. One crew member is a paratrooper, retired from active service in Afghanistan after losing a leg in an explosion. He said that the voyage allowed him to complete an important part of his rehabilitation process as the voyage would provide him with the opportunity to recover his self confidence.

Another is a parish constable from the Channel Island of Jersey. He is an active sailor back at home, and also suffers from multiple sclerosis. He is looking forward both to the sailing in the great ship, but also to the sense of camaraderie, which such a mixed crew is likely to engender.

October 23, 2012 | Alison Williams

Travel and Cruising

Technology Saves a Yacht when Something went “Bump in the Night”

The fact that the Slovenian crew members on the yacht “Ciao” could be rescued when their vessel hit a submerged object in the middle of the night in the middle of the Southern Indian Ocean was due to the combination of the tracking device which they carried on board as part of their equipment loaned to them by the organization which they belonged to as well as their High Frequency Radio.

The yacht was part of the regular round the yacht rally called the World ARC. The rally always has a few dramas and a sinking or two, but rarely do yacht crew members end up missing or die as a result of their mishaps because there is always somebody keeping a check of their whereabouts and ready to send out assistance if required.

ARC departure from Las Palmas, Canary Islands. November 2005

The safety measures come at a considerable cost. The World ARC yachts are few in number and are a minority of the two hundred odd participants who start out every November from the Canary Islands to cross the Atlantic Ocean to the Caribbean. This year’s ARC (Atlantic Rally for Cruisers) sees the yachts leaving Las Palmas on Spain’s Gran Canaria on 25th November. All the yachts pay a considerable amount of money for the security of having an Iridium tracking device on board and regular communication with the rally control group by the compulsory HF radio they have to own. The crossing to the Caribbean only takes between 15 to 30 days, depending on the vagaries of the weather and the design and size of the yacht, but most participants think that the sum is worth paying.

The small number of yachts that carry on from St Lucia in the Windward islands to complete the full World ARC Rally are similarly happy to pay the extra payment for the rally support network.

The rally that Ciao was part of was the first in the series to pass South of South Africa directly into the Atlantic from the Indian Ocean. All previous rallies have been organised to take the easier route up via Sri Lanka and the Red Sea into the Mediterranean. The route was altered due to security concerns over piracy in the Gulf of Aden and the Yemen and Somali coasts.

The change in route means that all yachts taking part in the rally have to undergo much longer ocean passages from Indonesia to Cocos Keeling, Mauritius and then South Africa.

Long ocean passages mean that there is always a chance for a “bump in the night” as yacht “Ciao” discovered.

In the case of “Ciao”, it struck an unknown object at around midnight about 40 nautical miles away from safe anchorage at the Australian Indian Ocean island dependency of Cocos Keeling. The yacht’s rudder was damaged in the collision and this led to significant amounts of sea water leaking aboard.

The yacht was luckily close to at least two other yachts also in the same rally and bound for Cocos Keeling. When the yacht finally started to sink the two crew members were able to clamber aboard one of these yachts and were taken to safe harbour. The Australian authorities, who are responsible for the ocean waters in the vicinity, were kept fully informed of what was happening by the rally control team as the yacht’s tracking device pinpointed their position and the SSB radio could be used to keep other yachts informed of what was happening.

October 4, 2012 | Alison Williams

Travel and Cruising

Clipper Round the World Race Announces Crew Recruitment Campaign

On the 17th September, the Clipper Round the World Yacht Race recruitment campaign was launched throughout Britain. This is a new international crew recruitment method aimed at encouraging people who want to achieve something different by giving up their normal daily routine through embarking on a race across the great oceans of the world and they do not need to have any experience at all.

The Clipper Race was inaugurated sixteen years ago by renowned lone yachtsman Sir Robin Knox-Johnston, who was the first person to sail alone and non-stop around the globe in 1968-9. Of all the sailing races, the Clipper Race is the longest in the world, covering some 40,000 miles. An interesting qualification to take part is that any person over eighteen has eligibility to apply, without requiring any sailing experience at all. Those selected for the adventure are trained for three weeks at an intensive pre-race training event.

British Clipper for the China Tea Tra…

Almost half those who take part do not have any prior sailing experience but they are not left to learn the skills unaided as they are supervised by a range of professionally trained skippers.

The Clipper Race grows in importance every year, with the final race attracting a worldwide audience of more than a billion viewers. Because of the increase in interests from sponsors for the available crew berths, there are going to be twelve new 70-foot yachts to be included in the coming races.

Crew members can complete the 40,000 miles of circumnavigation in total or just one or more of the eight sectors. The race fleet takes nearly a year to complete with 15 ports on their timetable, visiting six continents. Sea conditions are never consistent, from the calm conditions experienced in the doldrums to the tempestuous seas of the Southern Ocean.

A crew member in the last race said his highlight was experiencing a big storm in the Southern Ocean, when he recalled clambering up the mast to bring the sails in where he managed to secure a view of the amazing force of nature – the grey in the sky, the massive waves, mountainous seas and the strong gusts of wind. A sight that most people in this world will never have an opportunity to see.

For many, the best part of the race is meeting up with people who you would never usually come across in ordinary every day life but on board you are working together with a common goal in mind.

The current recruitment campaign is taking place on posters in London’s main line railway stations and throughout the country, trying to entice rail travellers to swap the monotony of their daily commute for the adrenalin rush of sailing in earnest across some of the great oceans of the world.

