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N.A.S.A
SPACE TECHNOLOGY
THE KODAK LABORATORIES
MODERN SCIENCE
Nobody can explain it.
THE SHROUD OF TURIN
The 2 thousand year old mystery that still baffles the greatest minds of today...
Read the article here...
and you still won't understand how!
And if you're over 16, read the stuff we couldn't print.
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I was asked recently if I was a “yachtie”.
Me!
Me what sailed the squalls and tempests of the Regents Park boating
lake reliving Swallows and Amazons.
Me that had the distinction of
sailing my full rigged schooners so fast I beat the Isle of Wight
ferry.
OK , I was rowing and the first I knew about the ferry was when
his air horns nearly blasted me out of the water coz I was rowing right
across its path!
Me what sailed from Old Leigh in Essex to Hullbridge
in a 14’ dinghy.
A trip we’d planned to take 4 hours.
We cast off, ramming very few moored boats, and set our sails towards the setting sun.
Actually the sun was behind us, but it didn’t sound so good, and you couldn’t
see it anyway as it disappeared after an hour as mist closed in.
Old Leigh at Low tide - Looking like the Maplin Sands.
So we headed towards our destination sailing serenely along
the Essex coast.
Maybe 5 hours into our 2 hour journey I began to suspect that my seafaring
mate was not the old sea dog he’d professed to be.
I was even more sure when he brought out his nautical map, an A to Z of London streets.
Give him his due, there was a blue line which said river Thames.
Then the rain started.
Not gentle little drops, but the sort of rain that fills a little dinghy
in a matter of minutes…so we both sheltered snugly under a paper carrier
bag.
We got wet!
By the time the rain had stopped, the skipper announced that we would not reach
our destination in the time allotted, highly perceptive of him as it was now
9m and we’d been sailing for seven hours!
So much for two hours.
I forgot to mention that my mate, the skipper, was employed by Fords as scheduler…no
wonder they had difficulty in making cars on time!
The tidal Thames did what it does best, and went out just when we wanted it in.
There is a notorious area at the mouth of the Thames called the Maplin Sands.
Maplin Mud more like it.
When the tide goes out, the mudflats appear.
And boats who are caught there tend to do a vanishing act.
They sink.
Discretion being the better part of valor, we decided to drop anchor and wait for the tide to come in.
Anchor?
Ever seen the wheels on a tractor?
OK.
So we dropped the middle bit of a tractor wheel, which was tied to a length of string that he called rope, which was tied to the boat....and waited.
So the skipper broke out the rations and we moored up to a mud flat.
Curry was on the menu which we cooked on a small primus stove.
Not an easy task as the boat was still half-full of water.
No problem said my intrepid sea dog friend.
We can get out of the dinghy and stand on the mud flat while we balance the primus stove on one of the two planks which served as seats.
Now I don’t know if you have ever used a primus stove, but they are
lethal.
Never let yer granny near one unless she’s made a will.
The idea is that you put your saucepan full of food on a small ring on top of the stove.
Then you have to light the burner.
But in those days these contraptions from hell burnt paraffin.
No problem, just prime it.
So I started pumping this little lever to bring the paraffin up to the top and my mate had a match out to light the stuff as it appeared.
Now I know that sounds simple.
But we were standing on thick mud in maybe 18 inches of water.
The boat was rocking as boats do in the gentle breeze.
But a gentle breeze in the Thames estuary is what you’d call a storm
if you experienced the same force of the wind ashore.
Anyway, I’m priming, pumping and trying to hold this stove steady while
Indiana Jones lights the paraffin.
Easy stuff, we got the flame going with no problem at all.
Meet The Primus Stove - Cooker From Hell
But…
Nobody told me to stop pumping.
So the flame lit the stringy bit, and followed the paraffin down the stove, along the seat and into the bottom of the boat.
Did you know water catches fire?
Neither did I, but the water in our boat was soon ablaze.
I bet you also didn't know, that burning paraffin spreads so nice and quickly in a sea breeze.
Try pouring petrol on a barbie, and you'll get the idea!
