Voyages onboard the Schooner Trinovante in 2008

Norway, the Arctic Circle, Tall ships Race, and Netherlands - view itinerary

Round Britain Voyage
Fair Winds and Fresh Fish

Trinovante sailed over 2500 miles this summer in a three month voyage around the British Isles. More than 50 people, from all walks of life joined us during the summer to sail onboard with many staying for two or three weeks.
Each week was completely different from the last as the seascapes, the winds and the clouds changed around us.
Hartlepool was in full festival swing when we arrived. The Whitby fishermen were just starting their lobster season and at Eyemouth we followed the langoustine fleet in at daybreak to be greeted by the harbour master who gave the crew his morning’s catch of fish to eat for dinner
We skirted oil rigs in the North Sea to moor with the oil industry support ships in Aberdeen that made Trinovante look tiny and used old sailing ship anchorages that are now deserted, except for us.
John, the skipper, squeezed Trinovante through the very small, picturesque Crinnan Canal so we could spend a couple of days sailing in the Clyde.
We left from there to sail to Ireland with the scent of heather blowing from the hills of Arran and roared down the Irish sea in a fair wind. Boat speed touched 11 knots at times.
Dublin was heaving with people from all over the world, gallons of Guiness and a street theatre festival.
Cork, Waterford, Penzance, Plymouth…. so many evocative place names with one thing in common, wherever we stopped we were greeted by friendly faces on the quay and left with some good memories.


Back to top

Fast sailing in the Irish Sea

Faces on the Quay

Sailing is not just about the ocean, but also about departures and arrivals. When you lie alongside a quay in some small town far away from your own life, almost immediately faces will present themselves, looking down from the quay.

Fifteen miles up some unheard-of river live those who, unknown to their neighbours, cling to this thin channel as their link to the world.

The faces start off by offering casual conversational questions, but soon knowledge and care burst through and you, who thought your role was to be the authority, find yourself struggling to inject a word into their retelling of life and loves.

Others ask simpler questions then leave quietly to return with their children, for whom you become an early memory that plays a part in forming their lives. They may do you the great service of remembering you when no one else does

Back to top

.

Other faces are drawn by the name of the home port, perhaps once their home port too. Your voyage here has been an adventure, theirs have been their lives.

A ship’s arrival is an event, and some places don’t have too many of those. Events focus feelings that cause people to tell their stories. Perhaps our stories are all we are. When you talk to the faces on the quay, that’s when your travelling
begins.

Paul Farmer

Schooner Handling

This summer we docked and undocked around 40 times. Our ship and line handling skills are all important when entering and leaving what are sometimes quite confined spaces. This is an example of just one possible situation.

Lines I and 4 the head and stern ropes, hold the boat into the quay. Lines 3 and 2 are the head spring and the back spring. The head spring stops the boat from going ahead and the back spring stops it going back. Together they prevent Trinovante from surging ahead and astern in the berth. Individually they are invaluable in close quarters manoeuvring.

All the lines have been taken in except the head spring (no 3). In slow ahead with starboard rudder applied the ship is in a stable position held into the quay by the tension on the head spring and the prop wash deflected from the rudder. Now only one line is left for the crew to cast off.

The engine is then taken out of gear and the crew ease some slack in the head spring so that it may be cast off from ashore. The line is then hauled in by the crew. The ship will then blow sideways away from the quay with the bows tending to fall off the wind first. This can be corrected if necessary with a short burst of ahead with full port rudder.

We return to the same berth but with vessels moored either side. We can get close enough to pass a head spring ashore. With starboard rudder and steady power applied the ship will be bowsed in to the quay. The spring is surged as necessary to exactly position the vessel in the berth. This line will be heavily loaded and in the charge of an experienced crew member.
John Shores

Back to top

Blue Sky Thinking – Think again

Clouds are on the agenda big time at sea. You always have your eye on them. They might forewarn of a change in the weather or be providing a spectacular sunset but they are never the same for long.
I guess that we all appreciate clouds in some way but one of the crew this year mentioned that there is now a Cloud Appreciation Society who have pledged to ‘fight the banality of blue sky thinking wherever they find it’ saying ‘what a dull old life it would be if we all had to look up at cloudless monotony day after day’.

Their web site is at www.cloudappreciationsociety.org
They also have a book out called The Cloud Spotters Guide which the odd crew member was spotted reading onboard this summer

Back to top

Night Passage

Twas a dark and stormy night ..... actually, it wasn't really. It was light south-westerlies with clear skies and the moon on the sea as we left our anchorage on the south coast of Ireland bound for Wales
John, the skipper, quickly organised the watches (2 groups called 1st and 2nd watch, three hours on, three hours off each) with only small mutterings of mutiny amongst the crew! Having got another of Sue's fab hot dinners inside us washed down with plenty of tea, we got the anchor up. I was in 1st watch and John had us successfully hoisting sail in the dark. Although we were all a little worried about coiling the halyards properly, Sue let it pass muster!
By change of watch at midnight, we were ready for sleep. It seemed only moments before Mavis was upon us with the 3am call. Second watch were ready for heads down and we were all layered up for our turn - it's cold on deck at 3 in the morning!
Trinovante sailed onwards over the moonlit sea, shooting stars above us, and dolphins playing around the bows. We were all spellbound by the spectacle - my, were the second watch jealous and my, how first watch rubbed it in!

Back to top

Dawn broke, winds became lighter and John started the engine to make up time. Approaching Milford Haven, we heard a mayday over the radio and the lifeboat left harbour. All hoped it would be a successful rescue.
Safe in port ourselves we went alongside with the crew performing skilfully and putting clove hitches on fenders with ease. Mostly novices on at the start of the week we had improved a great deal by the time it came to leave - we will be even better next year!
So a big thank you to John & Sue for letting us use their boat for the week, to the rest of the crew, Paul, Ruth, Sarah, Mavis and Marge and to you Trinovante. You were simply the best.
Annmarie Pitt

Gannets Gathering

At the entrance to the Firth of Forth is the volcanic plug of Bass Rock.
This summer we sailed very close to its sheer rock walls which drop vertically into a great depth of water. The air around was filled with the noise of the huge gannet colony the rock is famous for. Our noses were assaulted and the decks took a bit of a hammering too!
Over 40,000 pairs of gannets live on the rock and the bird is even named after the rock – morus bassanus.
Later in the summer we sailed past Ailsa Craig,

another volcanic plug on the west coast of Scotland
which has 20,000 pairs of nesting gannets. The two rocks together provide a home for 15% of the worlds Gannet population.
One of the crew referred to the gannets as very much like the albatross’ as they wheel and glide effortlessly away to the horizon on their huge wingspan. Watching as they dive bomb fish shoals, wings, folded back to form themselves into a streamlined streak that accelerates from the sky was great fun.
Back to top

Crews and Communities
Skippers note

One great appeal of our voyaging on board Trinovante is the bringing together of a group of individuals who form into a team over the course of a week, learning new skills and rising to the challenges that come their way.
We loved it, seeing different communities and places around these isles where, as a visiting schooner crew, we have been made so welcome. A crew, who have worked together, to sail our small ship safely to port through that sometimes dangerous but ever inspiring environment –the sea.

2007 Sailing Voyages

Next year there is the opportunity to sail onboard in the Norwegian Fjords and voyage from the Shetland, Orkney and Western Isles to West Ireland (travelling through Sligo, Galway, Dingle and Cork) Wales, Cornwall Devon and homeward bound along the South Coast to the Thames Estuary.

Back to top