Sir Robin Knox Johnston recalls that racing across a great ocean is a truly unique endeavour and really makes you feel alive.

September 21, 2012 | Alison Williams

Travel and Cruising

Historic Junk makes it back to Taiwan the Easy Way

A Chinese junk with a mysterious and amazing past has made it back across the Pacific to its original home after 55 years on the West Coast of America.

The junk, named “Free China” on its maiden ocean voyage in 1955 that saw it battle typhoons and steering failures, was originally built fifty years earlier and plied the Chinese coast as a fishing boat and was sometimes in charge of pirates and worse.

In fact, the early history is something of a mystery to its present owners. All that is known is that the junk changed hands several times as owners were alternately jailed or killed.

View of a Chinese Fishing Junk on the…

Joseph Baylor Roberts

What was known was its toughness and speed under sail. In the typhoon season, the junks in the first part of the twentieth century had no warning system for the savage storms of that area and learned to copy the movements of the larger trading ships. When they turned back to port, it was assumed that a typhoon was brewing and so the junks would head back too – often getting back earlier than their engine powered cousins as the strong winds of the gathering storm would send them shooting ahead.

The “Free China” caught the attention of a sailor called Chow who had been working on the large, motorized trading ships that plied the coast of China. He had wanted to enter a boat in a new sailboat race from Rhode Island to Sweden across the Atlantic and thought that the Chinese junk had the sail power and stamina to make a realistic entry.

The name of the junk was changed to make a political statement about the desire of the island of Taiwan to gain its independence from the Chinese mainland. The government had given enough money to purchase the junk for Chow and his fellow enthusiastic crew members.

The only obstacle was to get the junk from Taiwan to Rhode Island – a journey that was to become far more challenging than the race itself.

The Free China set sail from Taiwan eventually with a crew of 5 including Chow, but had its fair share of trials and tribulations in the first part of the passage. It sailed through a typhoon, but lost its steering and had to be towed into a Japanese port. It eventually docked in San Francisco two months after the trans-Atlantic race had started.

The boat and its crew were greeted with acclaim from the city and especially its Chinese inhabitants but led an extraordinary life, mostly of neglect over the next fifty years. It was donated by Chow to the San Francisco Maritime Museum, who abandoned it and, for the most part, it lay neglected and deteriorating in one boatyard after another.

It was only recently that the son of one of the original crew, a businessman called Dione Chen decided to take it back to Taiwan, where it is to be restored as part of the island nation’s history. The junk was loaded on to a container ship and made its second Pacific voyage in a less romantic, but far safer way.

September 11, 2012 | Alison Williams

Travel and Cruising

All Women’s Team set to take part in the ‘Everest of Sailing’

The twelfth Volvo Ocean Race, dubbed the ‘Everest of Sailing’ to be held in 2014 has already had its first official entrant and this time it is an all women crew, to be sponsored by an American toilet paper and tissue company, called SCA, in a multi million dollar deal.

Only four other all women’s teams have ever entered this, the toughest of ocean races, the last one in 2001/2002.

The Volvo Ocean Race is the descendant of one of the first and most successful of crewed round the ocean races, the famous Whitbread Round the World Race.

The most recent VOR finished in Galway, Ireland this year with only four boats in the competition at the end. The next race will see a minimum of eight boats entered, but the race organizers hope for 10 to 12 boats ready to cross the starting line off the Spanish Mediterranean coastal city of Alicante in May 2014. The boats will all be built to the same design and will be 65 feet long.

Puma During In-Port Race 1, Alicante,…

Rick Tomlinson

The first boat should be completed by mid 2013, while the all female team has already commissioned their boat, which will be built by a mix of British, French, Italian and Swiss boat builders.

While the number of quality female ocean sailors is less than their male counterparts, there still seems to be plenty of talented women sailors to choose from for the SCA team.

There seems to be a lot of talk about the lack of female crew on the VOR with the emphasis being put on the physical hardship faced by the sailors while out on the ocean for weeks at a stretch.

The new design of boat for the 2014 race will incorporate features which will make it less physically arduous and therefore make female crew more competitive against their male counterparts.

The VOR CEO, Knut Frostad, said that the lack of female participants meant that the race was not fully representing half of the world’s population and that meant that it was not attracting sufficient interest and attention because of that fact.

Other race commentators have claimed that the race was simply too ‘primitive’ to attract a good number of female participants, despite the space age technology and materials used on the yachts.

There have been a lot of stories about the hardships faced by the race participants, with one skipper allegedly telling off his crew for leaving a some pairs of sun glasses on one side of the boat! While this story might be a bit tongue in cheek, it does emphasise the degree of attention paid to weight restrictions. Personal comforts and possessions are kept to a bare minimum, with the accent on dehydrated food and desalination technology used to keep down the weight on the boats.
Despite the hardships, there has been no lack of interest by women from around the world in being selected for the SCA’s team. Sailors are selected from Olympic sailors, those with ocean racing experience and top class women sailors with practical experience and skills in such things as sail making. The VOR competitors will also have to be physically tough with strong muscles.

The SCA team organizer, Richard Brisius, said that whoever was selected would have to be very motivated, love the ocean and be able to work as part of a tightly knit team, as well as having the experience.

Adrienne Cahalan, who was the last female entrant in a VOR, a member of the ‘Brasil1’ team in 2005/6, said that there was no reason why women shouldn’t perform as well as any all male team. Cahalan has 20 Sydney to Hobart races under her belt as well as four circumnavigations. She said that the biggest hurdle she faced on the last race was her lack of Portuguese!

