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Corsair
02-25-2019, 19:07
In a boat. More specifically, a wind-powered sail boat? Did you actually help handle the craft?

Everything but the last two for me.

Though I did polish up the handles so carefully...

Edit in: “Open Ocean” is meant to include major seas, such as the Baltic, Black Sea, Mediterranean, Aegean, Caribbean, etc. I suppose the Adriatic or Gulf of Baja might be relatively calm, but go with your gut if you feel it was something a bit more adventuresome than placid.

Bligh
02-26-2019, 01:52
Thank you Sir Joseph.
When I was at school we built three sailing dinghys in the school woodwork shops and sailed them on the River Trent.
I must also mentioned that I have sailed the boards, having played the part of Sir Joseph in a school rendition of Pinafore.

Rob.

Capn Duff
02-26-2019, 16:09
A no to being on a sail ship, did travel out to Australia on the SS Canberra and returned to uk on the Himalaya a coyple of years later.
Used a number of ferries travelling from Aberdeen to Lerwick and vice versa as well as a few channel ferries in my time

Dobbs
02-26-2019, 17:44
Is 31' a large sailing vessel or a small craft? We've done a few overnight passages with Grace (while carrying a pair of 74's and a gaggle of frigates and SoW's inside).

Argo
02-28-2019, 13:27
Baltic sea and (regularly) in the Dutch coastal waters. Not yet real "Blue water sailing".

Naharaht
02-28-2019, 22:20
I have sailed to the Isle of Man and back on a ferry.

Corsair
03-01-2019, 01:28
Is 31' a large sailing vessel or a small craft? We've done a few overnight passages with Grace (while carrying a pair of 74's and a gaggle of frigates and SoW's inside).

The US Coast Guard is exceedingly vague about what constitutes “small craft”. Basically, from their standpoint, anything threatened by conditions is small craft, which would seem to mean that it is a sliding scale. Having been on 30 footers on the Pacific, I’d call them small craft. The largest I’ve sailed on was the Serena, which I think was around 90 feet, and intended to sail vast distances on the open ocean, and I’d probably rate above small craft (though if things got bad enough, the Coast Guard would say was small craft). So...at your discretion to what you regard as small craft, I suppose.

Bligh
03-01-2019, 01:49
From my perspective of sailing in dinghies, anything larger than one with two sails is a large craft.:wink:
Rob.

TexaS
03-03-2019, 12:14
78 ft brig in the Mediterranean. It's not really an ocean, but some say Mediterranean is part of the Atlantic so I checked the top.

Bligh
03-03-2019, 12:40
Guess that puts you up there with the best so far Jonas.
Hope we hear from a few more shipmates soon.
I'm sure a few more must have sailing experience.
Rob.

Dobbs
03-03-2019, 13:48
78 ft brig in the Mediterranean. It's not really an ocean, but some say Mediterranean is part of the Atlantic so I checked the top.

I think the Mediterranean meets the qualifications. It's got to be one of the Seven Seas!

I counted Grace as a very small large sailing vessel, and went with the top one too.

P.S. We just hopped up the coast from Saint Augustine to the St John's inlet, a mixture of light wind sailing and motoring. The weather was sublime. That evening, we got thumped by a thunderstorm at the dock! It would have been easier on the ocean!

Vagabond
03-03-2019, 16:52
Sailed from S.W. England to Scotland, back south to Gibraltar, through the Med to Greece and back to South of France. Took us 8 years, our crossing of the Bay of Biscay was so calm we motored all the way until we hit a thunderstorm off the coast of Spain.
So we sailed a very small part of the Atlantic Ocean but a lot of the Irish and Mediterranean Sea in a 35' sail boat. I don't consider our boat to be a large craft but it's not a dinghy either.
Cheers

Bligh
03-04-2019, 02:42
I am sure that is a story worth the telling John.
Have you been following Dobb's voyage?
Rob.

Vagabond
03-04-2019, 22:15
I am sure that is a story worth the telling John.
Have you been following Dobb's voyage?
Rob.

