After a heavy night of boozing today was spent making last minute preparations, and relaxing a little.
Due to a nasty forecast for Monday threatening gale force southerlies it was decided, at the skipper’s briefing, to make for Falmouth tomorrow, wait in Falmouth on Monday and then head south when the front passes - probably Tuesday morning.
This email was received from my friend Ed:
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Dear Crew,
I think you have caught a monster Pollack. Here are my conclusions.
IDENTIFICATION
Pollack are a relation of the cod, but confusion regards identification is
only likely with it’s other close relative the coalfish. Another means of
identification on the pollack is that the forward edge of the first of the two
anal fins starts vertically below the centre of the main dorsal fin. On the
coalfish, the leading edge of the anal fin falls vertically in a line below
the rearward edge of the first dorsal fin. The quickest way to differ pollack
from coalfish is to look at the lower jaw. On the pollack, the lower jaw
extends beyond the top jaw, but on the coalfish both jaws are equal in length.
The pollack’s lateral line curves over the top of the pectoral fin, whereas
the coalies lateral line is virtually straight.
COLOURATION
A wide variation in colouring. Over reef ground, pollack take on a golden
brown across the back shading to bronze at the gills with a silvery white
belly.
In deeper water over wrecks and rising rock pinnacle with weed growth the
colours remain bronze brown, but with shadings of green, yellow and crimson.
Some pollack even carry faint small individual black spots.
DISTRIBUTION
Features most prominently on the western side of the British Isles, especially
in the English Channel, off Devon and Cornwall, so there you go. Slightly less
common on the north-east coast. Heavy concentrations occur throughout Irish
waters, again predominating on the Atlantic side.
Hope that helps. They do taste quite awful.
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My reply:
Ed, you are absolutely spot on as usual.
We cooked it on the bbq later that day and the flesh was white and reminded us of cod but tasted foul.
Most interestingly we caught it just as we sailed over a rock pinnacle. I was down below looking at the chart and noticed that we were just about to go over a small area of shallow water. The depth went from around 30 meters to 2 meters and back again in the space of a few seconds and at that exact time we caught this fish. On the chart it was clearly a tall submerged rock that we had gone over. This was off Salcombe, mid-south Devon! So this confirms your conclusions accurately. I am very impressed.
Dolphins, dolphins, dolphins!
Saw loads of dolphins in Salcombe harbour as we left our mooring just before 10 am …
Arrived in Plymouth about 3pm and met up with the other rally boats at Mayflower Marina.
It’s been a bit of a mad few days since the last entry. Since last thursday the following happened:
Thursday AM I (Angela) caught the train from Torquay to Exeter St Davids to meet Mum for a bit of a shop in town. In the afternoon Mum dropped me off at the Devon County Show to help Dad in the Flower Marquee. The Pine Cottage exhibit which was created by my Dad and my sister Becks had gained them their first Gold in a few years which was excellent news. The show was hot, and sales were slow for everyone. But it was good despite the occasional pang of boredom and daydreams of being back on Csárdás heading out into the unknown. Sitting behind our modest stand I found myself conversing with the yocals and coming out with all sorts of well rehearsed solutions to common problems faced by our most avid Agapanthus growers!
Marcus decided to hire a car so that he could go back to Shaftesbury to pick up a few bits and pieces he needed for the trip. He ended up with a Fiat Punto (which, in hindsight he discovered to be a really crap car so dont bother buying one) and drove up to Eggesford for the evening. We had a BBQ with Mum and Dad and cooked the fish we’d caught the day before, one of which we had no idea of the species but is wasn’t particularly palatable so I dont think we’ll be eating one of those again.
Marcus left early the next morning to Shaftesbury. Mum and I also left early as we were on duty at the show for the day to give Dad a well deserved break.
During a quiet moment in the marquee whilst Mum was passifying an elderly gentleman who had lost his only Meconopsis ‘Lingholm’ (himalayan blue poppy) and didn’t understand why, I had an unexpected phone call from Mimi, who was clearly embarrased about locking herself out of the flat in London and couldnt get in touch with Marcus. I reassured her that it would all be fine and I finally got hold of Marcus on the road.
To cut a long story short, Marcus called Barney, the chap who lives downstairs from the London flat to see if he had found the keys and to liase with Mimi about getting in and retreiving them. During their conversation they got chatting about how Marcus had been thinking about selling the flat as soon as we returned from the Portugal Rally and without hesitation Barney asked to be considered for first refusal on the place. On Saturday, after he had checked the place out, Barney phoned and made an offer and a deal was struck.
By Sunday I was back on the boat. My friends Carol and Andy came down early and we had a lovely sail with them round to Dartmouth for the day (See Photos).
There was a little bit of wind in the morning, and both Carol and Andy were dead keen to learn as much as possible. We enjoyed fresh Mackerel caught from the back of the boat on the way, and fried them for lunch anchored in Dartmouth. We had so little wind on the way back to Torquay that we had to motor back, but they enjoyed themselves and so did we. It was a great day, and we had the best weather, which always helps.