August 28, 2012 | Alison Williams

Volvo Ocean Race

Andrey Melnichenko is out to Impress the Yachting World

While out along the Mediterranean coast, whether driving or on foot, what might catch the eye of the casual observer is the sight of super yachts, with sails set, gliding gracefully through the water. The thought races through the mind as to who could possibly have the time or money to enjoy or own luxuries of this type.

Most certainly, there are people who do have the money to enjoy a leisurely sail on the crystal clear waters of the Mediterranean Sea. But few of the tens of thousands of yachts that set out on their annual cruise every year fit into the super yacht bracket.

Countries Bordering The Mediterranean…

Most super yachts have a professional crew who look after the yacht most of the year. When the owners go off to look after their business affairs, or get bored, they leave their boat in the hands of this experienced crew, who will dock the yacht when asked any where along the coast.

A Russian billionaire at only 40 years old has now made the media headlines because the 128 metre motor yacht he is having built has become world famous because of its radical design and huge size. When finally built it will be the world’s largest privately owned sailing yacht.

Andrey Melnichenko’s boat fits into the 130 metre range. The largest sailing yacht in the world at the moment is the 100 metre “Eos”, which once belonged to Barry Diller.

Melnichenko has refused to engage in conversation about his new yacht. A spokesman for Melnichenko has declined to comment on any more details. So far, no blueprints or photographs for the boat have been made public and very few in the boating community have ever viewed the plans. Not even the name of the new boat is yet known.

According to those contractors and associated companies that have been involved with the project, the boat will be propelled by both sails and motors.

The sails of this novel looking ship are to be raked, which means they will be angled backwards. This gives it a sleek appearance when compared to other boats with straighter looking masts.

Melnichenko is depending on just his own team to initiate the building of his new yacht. The German shipyard, Nobiskrug, is responsible for constructing the yacht which is operated by Abu Dhabi MAR.

The final costing of the boat has not been revealed, as it’s still in the initial planning and construction stages. However, estimates are that it is most likely to be more than $100 million. Those in the know say work has commenced on the hull already but the progress of the construction will be dependent on making funds available.

The ship is not likely to be launched until at least 2015 which is a long way on from now but it is something to look out for after the champagne bottle has been broken on its bows.

August 15, 2012 | Alison Williams

Travel and Cruising

The Stad Amsterdam Brings Back the Glory Days of the Age of the Clipper

While life aboard the world’s clipper ships in the nineteenth century was anything but romantic it doesn’t stop twenty first century dreamers building replicas.

Stad Amsterdam

The Dutch clipper ship, the “Stad Amsterdam” (City of Amsterdam in Dutch) is as modern as can be in many ways but is built with the design specifications of a Dutch mid nineteenth century clipper.

Stad Amsterdam

The ship was the brainchild of Frits Goldsmeding, who was the man who started up the Dutch based employment agency, Ranstad. He was perplexed during the Sail Amsterdam festivities in 1995 why so many other nations seemed to have a tall ship to represent them, but not Holland. And yet Holland had had such an important shipbuilding and marine trading tradition. Dutch clippers, for instance, were built to bring back spices and tea from the East Indies in record breaking times for years before the age of steam displaced sail.

Stad Amsterdam

The idea became reality when Ranstad joined forces with Amsterdam’s city council to get a clipper built to the same specifications as the 1854 vessel, De Amsterdam. The hull was built in steel rather than the old clipper material of timber, but as soon as the hull had been constructed in 1997, the rest of the ship was put together at Amsterdam’s Scheepvartmuseum, which is a nautical history museum. This included all the woodwork, the copper and brass trimmings and a circular staircase that really gave the new clipper the look and feel of its nineteenth century counterpart.

Romance of Sail

Frank Vining Smith

The Stad Amsterdam provides opportunities for youths to gain experience and a sense of confidence in them selves as well as competing in various tall ships races held around the world, represent Holland, and particularly Amsterdam, on good will visits. In 2009 the ship departed Plymouth in England on a voyage around the world to commemorate the expedition of the legendary “Beagle”, the ship that carried Charles Darwin as naturalist and provided him the opportunity to gather evidence for ideas he formulated about evolution. This trip was commissioned by the Dutch TV channel VPRO.

Wind and Sun

Montague Dawson

The ship was only launched in 2000 but has had to act as a multi purpose vessel ever since. It is not cheap to build and maintain a 76 metre ship and the managers of the Stad Amsterdam find a number of ways to subsidise some of its other commitments. What brings some of the needed cash in are commercial trips in different parts of the world with paying guests and passengers on board. At the time of writing of this article the Stad Amsterdam was on voyage from Italy to Spain. Despite the wealth of modern technology on board and the capabilities of a sturdy diesel engine to supplement the ship’s 31 sails, it is amusing to read the captain’s log for the voyage. The Mediterranean is probably one of the most difficult of all seas to navigate by sail alone, especially a clipper with its square rigging.

Sun-Flecked Foam – The ‘Barnabas Webb’

Montague Dawson

The Med is well known by sailors as a place where there is either too much wind or none at all – quite unlike the tempestuous roaring forties and the trade winds of the tropics where steady and continuous aft winds propelled the sleek and agile craft to the East Indies and back via the Cape of Good Hope. The captain of the Stad Amsterdam records how the ship decides to dodge below Sardinia to avoid one of the regular forecasted mistral winds that frequently roar across the Golfe des Lyons which would make it hard to sail to the Spanish coast.