Not yet, I saw the thread with the link and when time allows will have a look.
Cheers

Dobbs
03-07-2019, 15:24
Not yet, I saw the thread with the link and when time allows will have a look.
Cheers

Your adventure sounds much bigger than mine, John! I would love to sail those places someday.

I agree with your assessment of large crafts. I also feel that sea-capable small sailboats are a cut above small crafts. :happy:

Vagabond
03-08-2019, 06:58
Your adventure sounds much bigger than mine, John! I would love to sail those places someday.

I agree with your assessment of large crafts. I also feel that sea-capable small sailboats are a cut above small crafts. :happy:

"sea-capable small sailboats are a cut above all crafts" I think this is what you meant to say :wink:

Dobbs
03-09-2019, 17:09
"sea-capable small sailboats are a cut above all crafts" I think this is what you meant to say :wink:

You're absolutely right, John! It must have gotten tweaked by the spell checker...:wink:

DeRuyter
03-11-2019, 08:17
It has been some years now but when I crewed on Kalmar Nyckel I sailed off the east coast of the US on the way from the Mid-Atlantic to New York and New England. Not sure what is worse on a large sailing vessel rough conditions or climbing an oscillating mast while riding a swell in light airs. :puke:


Photo below. Jonas will note the Swedish flag on the main mast. The original was a Dutch built ship used by the Swedes to establish a trading post in the new world in 1638. Couldn't help but include a photo of "Toolbox" the ship's cat who passed away several years ago.

42820

42821

Bligh
03-11-2019, 11:03
Not only a magnificent feat Eric, but also a magnificent ship, and a magnificent cat.
Rob.

TexaS
03-11-2019, 11:04
Many Swedish ships of that time were Dutch designed and some also Dutch built. Wasa, famous for its disastrous maiden voyage, was originally of Dutch design until the King demanded more guns resulting in an extra gun deck.
Kalmar is a coastal town on east coast of southern Sweden.
There's also the Finnish flag as Finland was a part of Sweden until two hundred years ago when Russia decided it was part of Russia instead. During the Russian revolution Finland came to the conclusion that was not the case and became independent.

What a handsome cat!

Edit: Funny reflection... I think La Grace as a brig has a greater number of sails than Kalmar Nyckel. The number of sails slowly increased over time until after the end of the Napoleonic wars when they suddenly almost doubled. I have sailed on Tre Kronor af Stockholm too, another brig but built after a brig from about 1845 I think.

Bligh
03-11-2019, 11:10
As you probably know Jonas, we had a King like that.
Hence our Mary Rose.
Rob.

TexaS
03-11-2019, 11:19
Interestingly enough that King was a genius in war on land. He was Gustav II Adolf or Gustavus Adolphus as he is often called.

Bilge Rat
03-12-2019, 10:10
When I was a teen I learned to sail a small dinghy in the Blackwater estuary at Bradwell on Sea. Years later, I also helped crew a friend's 34 ft sailboat for a days sailing in the same estuary. My stepdaughter crewed on a Round the World race yacht from Cape Town to Boston, her only previous experience being sailing around the isle of Wight a few times to give her some idea of how a yacht worked. She did well for a girl from Iowa. She loved every minute of it.


Oops, I just realised, I checked the wrong box, it should have been the 'inlet' one, not the 'open ocean' one. My apologies

Wentworth
03-13-2019, 14:22
I sailed for several weeks on the Fantome near the Bahamas, Bimini, Gun Key, etc. It was a 300 foot (679 ton) steel hulled stay sail schooner. It was built by the Duke of Westminster in 1927, and sold to A. E. Guinness (the brewery heir) in 1930. I sailed on it in 1976. It was lost at sea in a storm off Latin America in 1998. I've attached a photo below:

42844

The following year, I also sailed along the Brazilian coast in the 40 foot sloop "Horseman of the Moon" (translated from the Portuguese).

Bligh
03-13-2019, 14:41
Yep!! I think that counts Bill.:envy:
Rob.

Oceanswell
03-13-2019, 16:12
Last year I sailed a Hunter 35.5 from Croatia down the back of Italia and on to Corfu. Lots of adventures ... the most heart racing being ambushed by a gunboat from the Guardia Finanza during a night sail off the coast of Brindisi.

