Upon the brightling sea
16 May 2011 23:56![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
glenatronA while back ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
herecirm mentioned that she needed more adventure in her life. As she's pretty much my favourite herecirm out of all of them I figured I could probably help with that, so I booked us in for a day out on Saxonia - a traditional Thames bawler sailing out of Brightlingsea in Essex. For the uninitiated ( and it is highly niche knowledge ) a bawler is a type of small fishing boat used mostly to catch shrimp in the later part of the 19th and early 20th century.
I don't believe I have been on a sailing boat under sail before and it was really interesting. Saxonia is an old style of boat - Crispin, the skipper, observed that a sailor from Nelson's navy would be able to step aboard her and figure everything out about sailing her in five minutes - and the sounds and techniques of sailing on a boat like that were very traditional. I even got to help with hoisting the mainsail.
One thing I noticed and found interesting was the way that sailing is absolutely a case of making the best of what the environment gives you - there is no way to change the wind or the current, so you have these two vectors that absolutely affect your direction and you have to use a fairly limited set of tools to take those and combine them to go where you need to get to. It certainly made it clear how much work it must have been simply getting from A to B when sail was the only option.
The snap of ropes and canvas and the thump of the blocks as we changed tack was amazing too, with the sudden change of angle as we caught the wind on the other side and heeled over with it. A really good feeling.
The Thames Barge Reminder sails by.
Looking down the bowsprit.
Hey, we seem to be heeling well to starboard here, I wonder why...
It's only flippin'herecirm steering the flippin' ship. Although technically she's probably a bit small to be referred to as a ship. And so is Saxonia.
Goodbye to Saxonia.
Or it would have been.
If I hadn't left my car keys in the hold.
I'm going to be allowed to forget that one any day now.
In conclusion a flippin awesome day and a flippin' awesome weekend.
herecirm mentioned that she needed more adventure in her life. As she's pretty much my favourite herecirm out of all of them I figured I could probably help with that, so I booked us in for a day out on Saxonia - a traditional Thames bawler sailing out of Brightlingsea in Essex. For the uninitiated ( and it is highly niche knowledge ) a bawler is a type of small fishing boat used mostly to catch shrimp in the later part of the 19th and early 20th century.I don't believe I have been on a sailing boat under sail before and it was really interesting. Saxonia is an old style of boat - Crispin, the skipper, observed that a sailor from Nelson's navy would be able to step aboard her and figure everything out about sailing her in five minutes - and the sounds and techniques of sailing on a boat like that were very traditional. I even got to help with hoisting the mainsail.
One thing I noticed and found interesting was the way that sailing is absolutely a case of making the best of what the environment gives you - there is no way to change the wind or the current, so you have these two vectors that absolutely affect your direction and you have to use a fairly limited set of tools to take those and combine them to go where you need to get to. It certainly made it clear how much work it must have been simply getting from A to B when sail was the only option.
The snap of ropes and canvas and the thump of the blocks as we changed tack was amazing too, with the sudden change of angle as we caught the wind on the other side and heeled over with it. A really good feeling.
The Thames Barge Reminder sails by.
Looking down the bowsprit.
Hey, we seem to be heeling well to starboard here, I wonder why...
It's only flippin'
herecirm steering the flippin' ship. Although technically she's probably a bit small to be referred to as a ship. And so is Saxonia.Goodbye to Saxonia.
Or it would have been.
If I hadn't left my car keys in the hold.
I'm going to be allowed to forget that one any day now.
In conclusion a flippin awesome day and a flippin' awesome weekend.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 18 May 2011 12:10 (UTC)no subject
Date: 18 May 2011 12:41 (UTC)