Stad Amsterdam, Top Sails

What is unlikely to be a replica is the living and working conditions of the old clipper crews. To cope with cut throat competition, the crew numbers were kept to a minimum and the work was long and hard with abysmal sleeping quarters and terrible food. The crew had to keep the pumps manned day and night to keep the water out of the boat that leaked in through the timber planks and haul the rope sheets that pulled up the sails by forming a human chain. Perhaps the only reminder of the human aspect of the old clipper routines might be a recording of the sea shanties that the men used to sing while working at their chores.

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June 22, 2012 | Alison Williams

Tall Ships

Queen Elizabeth’s Diamond Jubilee welcomes Tall Ship

It has recently been announced that the tall ship “Tenacious”, will be taking part in the celebrations for Queen Elizabeth’s Diamond Jubilee on the 3^rd June on the River Thames in London. The ship is quite unusual as it has been specially designed and constructed to be operated and sailed by a mixed gender crew of physically able and disabled individuals, including those who are users of wheelchairs.

The Jubilee Sailing Trust which operates “Tenacious” will be amongst a flotilla of 1000 vessels making up the biggest assembly of boats on the river Thames in recent times. The “Tenacious” will be accompanied by rowing boats, work boats and recreational craft of all makes, forms, and sizes. They will all be brilliantly attired with flowing, colourful bunting and Union Jacks. The contingent will be spread out over approximately twenty five kilometres.

Approaching London

Trey Ratcliff

“Tenacious” is 65 metres in length and will be one of the biggest vessels to take part and will make up part of an avenue of sails that the smaller boats will pass through, as they make their way up the Thames.

Big Ben in London © Gary - Fotolia.com

All the people who have a relationship with the Jubilee Sailing Trust are extremely happy that “Tenacious” has been chosen to be a part of the Diamond Jubilee. CEO Alex Lochrane commented that the trust came into being in 1978 and was partly financed by money from funds provided by the Queen’s Silver Jubilee and so the trust was eager for “Tenacious” to be a representative of this heritage and become a part of the Diamond Jubilee festivities some thirty four years later. It signified a lot to them to be given the opportunity to provide support for this royal occasion with this stunning tall ship.

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“Tenacious” and “”Lord Nelson”, the second ship administered by the trust, are just two tall ships from around the world that have been designed and built for both physically able and disabled individuals to be given the opportunity to experience sailing alongside one another as equals.

Throughout the thirty four years of existence, the Trust has been able to take more than 35,000 people out to sea to engage in a life altering experience. More than 13,000 were classified as disabled, which included 5,000 who needed the assistance of a wheelchair.

Queen Elizabeth II

One of the crew members, who will be on board throughout the spectacle, is Nick Pilgrim who is forty years old. Nick was unfortunate to contract meningitis when he was at nautical school learning to take up a maritime career. He thought he may never have the opportunity to go out to sea ever again. However, twenty five years ago he was initiated into the Jubilee Sailing Trust.

A Tall Ship in the Lower Reaches of t…

John S. Smith

As the years have passed he has completed nearly 60 sailing voyages with the assistance of the Trust, which has included crossings of the Atlantic, and he has sailed a total number of nautical miles that would be equivalent to circumnavigating the world twice.

Tower Bridge and River Thames at Nigh…

Richard I’Anson

Nick, alongside other disabled and physically able members of the crew will humbly take their position aboard Tenacious in the fleet next to the Queen and members of the her family who will be seated on the “Spirit of Chartwell”, a barge assigned to the Royal Family.

February 7, 2012 | Alison Williams

Maritime News and Events

Oars Away Across the Atlantic

Sunset over Caribbean Sea, Barbados © PHB.cz - Fotolia.com

Anybody flying from Europe to the Caribbean islands, with a sharp eye out on the vast blue ocean beneath, over the last few weeks might have seen something more than a little strange.

For sure, the odd container ship or oil tanker would definitely have been over flown as well as the bright, white sails of a yacht or the splash from a pod of dolphins or pilot whales. But none of this fits into the category of strange.

The winter season is the “safe” time of year for small boats of all sorts to make the passage from East to West into the tropics from the African mainland or the Canary Islands. Nearly all of these small boats are yachts making the annual migration to sunshine and swaying palm trees, following in the wake of Columbus, who made the passage over five hundred years ago, but these days more than just yachts are plying these waters.

It has become an annual tradition for eccentrics and athletes alike, in anything from beer barrels to kayaks and rowing boats, to try their luck at crossing the Atlantic. These men and women are almost always completing the journey to break a world record or are trying to raise money for a worthy charity.

Sunset over Caribbean Sea, Barbados © PHB.cz - Fotolia.com

What make the attempts plausible are the prevailing winds that sweep down the African coast from the shores of Spain and Portugal southwards passing the Canaries and taking anything on the surface of the water towards the equator. A little further south, off the coast of Mauritania, the wind starts to curve towards the Caribbean and becomes the famous trade winds. These are usually predictable winds, blowing from anywhere from 10 to 30 knots, which drive small vessels from East to West before them. Theoretically anybody with a seaworthy craft – even a beer barrel – can therefore cross the Atlantic given time – all they have to do is drift with the wind and the waves and they will eventually get there – assuming they have enough food, water and patience.