Three days later, after very quick decision making as to how the heck to deal with removing all the junk that Sparky had accumulated in the flat in London, we had already hired a van, stopped off the night in Shaftesbury, risen at 5AM Tuesday, driven to Chertsey west London to meet up with Marcus’ Dad, collected his keys to the flat, driven into Hammersmith, packed up the flat, loaded the van, picked up Stuey (who was joining us for the Rally), driven back to Shaftesbury, unloaded the van, watered the plants, checked e-mails, written a letter to the solicitor, driven back to Torquay, dropped off the van, walked three miles back to the marina after a few beers and enjoying some live jazz along the way. We ended the hectic day with an indian takaway on the boat!
Gosh that was a long day.
We were glad of a late start this morning, and were soon heading off to Salcombe in really nice winds which got us up to 7 knots. Stuey entered a baptism of fire at the helm whilst we tried to execute a very stressfull spinnaker jibe, resulting in Sparks getting a bruised jaw after the Spinnaker pole knocked him for six. There were also varying amounts of expletives following the maneouvre which you wouldn’t want your grandparents to hear! We finally got it sorted out and had just got the boat up to about 8knots when we had to get the thing snuffed pretty quick otherwise we would have ended up on the rocks of salcombe estuary!
Tonight we picked up a visitors buoy in Salcombe, chilled out on the boat and enjoyed the Mackerel we’d caught during the voyage here with red wine and blues courtesy of Marcus, who seems to be getting quite good on the old guitar lately.
Stuey resisted the temptation of swimming ashore and catching the first train back to London, and now we’re all looking forward to the imminent start of the rally on Saturday.
As Angie has to work Thursday to Saturday in Devon we decided to head back to Torquay where we can berth for free (it is an MDL marina) and is also less than an hour by train to Exeter. It might not be as picturesque as Dartmouth but we can stay in Torquay for a few days without it breaking the bank.
A light northerly breeze allowed us to sail out of Plymouth Sound but the wind soon died and we motored towards Start Point. We kept close in shore around Salcombe, put the trolling line out and slowed down. Almost immediately we caught our first mackeral. Later we caught another fish, this time not a mackeral, and our knowledge of fish rather limited, we’re not sure what it is. Here’s a picture. Any ideas?
The wind backed and picked up from the South/South West and we put the spinnaker up and had a superb sail all the way from Start Point to Torquay under spinnaker. Gorgeous weather, fantastic spinnaker sailing.
Well our summer cruise has officially started. We left Hamble Point Marina at 12 noon yesterday (Sunday May 16th). A lovely sea breeze funnelling into the Western Solent gave us a few hours of enjoyable sailing until just past the Needles. But it soon died and we motored, sometimes able to motor-sail, the rest of the way to Plymouth arriving in Queen Anne’s Battery Marina at 1045 today (Monday May 17th).
The highlights of this rather uneventful passage included catching two mackeral just after the Needles which we enjoyed for dinner; and, of course, finally leaving the Solent for the summer.
Not much else to report. We logged 117 miles and used only half a tank of diesel by keeping engine revs down, throttling back when we had the tide with us and motor-sailing where we could.
Not exactly professional - this was the first time using the camera. I have edited the footage down to about 20 minutes.
High Quality - 37MB
Medium Quality - 16MB
Low Quality - 4.7MB
If you’re on a regular dial up modem connection view the low quality. Otherwise I’d recommend the medium quality version unless you have broadband in which case go for the high quality one.
If anyone would like a CD containing the high quality and original unedited footage, or a video casette, it can be organised … drop me a line.
Hanse Rally, May 1st - May 2nd 2004. See Photos
There were worried faces in the Hanse office on Thursday as it rained cats and dogs outside. The forecast for the weekend wasn’t great and we had a BBQ to organise. Friday was worse, but the forecast had changed and was promising less rain for the Saturday and a sunny Sunday. Last minute preparations were made for the racing and fun and games and we crossed our fingers for Saturday.
I woke up early on Saturday morning and was pleased to see no rain though it was a little overcast. I made a coffee and sat in the cockpit watching all the racing boats leaving for a cross channel race. In amongst the traffic I spotted a familiar looking boat motoring into the river towards the fuel pontoon. It was Tytek, a Hanse 371, arriving from Jersey. The Skipper, a tired looking Richard Tyler, explained later that he had motored all the way from St Helier into heavy northerly winds and had run out of fuel right off Calshot spit. He had topped up with a 5 litre diesel can before heading straight to the fuel jetty and falling asleep having not had a chance to rest during the trip.
Some owners met in the Hanse office at Hamble Point. Those without boats were soon given berths on other boats and at about noon five yachts (Dancing Demon, 301; Khamsin, 341; Tytek, 371; Csárdás, 371; Baltic Moon, 411) left for a cruise in company to Gosport. Still overcast and hazy the wind was from the east and the tide ebbing so we all short-tacked along the shallows on the north side of the Solent. Dancing Demon had a head start and by the time we caught up with her the sun came out and the haze lifted to reveal our destination. It all looked promising for the BBQ being prepared in Gosport.
