Home base

Its a busy time at the moment between work and my wedding only a couple of weeks away, so I don't see a lot of sailing happening for a few weeks. Its bit of a pain having to go to Baltimore just to check on Teal and the mooring she was on is a long way out and can't be seen from anywhere so I took the chance today to bring her back to Union Hall.
I put up all the sails but after about 15 minutes the little breeze that I had vanished, I had also realised just after I had left the harbour that there was absolutely no way I would be back at the time I had said, so I had to motor for 4 hours. I could have sailed from about the halfway mark but it was a light flukey breeze and I needed to get back.
At least I can keep an eye on her now with the weather deteriorating. I also want to get a coat of varnish on things before the winter and play around with the ballast so that I can get the water line right, I think she is under propped as well so I'm going to see if I can get another prop or maybe have that one repitched over the winter.

The Cove in Baltimore

Charter boats heading out for the annual Baltimore fishing competition

Two tides to Baltimore

Tim Cooke took this fantastic picture of his boat An Suire with Teal sailing out in the background a few weeks ago, I might need to talk to you about getting this one for my wall Tim.

http://ilur.tumblr.com/

Ken is actually standing on the deck making a little video and zooming in on An Suire. If anyone really has nothing better to be doing for a few minutes here it is

Two Tides To Baltimore - YouTube

Big Boat Build

Just spotted this on youtube, Teal is still in her tent at the time

Ballydehob

This weekend was the second event which we wanted to get to this season. The Ballydehob Gathering of the Boats. Ballydehob is a shallow tidal estuary, an old pier which was used in the past for landing boat loads of sand for use as fertiliser sits beside a weir and a beautiful disused 12 arch stone railway bridge, The weir carries a causeway which allows you to cross the river and walk back along the railway bridge offering a lovely view of the harbour and in this case, of a huge procession of traditional boats making their way in.
                              The Gathering of the Boats is a fleeting kind of festival in that all the boats come and go on the same tide with a BBQ and a few beers and some music in the process. I've attended it for the last 2 or 3 years but it was great to finally arrive in Teal. Its also a harbour which I would have been hesitant to go into in Teal without others to follow but as it happens the Mussel farms are easy to get through and the channel is well marked. I had a look at the pier at low water today so I know where to go in future should I want to dry out in there. There doesn't seem to be any resident boats there so its likely any drying boat would have the place entirely to themselves

The forecast for yesterday wasn't exactly promising but I had it in my head I was going come hell or high water. It's all sheltered water sailing anyway so I wasn't going to let the rain stop me, thankfully many were of the same opinion and it seems it was the biggest turn out to date. The drascombe lugger association were out in force with about 25 boats attending. All the usual suspects were out, the Mackerel boats the lobster boats and  numerous others, 'Teal' and Brian Martens 'Guillemott' being two new (albeit very old) additions.
                       We had a lovely sail from Baltimore to begin with, meeting up outside the estuary at 2.30 amidst a squall of wind and rain. We dropped most of our sail and went in under staysail and mizzen, we eventually started the engine to keep pace as we got further into shelter. We rafted up about an hour and a half before high tide and set about relaxing. The rain held off much better than anticipated so there was plenty of chitchat and Cormac who is the main organiser gave a rundown on all the boats in attendance along with nice t-shirts for the boat owners. Following that we were at the top of the tide and began slipping away around 4.45.
The whole flotilla motored off down stream and back to where they came from, We upped sail once out into the mussel farms but the wind soon died and we had to motor most of the way back. We picked up the mooring in heavy rain about 7 o'clock and headed home to dry out.
Its a great little event and the rain did little to dampen spirits, looking forward to next years.

Teal & Guillemot
Guillemot was built in 1893 in Baltimore and rebuilt in Hegartys at the same time as I was working on Teal, She was relaunched a week after Teal and had her first sail at Baltimore wooden boat festival as well.

Drying out this morning

One from last year, A glorious day. 

A century later

I bought a copy of "Looking astern" soon after buying Teal as she has a chapter about her in it, I read it then but misplaced it until last week so now I'm reading it again.
Firstly of all there is a chapter about Teal being built and they're first sail in her, but I had forgotten that the next few chapters were all about different little trips they went on in her.
One of which was in 1920, Percy Woodcock, his wife Ellie and his 4 year old son Sam lived on board for a summer. He talks about how it was quite confined on board but how it was indifferent to Sam who would happily sit in the Cockpit and watch the world go by for hour after hour and to his delight of seeing porpoises swimming along side.
I strikes a cord a little, as just last week, 94 years later we were on our little trip and my 4 year old son sits happily in the cockpit for hours on end and was delighted by the Dolphins following us.

Sadly for Percy Woodcock, he later lost his son Sam to the second world war, and very soon after his wife Ellie also. The book was published not so long after in 1950.

Its nice to save a little of someones history.

Teal (Little Pal)  sailing in 1914

A 100yrs later