This year has been the turn of at least two transatlantic rowing challenges. The bigger one was the Atlantic Challenge, in which 17 rowing boats of all sizes took off form La Gomera in the Canaries to race against each other to stake a claim on the 3000 nautical miles to Barbados in the Caribbean. The other was the Atlantic Odyssey – a six man team trying to beat a 30 day record to cross from the Moroccan coast to Barbados.

Neither of these challenges has been incident free.

One of the boats was rolled by an enormous wave, after floundering in heavy 10 metre swells for days. The oars were lost, but the crew kept rowing after having their oars replaced by a back up yacht. The yacht, the “Aurora”, was towing another boat that had completely lost its electrical power and was being used for spares.

Another rowing boat with four amputees on board lost the use of their desalinator. These small machines are used on the boats to convert seawater into drinking water. Without fresh water, the crew had progressively reduced their intake and had to wait for the Aurora to deliver another machine.

Another crew had lost their boat altogether after a capsize, but luckily for them they had been picked up by a nearby passing luxury cruise liner and got carried to St Maarten in the Caribbean in style and comfort.

The boats, who accept outside assistance from the “Aurora” or anybody else, are automatically disqualified form the race even if they keep going under their own steam.

More fortunate was a five woman rowing team, who completed a world record crossing in 45 days when they arrived in Barbados, a little unsteady on their feet, earlier this month.

Also successful was Andrew Robinson, a solo rower, who completed the fastest solo crossing ever, arriving in Barbados, after 39 days.

But spare a thought for the Atlantic Odyssey crew of 6 in the veteran rowing boat, the “Sara G.” They are still at sea, struggling with winds that are just a little too light. This crew of 6 athletes is trying to make the crossing from Morocco to Barbados in less than 30 days and to do that they need to keep an average speed of 3.5 knots.

As of today, they still have 500 nautical miles to go and are making slow progress. Cloudy skies and light winds have meant that their power is down and they have had to cut back on water and food as the desalinator is used to provide water for their dehydrated food rations as well.

They are still in with a chance at the record though, and with 6 days to go they are already dreaming of dry land, a shower, a good meal and a bottle or two of Barbados’ famous Mt Gay rum!

January 29, 2012 | Alison Williams

Travel and Cruising

Filipino Mariners Caught Up in Piracy

Tug boat taking out the ship from the harbor © Grecaud Paul Fotolia.com

Recent news reports have revealed that there are many Filipinos caught up in ship piracy in the Indian Ocean. A Captain of a ship registered in Liberia and crewed entirely by Filipinos was kept in captivity by Somali pirates for four months this year while his wife and newly born child waited in earnest back in the Philippines.

The ship had been hijacked by Somali pirates as it entered the Gulf of Aden, even though the ship is substantial in size there was no way it could overpower the Somali speedboat which was heavily armed.

This particular captain and his crew are not the only Filipinos affected by piracy. As they commonly crew ships for big companies, they inevitably form parts of the crew.

Statistics reveal that since 2006, almost 750 Filipinos, working on more than 60 freighters, have been captured in this way.

Filipinos are not being particularly singled out by the pirates; it is just that so many people from the Philippines work in the maritime industry.

Capt Caniete’s torment started on a tranquil clear day in the middle of December. He first spotted the pirate boat when it was a long way off from his own ship, and stared with fear as it gathered speed and became close.

“I was extremely nervous and my total body was trembling,” he recollects. “They were continually shooting at the ship. They got on the radio and said Captain, you have not stopped so you will be killed.”

After more than five hours of a cat and mouse pursuit, the pirates then hauled themselves up onto the ship, and holding up their AK-47’s they soon overcame the captain and crew, making them take the ship to the coast of Somalia.

The Filipinos on the vessel were held on board, with hardly any food, while dialogue was underway.

Capt Caniete was forced to make a phone call to his company to inform them that he would be shot if a ransom was not paid.

He was severely beaten by the pirates as they were suspicious that a coffee pot he had brought along with him onto the ship was really a satellite telephone. But it was a present from his wife that he cherished.

In the end and after four months, the pirates departed without a word. And Capt Caniete assumed a solution had been found enabling their release.

With this increase in involvement of Filipinos as pirate fodder, The Philippines does not have the money for extra security for their crews but they are conducting anti piracy exercises. Every Filipino seafarer goes through compulsory anti-piracy lessons before they go out to sea.

Several hundred Filipinos have been held by Somali pirates in recent years and in spite of the increasing danger of piracy, there never seems to be any lack in the number of Filipinos wishing to enlist in a crewing job in the maritime trade.

The wages paid out by the shipping corporations offer a favourable quality of living, and offer one of a small number of paths out of poverty for numerous Filipino families. In the last year, Filipino seagoing workers were able to send nearly two and a half billion pounds back to their homes which make up a crucial component of the country’s economy.

December 26, 2011 | Alison Williams

Maritime News and Events

Youngest Crew for 2011 Sydney to Hobart Race

yacht regatta at sydney harbor © Oksana Perkins - Fotolia.com

Entries have just been called for the 67th Rolex Sydney to Hobart Yacht race for Boxing Day this year that attracts world wide attention year in year out. Dogged with dismastings, gale force winds and determined sailors, it has never in its history been cancelled despite the vagaries of the great Southern Ocean. This is a treacherous stretch of sea that has been, for the last 66 years, the challenge of many a sailor from around the world.

