6
Editor
Issue 2 of Barnacle Bill Magazine, it has been a hectic month
but before I bore you with details welcome to issue 2, February 2016 and Happy New Year, the strange quirk of publishing means that I am writing this, at the beginning of January.
We’ve got a packed magazine this month, Paul Fisher joins
us answering your questions as this month’s Old Salt, Osbert
returns discussing the challenges and exhilaration of winter
sailing in Scotland; we have a round up of the monthly news
including the news that we will be at Beale Park Boat Show
during the first weekend of June and will have our own area
at the show. We’ve got an in depth look at early sailing canoes ,Rob Roy and Nautilus and the lives of John MacGregor
and Warrington Baden-Powell. We have some valuable technical tips from Mark and Mike, an insight into the traditional
boats of the River Loire and a new design inspired by them,
the Scow450 by Jerome Delaunay. We are also delighted to
feature a major piece on Keith Callaghan’s uber quick, very
comfortable and highly trailerable Blue Lightning. Meanwhile
we speculate as to what might have happened to Lt Commander Lionel ‘Buster’ Crabb R.N. on that cold night in Portsmouth Harbour in 1956 including some new information,
never published before. With the amount of material we had
for this month this issue could easily have stretched to 200
pages +, we are already a week late with printing because of
time lost over Christmas. So we’ll be bringing you the start
of our OzGoose build, the Alternative Guide to Family Sailing
and the Artemis sailing canoe in March. Also in March, Keith
Callaghan will be our Old Salt, so send in your questions for
him now to [email protected]
Being middle aged, reactionary and grumpy I blame much of
the world’s ills on the internet. I hearken for a simpler time of
simple perspectives, clear directions, obvious enemies and an
no Twitter! However, I then wind my neck in and realise that
the rise of the internet has facilitated our passion and recreation in a way that we would never have expected. It has
enabled those who share similar interests across the world
to share their experiences, their knowledge, their challenges
and their adventures. We now inspire each other towards
a common goal. I’ve been busy, with Josh Colvin and John
Welsford, plotting a SCAMP Camp for the UK in 2017 Josh of
Small Craft Advisor Magazine is based in Maine, John in New
Zealand, without the internet the likelihood of finding each
other, of sharing experiences and of Josh and John and many
others bringing to life a boat ideally suited for the stormy,
unpredictable waters of the North East seaboard of the US,
the southern oceans around New Zealand and the choppy,
tide and squall wracked seas of the British and Irish Isles.
Without the internet, Michael Storer, Australian resident in
the Philippines, would not have been able to help me finalise
the timber order for the OzGoose Build Project we are about
to undertake. Jerome Delaunay would not be praised by folk
living in Louisiana for his range of river craft inspired by the
ancient traditional boats of the Rover Loire. It enables us to
share our interests and this brings people together in mutual
respect for ach others cultures and history. Not a bad thing
in this day and age, but then, sailors have always had more
perspective on life than landsmen!
But, the internet also facilitates other, more subtle things.
For example, I have been studying the early history of canoe
sailing in Britain, essentially from 1865 when MacGregor or-
dered the first Rob Roy canoe through to Baden-Powell and
the Nautilus and the dawning of canoeing and recreational
sailing. The internet has allowed me to find and purchase the
books I need, without leaving my house. 20 years ago I would
have had to travel to London at the very least to find some of
these volumes, merely tracking them down would have been
an incredibly difficult task. It struck me today that a middle
aged professional gentleman sitting in his town house in
Hexham, Northumberland in 1874 would have had to order
his MacGregor and his Baden-Powell and these books would
have literally been his bible in commissioning his own sailing canoe or even building it. These days, there are several
designs based on these early models the plans of which you
can buy but, more so, you can also read the experiences of
the builders and the challenges of sailing these boats on their
blogs, much in the way that 150 years ago people were able
to read about BP’s trip and the changes he made to his designs and boats through experience.
I am currently reading several books by Frank and Margaret
Dye. For those of you who don’t know, Frank was a legendary open boat sailor, he took his Ian Procter designed Wayfarer sailing dingy, a 15’ wooden boat called Wanderer on
several epic sea voyages, to Iceland, Norway and all around
the North Sea and Irish Seas. The chapter I have just finished
reading is a real eye opener, Frank and his crew, Russell are
off the coast of Iceland having crossed in atrocious weather.
They are 30 miles off a dangerous lee shore, their radio receiver (Frank never took a radio transmitter with him in case
he was tempted to call for help and put someone else’s life at
risk) is playing up and they cannot get radio fix’s or weather
forecasts, they have been told only to attempt landing on
Iceland’s south coast unless the weather is favourable, i 8