Capn Duff
03-13-2019, 17:11
Ah the Guardia di Finanza, remember driving from Naples to Latina with the cig ration for the uk team, they thought they had hit paydirt until I showed my id card and travel docs and pointed out my AFI number plate, around the next bend got pulled up by the Carabineri for speeding, so in my best Northern english accent asked Ay up whats matter Officer, flashed my id again got told to sod off in Italian and told not to do it again.
I take my hat off t9 you sailor chaps. I get seasick in the shower

Wentworth
03-14-2019, 10:11
It has been some years now but when I crewed on Kalmar Nyckel I sailed off the east coast of the US on the way from the Mid-Atlantic to New York and New England. Not sure what is worse on a large sailing vessel rough conditions or climbing an oscillating mast while riding a swell in light airs. :puke:


Photo below. Jonas will note the Swedish flag on the main mast. The original was a Dutch built ship used by the Swedes to establish a trading post in the new world in 1638. Couldn't help but include a photo of "Toolbox" the ship's cat who passed away several years ago.

42820

42821

Eric,
The Kalmar sailed passed my place last summer (or was it the summer before last...oh dear I've reached that age)....here's one of the photos I quickly snapped. I was reading on one of my balconies, looked up and saw her about to go by so I hurriedly took the picture with my phone -- sorry it isn't a better quality.
Bill
42865

DeRuyter
03-14-2019, 13:42
Nice shot. I was onboard for the Tall Ships 2000 in New York and we sailed up the Hudson, well briefly just to the GW and back for a ship parade. Of course New York has it's own 17th century tall ship - the Halve Maen - Henry Hudson's ship.

Wentworth
03-16-2019, 11:11
Nice shot. I was onboard for the Tall Ships 2000 in New York and we sailed up the Hudson, well briefly just to the GW and back for a ship parade. Of course New York has it's own 17th century tall ship - the Halve Maen - Henry Hudson's ship.

Yes the Halve Maen passes my place twice per summer season (although I hear that now it is operating in Europe) -- here's a couple of photos:
42881

42882

best,
Bill

Bligh
03-16-2019, 14:39
You lucky chaps.
Having all these ships passing by.
I have to go to Bristol or Gloucester docks to see such sights.
That is the problem with living in the heart of the Midlands.:sad:
Rob.

David Manley
03-16-2019, 14:50
That is the problem with living in the heart of the Midlands.:sad:


I'm sure its not the only one :happy:

Dobbs
03-16-2019, 15:57
Nice shot. I was onboard for the Tall Ships 2000 in New York and we sailed up the Hudson, well briefly just to the GW and back for a ship parade.

That's great! I had no idea how close we came to meeting 20 years ago. That same week, Suzanne and I were sailing our first cruising sailboat up to Connecticut to rendezvous with the OpSail fleet. We crossed paths with the fleet on the Chesapeake and New York harbor. I was a professional juggler and that was one of my last major gigs before switching over to working on sailboats.

Bligh
03-16-2019, 16:18
I'm sure its not the only one :happy:

It's strange Dave, but you can put up with almost everything else except being over 80 miles from the sea.
Rob.

Bilge Rat
03-16-2019, 17:07
For me, its a 2000 mile trip west or a 1200 mile trip east to get to a beach. The great lakes LOOK like the sea but they smell like pond..... even the gulls sound different.

Dobbs
03-16-2019, 18:45
For me, its a 2000 mile trip west or a 1200 mile trip east to get to a beach. The great lakes LOOK like the sea but they smell like pond..... even the gulls sound different.

I know what you mean about the gulls sounding different. Here at the top of the Chesapeake Bay it's fresh water, and our gulls sound different too!

As an aside, since we are nowhere near the sea, we call them Bay gulls. Nearby is the C and D canal, which, until it was dredged into a through canal, meant we had Locks and Bay Gulls. :clap:

Bilge Rat
03-16-2019, 19:22
Fortunately, my wife is Jewish otherwise I would never have got that....even so, people have been keelhauled for less...just sayin

Bligh
03-17-2019, 02:43
That is so bad Dobbs it is nearly worthy of me.:clap:
Rob.