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After having spent hours bailing the water out of our little dinghy,
we now stood on the mud like two demented idiots tossing water back
into the boat as we battled to put the flames out.
Then the rain started again, and far from putting the flames out they
just floated higher, even the skipper from hell started to panic as our one little
sail joined in the burning as the flames crawled up the ropes that
were laying in the bottom of the boat.
Eventually we managed to control
the fire and as we made a coffee from cold water from his flask, we decided to sit it out and wait for the tide to come in.
Now I’m
not saying I was sailing with a nutcase, but miles from shore and sitting
in 18 inches of water the skipper remembers silly things.
Unimportant things like, we can’t
sail into Havengore Creek, our next point on what was turning out to
be an epic voyage, until the tide is at its highest because of obstacles
in the water designed to hole little boats just like ours.
He had forgotten
to tell me that we were entering Ministry of Defence waters and the
channel we were heading for passed right slap back through the middle
of an atomic weapons research unit.
Waters full of anti submarine obstacles designed to commit atrocities to steel hulls.
Our hull was having difficulty fighting off woodworm, and the burnt bits from
our cookery lesson hadn't helped.
Now he tells me.
No problem says he.
These shallow channels are a doddle at full tide.
We just sit here and wait for the tide to reach
its full level and sail in under the radar.
Radar???.
I realised he was worried when a look of horror passed over
his face.
Worrying about the radar I asked.
Forget the radar says he, we may have a problem.
A bigger problem than holes in the boat, the army and the radar, I
asked.
Yes says he.
By now I am starting to regret bunking off Sunday School when I was
a kid, and wondering if knowing the first verse of The Lords Prayer
guarantees redemption.
Maplin Sand Towards Havengore Creek
Do you reckon our anchor rope is 4 metres long, he asked.
No idea I said, wondering if he was gonna hang himself before he drowned.
That’s good he said, it’s a 4 metre tide.
Tied to what I asked?
Not tied, he corrected, tide.
Oooo tide, I said. So what does that mean.
Well anything short of a 4 metre rope and we’d be swept into the creek
where all the obstacles are, and they’d rip the bottom out of our boat.
We both jumped over the side as panic set in to measure the rope.
Now there is this phenomenon at sea which means that if you stand in
18 inches of water at low tide, over mud flats that 18 inches deepens
rapidly as the tide starts to come in.
And mud flats are certainly
not flat.
And not flat mud flats have bloody great trenches around
them And these trenches fill with water quicker than any other part.
And at night the mud flats and these trenches full of water all look
the same colour.
Anyway, as I said, we both jumped on to the mud around
the little yacht to find out how long the rope was.
We both surfaced
at about the same time and swam back to the side of the boat.
Pulling
our way round to the front of the boat, we tugged at the rope.
No slack.
We had already run out of anchor rope.
No problem, back into the boat, float in on the tide, and try to push
ourselves clear of the bottom tearing obstacles with the oars.
I say
no problem.
Have you ever tried to climb back into a boat which is
running with the tide and dragging its anchor.
A boat where the mooring
rope is now so tight that the boat is trying to act like a champagne
cork trying to escape from a bottle?
It ain’t easy I can assure you.
But it is possible once sheer panic sets in.
Back in the boat, soaking
wet, bloody cold and in a state of terror we sat huddled, one each
side of the dinghy, with oars in our hands.
Welcome to Havengore Creek on a Good Day!
Now you’ve heard the saying
about a light in the wilderness, there is such a light.
It sits at
the bridge keeper’s lodge which in turn sits beside the swing bride
at the entrance to Havengore Creek.
There it was, our salvation.
Now lights at sea, or rather lights on land as viewed from the sea
are very deceptive.
They move, and keep moving.
At least that was what we had begun to believe as we pulled the boat
out of the third creek which had suddenly ended.
More an inlet than
a river.
Eventually we found the right one and the tide carried us
up to the low bridge.
I say low, it was less than 2 metres above the
boat.
I was about to learn two valuable lesson.
Swing bridges don’t swing at night, and masts are higher than a swing
bridge.
And you can't sail under the radar, the police are waiting for you!
But that’s another story… |
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