Nearing Portsmouth we rendezvoused unexpectedly with a couple more Hanses. We also noticed Seascape, a Hanse 301, sailing in the other direction. We weren’t sure if he was aware of the rally or whether he noticed seven other Hanses heading East. At the entrance to the Portsmouth small ships channel we took our sails down and raised the Hanse banner and waited for those behind us (the whole fleet, naturally). We decided to wait for Baltic Moon while Khamsin, the Hanse demo boat went in with the others. We all enjoyed watching Tytek, with a professional pilot on board, sail right down the main channel as two large cross channel ferries came out.
After rafting up in Royal Clarence marina and meeting other crews who had gone straight to Royal Clarence, dinghies were pumped up for the dinghy relay race. This turned quite nasty with bribes being offered to the lads in the Rib to ram the Hanse staff dinghy. Dominic and James were very nearly thrown right in.
The barbecue was superb and thoroughly enjoyed by all. Peter Thomas had spared no expense with food and booze. Later on, as people retired to their boats, a hard core of party animals (naturally including the staff boat) decided to carry on with the merry making. Unfortunately two of the boats involved were moored alongside Tytek and, understandably, her crew had gone to bed early having spent the previous night sailing over from Jersey. We didn’t want to keep them awake. The solution was obvious and we moved both boats round to moor up to Rudius, Hanse 411, and continue the party. There was certainly no shortage of booze as crates of beer and boxes of wine left over from the BBQ were transferred to the boats. The evening ended with a guitar and harmonica jam session. Despite moving from one end of the marina to the other to avoid waking Tytek I wonder if it actually made any difference!
Sunday morning was beautiful. Very sunny, but no wind. Feeling a little groggy Dominic and I planned the first race, a pursuit race. The only problem was that there was no wind. Somehow we managed to get all the boats out to Gillkicker point shortly after 10am. Still no wind the first leg of the race was scrapped. We all drifted on the tide towards Osborne Bay. On Csárdás we decided to start with the spinnaker up. For the first half of the race it just hung there, dragging sheets in the water, completely empty, devoid of wind. But we got a puff of wind and sailed past the rest of the fleet. Unfortunately we now had to think about getting across the strong tide to the other side of the Solent but this put the wind too far foreword. Do we drop the spinnaker and hoist the heavy genoa which wouldn’t have done anything, or try to play the gusts? In a state of complacency we took the lazy option and started trying to make up to the buoy with the Spinnaker. Then we had a shock. On the radio came Nirvana, another 371, stating that they were almost in Osborne Bay. Where did they come from? We looked around and eventually spotted them on the south side of the Solent. Very sensibly they had got across the tide early and were sailing slowly down wind to the finish buoy. We were struggling to make the buoy on a beam reach and ended up too far down tide. Nirvana was the clear winner. To make matters worse the Hanse staff boat came in second. But we enjoyed playing with our spinnaker! The highlight of the race, however, was seeing Tytek fly her cruising chute upside down.
We all anchored up in Osborne Bay for lunch and then raced back to Calshot via West Bramble. This time we came in first although we lost to Khamsin on handicap. We had tacked too early for the West Bramble buoy and had to pinch too much. And let’s not forget the incident where after one crucial tack one of my crew forgot to put the genoa sheet in the self tailer and wound the winch for several minutes to no avail, wondering why the genoa was still flapping about.
At the Royal Southern we were able to sit outside on the balcony in the sun watching over the Hanse fleet on the pontoons. Before dinner Peter Kay from Quantum sails gave an interesting short talk on sail design and Simrad gave an overview of their products and GMDSS.
After dinner was the moment we’d all been waiting for - the prize giving. Prizes were awarded for every conceivable event. Nirvana won the coveted main prize - a Simrad HT50 portable VHF, for the first race. Csárdás won the second race (the real winner having been disqualified for being staff/not having white sails) and we were presented the Aztec Trophy and a free year’s subscription to Sailing Today. Tytek got the prize for having come the furthest. The runner up was Peter Bolton who had come all the way from Hartlepool. However, he came by car, with a tail wind! Prizes were awarded for the dinghy race, the origami boat challenge and the quiz, although no one ever found out what a Spurlash is. Everyone went away with a Hanse Rally meddal.
The weekend was a great success. It was good to see 14 Hanses turn up and around 55 people present. Owners made the most of being able to look at other people’s boats and compare notes and exchange ideas. The weather turned out to be perfect (although we could have had more wind on Sunday morning) and our hosts - Royal Clarence and Royal Southern Yacht Club - were very welcoming. I look forward to the next rally. With a bit of luck Tytek will have her spinnaker the right way up, we’ll all have a bit more wind and my crew will have figured out how to use self-tailing winches.