Nautical miscellany

For those that have asked what the numbers mean at the end of my posts now we are under way, they give our position in latitude and longitude. You can use these numbers to "see" exactly where we are using Google Earth.

51 51.60'N

gives our latitude and means that we are 51 degrees north of the equator (if you take the angle from the centre of the earth) plus 51 decimal 60 minutes. There are 60 minutes in each degree.

One minute equals one sea mile. This means that the length of a sea mile varies according to how far south or north of the equator you are. For most practical purposes one sea mile equals the internationally agreed nautical mile of 1852 metres. Prior to this agreement in 1929, different countries had slightly different definitions.

00 09.767'W

gives our longitude and indicates that we are west of the Greenwich Meridian by 9 decimal 767 minutes. The calculation of longitude was a struggle for centuries and involved many great scientific minds. Amerigo Vespucci on his trips to the New World was perhaps the first to profer a workable solution, by noting the time difference between observed happenings in the sky, eg planet movements, and times listed in an almanac for home. But it was not until the development of an accurate ship's chronometer by John Harrison, an english clockmaker, that position could be accurately determined.

The story is a fascinating one and worth spending some time looking into.

No doubt there will be more stuff as we encounter more days where the weather keeps us in port.

Isn't technology wonderful

Robin thought he ought to share details of a call to Number 1 son , who lives in Hong Kong:

I called Caz in Hong Kong on Monday around midday.
I mentioned that I was in the catamaran anchored in Bridlington, next to Flamborough head.
'So how are you talking to me now?' he asked.
WELL
- I'm talking into the microphone which had an A-D converter in so as to pass a digital signal through the USB into the Laptop
- There Windows XP passes the data to the Skype software which, no doubt converts the data through some grade of CODEC
- The data the goes through the 54G protocol to the Wi-Fi router (So that Sue can surf at the same time)
- Then the router is connected to the 3 mobile phone network
- Which in turn connects to the internet
- The internet transports the data to HK
- Your Laptop reverses the CODEC and, hey presto, we have a chat.

Well if you ask a data handling architect a stupid question.....................

Cas was a bit bemused by the onboard WiFi- he's in the land of the technocrats and he can't be arsed with WiFi.

It was good to talk with my favourite son. Must do that more often.

Thoughts on Lobsters

Here we are, first landfall, the Old Harbour at Scarborough. It is quite picturesque, with the seaside resort alongside the working fishdock, fishmarket and fishing boats. The harbourmaster's office is in the old lighthouse at the harbour entrance.

The victorian Grand Hotel on the seafront is just that, very grand. An open top bus runs tours around the town, and a ruined castle sits on a hilltop overlooking the bay. Time to get our landlegs back, if only briefly.

Managed to pick up cruising charts to cover up to Fifeness in Scotland. Upto now we've only been able to get charts to Whitby. It seems that no-one wants to go further north, except mad circumnavigators like us.

Scarborough sea front shops were very much as expected, but not without a charm of it's own. Icecream, fish and chips, tea shops, rock, mostly tacky souvenirs and penny arcades. Plus fresh seafood stalls offering in-between meals "ooh, go on then" portions to enjoy as you take in the fresh salt air.

As for the thoughts on lobsters, the relatively shallow coastal waters are dotted with pot markers, indicating a fisherman's lobster pots below. And the harbour side was piled with pots waiting to go out again. Now this has been going on for a few hundred years, certainly many lobster and crab generations, but they must still fall for the trick; an entrance that lets them in, but not out again. Robin and I wondered if eventually a breed of lobster and crab would develop that avoided these traps. After all, it's only the ones who get left behind that go on to breed.


54 16.98'N 00 23.35'W, 201 nautical miles so far

Passage planning

Well, we were planning to go to Whitby, but overslept this morning, and as you can only get to the moorings via a swing bridge that opens two hours before and after high tide, and the wind is still very much from the northwest, unless we motored all the way, we wouldn't get there in time.

It is frustrating when getting up at 5am and it's too late. Joys of sailing, huh. We needed that extra little bit of time to have the tide sweeping us up the coast and for the wind to have come round a bit, so it wasn't blowing from the direction we wanted to travel in. Catabout will only sail at about 45 degrees to the wind, or we have to tack (take a zigzig course), which takes a lot longer to get where you are going.

So it looks like Scarborough tonight, then, weather permitting, on to somewhere like Hartlepool tomorrow.

Will post more when we anchor or moor up tonight.

54 14.682 'N 00 09.767'w

Out cold in Bridlington

Flamborough Head

Bridlington

With apologies to the excellent movie, after 52 hours straight sailing all Robin and I want to do is sleep solidly for 8 hours on a boat that isn't bouncing up and down. Although we originally planned our first port of call to be Whitby, tiredness and contrary winds brought us to an earlier stop.

We've made it to Bridlington, a holiday town on the Yorkshire coast, curled up in the lee of Flamborough Head.

To get here, we sailed around East Anglia, our usual sailing grounds, across the Wash, up the Lincolnshire coast to what used to be known as the South Riding of Yorkshire. There was a bit of bad weather as we crossed the Wash, so Robin has decided we are definitley commited to this Round Britain thing - he couldn't face the Wash again this year.

Sailing at night is pretty magical, especially once you are out of sight of land. Seeing the sun set and rise over open water, when you can't see another human being, just a few seabirds taking flight. The peace and quiet of sailing along, with just the sounds of the water on your boat and the occasional flap of your sails.

Passing through busy shipping lanes can also be a challenge. There are all sorts of rules about who can go where and who gives way to whom. From overhead it must look like a slow-motion ballet or a chess game.

Just like train spotters, there are whole websites dedicated to those facinated by ships and shipping. The introduction of a new system called AIS, which logs the position and speed of every vessel over a certain size, has fed the boom. Here's a sample.

Signing off for sleep, now.



54 5.340'N 0 9.632'W

We're off!

As I write we are passing Walton-on-the-Naze pier, heading up the coast of England, next port Whitby, home of Captain Cook and inspiration for the Dracula stories.

We set off from Tollesbury at the height of the tide at 4:30am this morning. The falling tide will then help sweep us up the coast for the first part of our journey.

Both Robin and I have been able to have a nap. We have a MOBI device from NASA Marine which alarms (VERY loudly) should the one on deck fall overboard. Each of us wears a fob on our lifejackets which links to the central unit in the saloon. A simple wireless doorbell chime also wakes the other up if they are needed on deck. A radio call to the coast guard each day notifies them of our progress.

The weather is good, the winds fair and sails up.

So for the next two months it's shoes off, lifejackets on.

51 51.60'N 01 16.80'E

Tortoise and the Hare.

There is a very good example this summer of the difference between people who cruise on boats and those who race.

We are now on board and ready to set off with the morning tide tomorrow, due back at the beginnining of September. We cruise. As well as covering the miles, we intend to stop off and see places as we go, enjoying the coast as we pass by. Rather than cover every single mile, we are planning to go via the Caledonian Canal, down Loch Ness, which cuts off the northwest of Scotland and most of the Hebrides.

On 23rd August, the biennial RORC Round Britain and Ireland Race sets off, non-stop, including the Orkneys and Shetland Isles. The competing boats are expected to complete their trip in 9 - 14 days.
Thats racing. For the more adrenaline soaked of you, it can be followed on the website
http://sevenstar.rorc.org/

Each to their own.