This year’s event is about to attract the youngest crew ever as 18 year old Jessica Watson, who holds the record for the youngest female sailor to sail around the globe unaided, is to captain the 38 foot Ella Bache – Another Challenge. The age range of the crew will be younger than the Melbourne University Students’ team that finished the race in 2004 placed 4th in the 38 class.

This will be a completely different sailor’s cap for Jessica to wear as she won’t only be taking on the elements once again in the stretch of water that heralded the completion of her solo voyage but she will have to think and co-operate and lead a crew of young sailors as well. Her youthful leadership qualities will have to shine if she wants to get the most out of Ella Bache – Another Challenge and feel that she has met this racing challenge to its full.

Watson will captain a mixed gender team which will include Britain’s round the world sailor Mike Perham and Lisa Chamberlain who received the Rani Trophy for exceptional seamanship last year. Training will commence in early October which consists of a number of preliminary races which precede the final event commencing on the 26th December.

Meanwhile other yachtsmen and women have announced their intentions to enter the race, one of which is the Super- Maxi Wild Oats X1 which is the current defending champion and has been awarded line honours in the previous six Sydney Hobart races. Taking on this fast Maxi will be Investec Loyal and Rambler 100. All three of these yachts are in the process of going through major facelifts to enhance their speed and competitiveness. This means changes in keel configurations and tuning up rigs. The strength of mind to be the winner of the race means that the yachts are pushed to their limits using all angles of the wind to drive them as close to Hobart as they can in the shortest period of time. The hope is for favourable northerly winds but the notorious southerly busters often roar through the shallow and turbulent Bass Strait between mainland Australia and Tasmania causing havoc for the racing fleet as was witnessed in 1998 where yachts pulled out and several knockdowns and capsizes were witnessed.

The organiser of the Sydney Hobart race, the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia (CYCA), is expecting an international contingent of approximately ninety yachts which will be at the start line on Boxing Day, December 26 at 1pm Australian Eastern Daylight Time (AEDT) for the intrepid annual 628 nautical mile hop to Hobart.

As usual, the commencement of the Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race will be broadcast on the Seven Network throughout Australia, by webcast live to international spectators on Yahoo!7 and via the Australia Network within the Asia Pacific community.

September 8, 2011 | Alison Williams

Travel and Cruising

Sailing in the Electronic Age

ARC departure from Las Palmas, Canary Islands. November 2005

Tall ships of centuries past would without doubt have gladly taken on the array of labour saving electronics available to yachts and ships today. The shoreline observer of yachts seen sailing along the horizon might think that the skippers are oblivious to the electronic age and they are living a simple life on the ocean. This is a total misconception. Skippers and crews under sail or motor select what they want for their yachts and boats and there are very few today who do not take advantage of simple to operate onboard electronics.

Moreover, these marine electronics have been the saviour of the yachting fraternity as they help to eliminate human error. The depth sounder, for example, in olden days was simply a piece of twine twirled around a stick so that it could run out easily and then it was fastened to a small piece of lead heavy enough to defy a current. A piece of tar would have been stuck at the tip of the lead to identify the contents of the sea floor so that it could be assessed for holding quality before dropping anchor.
Additionally, a man would be aloft peering at the horizon for discoloured water that might mean a sandbank or reef was coming all too close. Today, small and large pleasure craft are fitted with electronic depth sounders and forward looking sonars. The former can detect contours on the seabed as well as depths; the latter can search for the underwater rock, sandbank or reef in advance. Such instruments would no doubt in time gone by have saved many a ship from severe groundings or becoming complete wrecks.

ARC departure from Las Palmas, Canary Islands. November 2005

However, there is a downside to the use of electronics. If the instrument was to breakdown a very bewildered sailor will be wracking his brain as to what to do. Turning to the lead line will be his or her only choice or maybe install two electronic depth sounders, one in reserve. The batteries used to store the electricity to power onboard instruments have to be well maintained to ensure a constant flow of electricity can get to the units.

The greatest boon to navigation was the release of GPS units onto the market back in the early 1990’s. Their introduction was serious business for the mushrooming yachting fraternity. No need to take bearings of difficult to identify landmarks, no need to spread the chart out on a large table to plot a progressive course. No need, on those long ocean passages, to get out the sextant at noon, take a sight from the sun, do some arithmetic and come out with an approximate position. This can all be done in a small hand sized electronic instrument that with a number of useful features installed, which with a chart loaded onto the memory, can tell the exact position of the boat, what speed it is going and what course it is following. The consequences of wholesale failure defeat the imagination. To allay one’s fears at least two battery operated handheld ones are normally kept in reserve.

To add to the comfort of living on a ship big or small is the autopilot. No ship’s captain would be without one. The course is set using the GPS, the co-ordinates of the destination or waypoint are inputed into the autopilot and the helmsperson just sits down and only gets up when a bleep is heard indicating the ship is off course. The alarms of other instruments might occasionally ring in the ears as well. The echo sounder rings shrilly, when the water gets too shallow, the radar and the A.I.S when a ship or object gets too close and the telephone, when a relative is trying to communicate.

These instruments are the tip of the iceberg when it comes to electronic clutter. The large chart table has been superceded by rows and rows of instrument panels – a chart plotter for one can come in a good TV size so it can be viewed from every corner of the saloon. The captain and his crew can watch the yacht slither and slide over the ocean waves in the comfort of a room almost as spacious as the living room in a house. The radar screen is busy clicking away as well showing up the image of rain clouds and ships as they close in on the boat. Even further from ocean reality is the satellite communications allowing onboard internet and telephone calls from the tops of ocean waves. Grandma will be cheerily chatting with her grand kids and saying “wish you were here.”