Wentworth
03-18-2019, 13:58
I know what you mean about the gulls sounding different. Here at the top of the Chesapeake Bay it's fresh water, and our gulls sound different too!

As an aside, since we are nowhere near the sea, we call them Bay gulls. Nearby is the C and D canal, which, until it was dredged into a through canal, meant we had Locks and Bay Gulls. :clap:

OOOFFF !!!! :happy::clap::surrender:

jasonb
04-07-2019, 20:57
The closest I've been is whale watching in the Santa Barbara Channel and ferries on the Great Lakes and the Solent.

I suppose it's somewhat fitting that I'm drinking Cutty Sark scotch at the moment.

Wentworth
05-11-2019, 11:12
That's great! I had no idea how close we came to meeting 20 years ago. That same week, Suzanne and I were sailing our first cruising sailboat up to Connecticut to rendezvous with the OpSail fleet. We crossed paths with the fleet on the Chesapeake and New York harbor. I was a professional juggler and that was one of my last major gigs before switching over to working on sailboats.

Hey Dobbs,
I know a couple of accountants who might qualify for the title "professional juggler".. :wink: Perchance you weren't a Flying Kamarazov Brother were you?
Bill

Rafer J Larwood
02-14-2020, 15:03
Test

Rafer J Larwood
02-14-2020, 15:07
Stuff that doesn’t count...

US Carrier USS SYLVANIA Naples 1969
Assorted ferries
HMS Victory
HMS Belfast
Cutty Sark
Island trips off Cyprus/Portugal/Mallorca


Stuff that might count..

Sailing ship in the Adriatic visiting islands off a Croatia
Sea kayaking off Dubrovnik
Crewing a Viking ship up Roskilde fjord

Bligh
02-14-2020, 15:37
Reminds me about the woman who spent a month as a stow away on the Isle of Wight Ferry.

Rob.

Rafer J Larwood
02-14-2020, 15:40
That was no woman, lol

Bligh
02-15-2020, 02:07
Well it certainly was not your wife Chris! She is definitely a lady.:hatsoff:

Rob.

TexaS
02-16-2020, 23:42
It's been 35 years since last I visited HMS Victory and Cutty Sark. Have they finished the rigging on Victory yet? How is Cutty Sark after the fire? Is she rebuilt?

Wentworth
03-31-2020, 10:56
Stuff that doesn’t count...

US Carrier USS SYLVANIA Naples 1969
Assorted ferries
HMS Victory
HMS Belfast
Cutty Sark
Island trips off Cyprus/Portugal/Mallorca


Stuff that might count..

Sailing ship in the Adriatic visiting islands off a Croatia
Sea kayaking off Dubrovnik
Crewing a Viking ship up Roskilde fjord

Many decades ago (1970s) I visited Roskilde fjord and the Viking museum there -- it was so very cool then...I presume it has gotten even cooler now!

David Manley
03-31-2020, 13:08
Yes, on quite a few of Her Majesty's warships (and several of other nations) :happy:

DeRuyter
04-03-2020, 10:09
It's been 35 years since last I visited HMS Victory and Cutty Sark. Have they finished the rigging on Victory yet? How is Cutty Sark after the fire? Is she rebuilt?

I visited the Cutty Sark in 2013 and she was very impressive. They built a glass surround so to enter the museum part you actually go down around the outside of the hull. I think the HMS Victory is still undergoing her latest refit.

Bligh
04-03-2020, 10:22
They have done the same with the SS Great Britain Eric. There is a trickle of water flowing over the glass around the hull so that when you are above it looks as if she is floating and when you go below to view the outside of the lower hull you seem to be under water when you look up.
Rob.

DeRuyter
04-03-2020, 11:36
They have done the same with the SS Great Britain Eric. There is a trickle of water flowing over the glass around the hull so that when you are above it looks as if she is floating and when you go below to view the outside of the lower hull you seem to be under water when you look up.
Rob.

She is on the list for my next trip across the pond! Also the HMS Trincomalee, more in our period!

Dobbs
04-03-2020, 12:32
She is on the list for my next trip across the pond! Also the HMS Trincomalee, more in our period!