The items standard in an ordinary home, in an ordinary town in an ordinary country are appliances such as washing machines, microwaves and widescreen TV’s. They are all present in various shapes and forms on yachts as well. De salinators providing onboard showering and washing facilities are now common too. There are very few sailors left today who have not merged with the electronic age. In fact, the availability of these creature comforts has aided in bringing about a burgeoning yachting community. No longer is the toothbrush and a thimble of water passed on from captain to crew.

July 3, 2011 | Alison Williams

Travel and Cruising

Piracy on the High Seas – the Increasing Cost to World Shipping

“Coalition warship, coalition warship, this is the motor vessel *Bee Vee two, Bee Vee two. A suspicious vessel is approaching us fast on our starboard side. Can you please investigate quickly? Over.” The panicky voice crackled from our VHF speaker and we listened with amazement as a possible piracy drama unfolded in our little bit of wide, blue ocean.

We had been on our way slowly on passage from Cochin in India to Salalah in Oman to rendezvous with 20 other small yachts to travel together in an unarmed convoy along the notorious “Pirate Alley” in the area between Yemen and Somalia. The “incident” we heard was less than 50 miles away in an area that no pirate incidents had ever been reported before. Fortunately for the captain, his crew, his ship and our nerves, the suspicious vessel turned out to be just a curious fishing boat well away from home, but the investigation had involved the use of a helicopter from a British warship over 200 miles away.

In almost exactly a year to that day and in almost exactly the same place the American yacht “Quest” was hijacked by Somali pirates and taken under gunpoint towards Somalia, a crime that was to lead to tragedy. The U.S. warship that was shadowing the pirates, created panic which led to the deaths of the Americans and several Somalis. A Danish yacht with a young family on board was taken a week later, with all seven on board, to date still kept hostage in a Somali village, with secret wrangling over the ransom being carried out by the Danish government, family and friends and the pirates themselves.

Small yachts are small fish in piracy terms, however. The real prize is a ship, especially one laden with fuel, weapons and its crew to be used as hostage bait. The International Maritime Bureau’s Piracy Reporting Centre based in Kuala Lumpur estimates that there have been 211 piracy attempts world wide already in 2011, 139 of them alone in the offshore waters of Somalia, an area now extending over 1500 nautical miles to the shores of Pakistan and India in the North East, Kenya and Tanzania to the South and the Seychelles in the South East. Worse, 522 crew members off 26 ships are still held hostage on the Somali coast.

For Somali pirates, crime certainly seems to be paying off. The average ransom for a ship received by pirates in 2010 was $US 5.4 million, with a single ransom worth a whopping $9.5 million paid out in that year for a South Korean oil tanker. By contrast, in 2005 the average ransom was a mere $150000 and the numbers of ships attacked and successfully taken much fewer.

Piracy in Somalia is an unusual, almost inevitable consequence of current political, geographical and economic circumstances. The North East African poverty stricken nation has a huge coastline, much of it bordering one of the most important of the world’s shipping routes, where heavily laden but scantily crewed tankers ply the route from Asia and beyond to the ports of Europe through the Red Sea and the Suez Canal. Somalia has lacked an effective government for nearly 20 years and the resulting power vacuum has allowed penniless and powerless fishermen to side with warlords to wreak havoc on the high seas.

But Somalia is not the only source of marine piracy. The IMB reports that there are many other world piracy hotspots including the coasts of Nigeria, Venezuela, Bangladesh, certain parts of the vast Indonesian archipelago and that old pirates’ favourite, the Malacca Strait. The total cost of piracy to world shipping has been estimated to be between 7 and 12 billion dollars by One Earth Future, a global trade think tank.

On the bright side, concerted and vigilant action by the governments of Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand has virtually destroyed the piracy problem in the Malacca Strait and increasing economic opportunities in those South East Asian “tiger” nations has provided an alternative business avenue for unemployed pirates to pursue.

Just over a year ago we arrived safely in Aden after one of the most emotionally charged sea journeys of our lives in company with our little group, and continued into the Red Sea and on into the Mediterranean relieved to have survived. All of us who came through that year have read this year’s reports with horror and concern for those hundreds of seafarers still bound in captivity on the shores of Africa, hostage to an age old crime that should have been eradicated years ago.

* The boat name being used is fictitious

June 4, 2011 | Alison Williams

Maritime News and Events

Young Crew Facing Huge Waves Across Atlantic

The young crew of Jolie Brise, the 17m long pilot cutter owned and operated by Dauntsey’s School, are having to endure towering waves and strong winds as they cross the Atlantic from Halifax to Belfast as part of the Tall Ships Atlantic Challenge. On board with skipper Toby Marris and First Mate Adam Seager are eight current or former Dauntsey School pupils aged between 16 and 18.

The vessel has taken part in all legs of the Atlantic Challenge since it started in Vigo, Spain in May this year. Jolie Brise won the first Atlantic crossing from Tenerife to Bermuda and is looking strong on the crossing back to Belfast.

Currently Jolie Brise is lying fourth overall and second in Class and on the current weather predictions, she should be crossing the finish line, north of Tory Island, off the north coast of Donegal, on the 10th of August. All the fleet are due into Belfast by 13 August for the final four days of the event.

“This voyage has been all about team work and perseverance,” says skipper Toby Marris from on board Jolie Brise, currently just under 1000 nautical miles west of Ireland. “The young crew on board are having an experience that it would take a life-time to repeat but moral is very high. The team of boys and girls from Dauntseys School are enjoying the hard sailing and their sense of humour is ever ready even when the waves are breaking overhead. They want to do well in the race, but the main motivation is to get to Ireland and Belfast as fast as possible to enjoy the legendary Irish hospitality. We have some more tough weather to get through before we cross the finish line and get to enjoy a pint of the Black Stuff as our reward.”

Built in 1913, Jolie Brise was the winner of the first ever Fastnet Race in 1925, repeating this achievement in 1929 and 1930 and is still the only vessel to have won the race three times. She is a frequent competitor in the annual Tall Ships’ Races, frequently winning overall and in class.

The Tall Ships Atlantic Challenge is organised by Sail Training International. The fleet are due into the final port of Belfast on 13 August 2009.

August 3, 2009 | admin

Maritime Articles

Spirit of Bermuda Leaves home en route to start of Tall Ships Atlantic Challenge‏

Press Release
4 April

Driving rain and increasing winds in front of an approaching cold front failed to dampen the spirits of those on land or those on board The Spirit of Bermuda – Bermuda’s first purpose built sail training ship – as she left the Atlantic Island this morning for her first Trans-Atlantic crossing to Europe. As the ship sailed out of Hamilton Harbour to the cheers of onlookers, John Wadson, Director of Tall Ships Atlantic Challenge; Tall Ships Bermuda and Sail Training Bermuda enthusiastically declared: “This is the beginning of the Tall Ships Atlantic Challenge 2009 Race!”

“This will be our most challenging voyage yet”, Malcolm Kirkland, Executive Director of the Bermuda Sloop Foundation added. “It’s our first offshore voyage operating in Northern latitudes, up to 40 degrees north, and we have purchased thirty ‘survival suits’ which takes us well over and above the safety requirements. This is all about a challenging, mission critical, operating community, with all the best safety “nets”.

First stop for The Spirit of Bermuda will be in Horta and then Ponta Delgada in the Azores and then Porto, Portugal, before the ship heads to Vigo, Spain for the start of the Tall Ships Atlantic Challenge 2009 Race on 3 May. That Portugal is her first port of call is significant in that the Tall Ships Atlantic Challenge 2009 race is designed around Bermuda’s 400th Anniversary of Permanent Settlement and a large proportion of Bermuda’s strong Portuguese community originates from the Azores.

John Wadson, Malcolmn Kirkland, and Sutherland Madeiros, the Mayor of Hamilton joined an excited throng of family members, friends and supporters at dockside to bid the ship, its trainees, crew and captain ‘Bon Voyage’ as it sailed out of Hamilton Harbour in southwesterly 22 – 28 knot winds.

Bermuda Sloop Foundation official Jay Kempe said this first transatlantic leg will be something of a pilgrimage for the ship as the stop in the Azores will honour Bermuda’s strong cultural ties with those islands that began in the 1840’s. The pilgrimage will no doubt be especially meaningful to Portuguese-Bermudian Brian Bulhoes and his family. Brian, 16, is a veteran of the Public Middle School Waterwise Programme (Yr 1), the 5 Day learning expedition aboard The Spirit (Yr 3) and a world class U16 sailor. Though born and raised in Bermuda, his

large family hails from Ponta Delgada, San Miguel. He is looking forward to meeting other members of his family when the Spirit arrives there and his passage has been sponsored by D&J Construction, one of the Island’s leading construction companies.

Also crewing onboard The Spirit for this historic voyage are five Bermuda Regiment soldiers and three members of staff from the Department of Marine and Ports. “This is important for us”, said Kirkland. “These two institutions are strategic partners and offer important disciplined training for young Bermudians. We are really delighted to have them aboard.”

The Spirit of Bermuda has eight professional crew members under the command of Capt. Simon Colley and 15 trainees. Four seasoned public school students Vershon Simmons, 16; Michael Byron, 15; Cameron Joseph, 16; and Denzel Todd, 18, are on board for the complete round trip of two transatlantic crossings of some 7,000 nautical miles. Spirit will race from Vigo, Spain to Tenerife in the Canary Islands before embarking on the second race of the series to Bermuda. She will continue racing to Charleston, SC, then on to Boston MA and Halifax NS before returning to Bermuda to commemorate the actual landing of the crew and passengers from the ill-fated Sea Venture after her shipwreck on July 28, 400 years ago. It was this event that started the settlement of Bermuda.

Ends

April 6, 2009 | admin

Tall Ships

Announcing Fifth World Voyage 2010-2011

On or about the first of May, 2010 the sail training ship, the Barque Picton Castle and her crew will set sail on a monumental 14-month voyage bound around the world. Up to 36 people from all walks of life will be accepted to join this tall ship for this challenging once in a lifetime opportunity—truly the ultimate voyage. These crew will dedicate themselves to seafaring under square-sail and to learning all they can from the ship, the ocean, new found friends on far flung islands, each other and themselves.

This voyage will take the ship and her crew over 30,000 blue-water, deep-sea miles circling the globe in fair winds and foul, pleasant trade-winds, calms and squalls. We will follow in the wake of great explorers and voyagers who came before us, sailing throughout the tropics, putting in at remote and storied ports of call. This voyage is expected to be the last world voyage of the Picton Castle under my command.

Captain Daniel D. Moreland

Dakar, Senegal

January 16, 2009 | admin

Maritime News and Events