Let me know when you're going and I'll stow away in your luggage! I've been a fan of I. K. Brunel since I was a kid.

Bligh
04-03-2020, 13:06
I have been involved on and off with the Great Britain ever since I was at college.
It just so happened that the pub outside the campus where most of us gathered was run by a very nice chap who also happened to be a magisterate and could get us an extended licence whenever a 21st party or engagement etc came up. More important, he was a Bristolian and was raising money to bring the GB home from the Falklands. we all contributed to the funds although we really did not have a clue at that time what it was really all about.
The first real interest I actually had was when they towed her up the cut to her old dry dock where she was built. As the years went by I watched as the renovation gradually took place. I even got a piece of her old deck when they replaced some of that and sold off sections fashioned into doorstops, cut to show not only the old square shanked nails but even some of the original caulking embeded in the doorstop.
My last visit was two years ago with Mrs Bligh, and I would have been back this year but for this plague ravaging the world.
Well maybe next year!

The most odd thing was that I ended up teaching the History of engineering to my students, and guess who waxed very large on the syllabus.

https://sailsofglory.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=48685&d=1585940887

Dobbs
04-03-2020, 13:33
That's just the greatest picture of "the Little Giant"!

Diamondback
04-03-2020, 13:36
Caribbean cruise (Tampa-Cozumel), my high school graduation present. My mother booked the whole family on Carnival, and I wish we'd just stayed on land for how poorly maintained and unable to deliver on itinerary the ship was. (Had to completely miss Key West and the Hemingway festival, which was a big part of the entire point...)

Volunteer
04-13-2020, 14:23
When I was 14, living in Kingston, crossing Port Royal Harbour during a gale in a 7 foot dinghy with two other idiot kids. Scared the hell out of us!
Out of Seward through the Gulf of Alaska during another gale, trying to cross to Kodiak Island in a 26 ft cabin cruiser in the mid 80's. Again kissed the ground when we made it to shore!
Not very pleasant memories

TexaS
04-14-2020, 04:01
Ah... Memories of hard weather at sea. I crossed the Channel when the SeaCats couldn't be used due to the heavy weather. They used the old SR N4 hovercraft instead and there were some really nice jumps/falls when it tossed on the waves. I may be weird because I like it.

Bligh
04-14-2020, 04:28
I have only ever experienced one bad storm. That was crossing the North sea from Harwich to the Hook. Six hour journey which took eight, and I was perfectly OK, and even had my normal meals :eat:and a few drinks:rum:.That was until I disembarked. Took me two days before I was eating again and the ground stopped coming up to meet me.:erk:

Rob.

Tiger2
05-01-2020, 12:32
In the summer of 1985, whilst serving with the British Army in Gibraltar, I spent a week as part of the crew of a racing yacht 'The British Soldier'. We sailed in the Atlantic Ocean and Mediterranean Sea. It's the one and only time. It was an extraordinary experience.
How did it come about? (Sorry) My friends volunteered me whilst I was on leave!!

Bligh
05-01-2020, 13:08
Firstly allow me to give you a formal welcome to the Anchorage Paul, and secondly say that you seem to have the sort of credentials to make you very at home amongst us all.
Please do remember to sign in on the Welcome Aboard Forum Brithsh sub section as your shipmates will then see that they have a new oppo.
May you always sail with a fair wind and a willing foe.
Rob.

SkeenaH
01-26-2022, 00:51
I signed myself up for a weeks voyage on the STS Leeuwin from Albany to Esperance in WA, years ago when I had knees. I made it to the upper foresail top. It was more sea sick when I got back to solid land.

57507

I have clear memories of seeing the Tall Ships in 1984 when they came to Liverpool and they made a big impression on a small boy. I particularly remember the Gorch Fock and two old scousers making some salty comments about the german sailors with their broken caps.

57508

These days, I get sick in a swell and confine myself to the river boat.

Bligh
01-27-2022, 00:59
Sounds like the experience of a lifetime Howard.
One time in the North Sea we had heavy weather, and like you I was fine until I got back on terra firma, which didn't seem firm at all. Took me a couple of days to get my land legs back.
Rob.