TRIP REPORTS

SAILING BARGE CHARTER 2003

27 - 29 June 2003 on the River Blackwater

Pictures will be added to this report in due course.

Before the event

In 2002 I missed out on running my usual IWA-South-London-and-internet-people sailing barge cruise, so I was all the more determined to run one this year. I booked my usual weekend charter of the sailing barge Pudge out of Maldon (Essex) for last weekend, recruited some folk to join me, and off we went.

Pudge is owned by what used to be the Thames Barge Sailing Club but has recently become the Thames Sailing Barge Trust, and she can be chartered by Club members for longer or shorter trips. The charterer pays the Trust for the use of the barge and the Trust provides a skipper and mate. It's the charterer's responsibility to arrange food for the charter party plus crew. The charterer then charges their guests for the weekend to cover the costs.

There were eleven of us in the charter party :

Several of the group had been on my charters at least once before, but Andrew, Sture, Phillip and Tom were all on their first sailing barge trip.

The day before the start came some bad news, when Lesley (who was to transport me and the food from London to Maldon) rang me to say that her car had been pranged by a bus while she was waiting at some traffic lights and she'd have to arrange for another one. She spent much of Friday morning on the 'phone to her insurance company, who finally agreed to reimburse her for hiring a car for the weekend, prior to their sorting out a longer-lasting arrangement. This caused her to be considerably later than originally planned in picking up me and the first half of the shopping from home.

Friday evening - the arrival

We drove to Maldon in fairly heavy traffic and did the rest of the shopping at a big Safeway on the Maldon by-pass before going into the town and to the Hythe, where the barges moor. Maldon Hythe is one of my favourite spots, a quay on the tidal River Blackwater where a number of sailing barges moor, with a couple of pubs alongside, a barge repairing yard close by and the whole thing presided over from the top of a hill by a highly attractive ancient church spire.

Pudge was on her usual mooring outboard of the Barge Trust's stores-and-workshop lighter, Sailorman. The trust's other barge, Centaur wasn't there, as she was sailing from Ipswich for a few weeks. Other barges spotted on the mooring included Cabby, Reminder and Hydrogen.

Lesley and I arrived just after 20:00, to find Andrew, Sture and Tom had already arrived and introduced themselves to our crew for the weekend. The Skipper was Nick Eade, who I'd not sailed with before, and the mate was Martin Phillips, who'd been Third Hand on our 2001 trip. What was not very encouraging was the presence of someone called Andy who was there to sort out some problems with the barge's engine, including fitting a new starter motor. Andrew, Sture, Tom, Lesley and I unloaded all the food and drink from Lesley's car into the barge and I stowed it away before sitting down for a well-deserved pint of beer, while Lesley drove her car off to its parking place for the weekend.

Libby was the next arrival, and she, Lesley and I decided to head for the Jolly Sailor for some food as soon as she had unloaded her gear and parked her car (the earlier arrivals had already eaten). Just as we were setting off, David arrived, as did Steve, Mandy and Glen, the latter trio chauffeured by a friend at whose house they had left their car. By this time Andy and Martin were fairly satisfied that they'd sorted out the engine. We reached the pub at about 21:30, only to find we were too late to order food, so we decided to fetch a Chinese take-away from a place just up the hill. By this time the rest of the charter party had also reached the pub. This was a change from previous years, as we'd usually spent the later part of the Friday evening in a different pub, the Queen's Head, but an early visit by some of our number had discovered that it had goner all "yoof" and noisy.

I walked up the hill to fetch the Chinese and the three of us went back aboard to eat it, being joined soon afterwards by the rest of the group. Before we'd finished eating the meal, the tide had risen enough for the Skipper to decide to set off under engine and head down-river. As usual with these late-night tides, we just dropped a short way down to the first good deep-water mooring off Osea Island and dropped anchor for the night. I didn't notice what time we did so, but after a certain amount of socialising and a conference with the skipper about what time to start in the morning, it was about 01:30 before the last of us crept into our bunks.

Saturday - sailing in light airs

Next morning I was scheduled breakfast cook, with Glen as my assistant, so we got up (surprisingly easily) at about 06:00 and managed to start serving breakfast sometime before 07:30. Cooking on Pudge for anything approaching a full crew requires the simultaneous use of a gas stove and a Rayburn solid-fuel cooker, which can be quite interesting! As the last few late risers were eating breakfast and the washing-up crew of Phillip & Sture were starting work, the Skipper called for some hands on deck to raise the anchor, and we were away at about 09:15.

It was a glorious warm, sunny day but almost a flat calm, so the sails weren't doing us much good - we were mainly drifting down-river on a falling tide. Later the tide turned and after a while the Skipper decided to turn on the engine. As he said "All we were doing was drifting backwards and sideways, and we were beginning to run out of backwards and sideways to go". It was about this time that the Mate organised a bunch of volunteers to scrub the decks. Mandy's comment was "I'm not a scrubber, I'm a hooker". From time to time the Skipper would feel optimistic about the wind and turn off the engine for a while, but to little avail until about lunch-time when a reasonable breeze appeared from nowhere and suddenly we were sailing properly. I don't recall whether this was before or after Libby and Tom had served a sandwich lunch on deck.

Like all sailing barge trips I've ever been on, the day was punctuated very regularly by brews of tea and coffee, although as the weekend drew on and the weather grew warmer, soft drinks and beer began to break the pattern. We had some pleasant sailing around the mouth of the Blackwater, with Bradwell Power Station a constant bit of scenery, although we managed to see it from a good variety of directions. The sailing was fairly gentle, and a number of us were able to do minor bits of work like playing with the bowline.

At one stage Martin decided to use the manual bilge-pump, which meant hauling up a few bucketfuls of water from the river to prime the pump. Andrew managed to cover himself with glory when he threw down a dip-bucket for some sea-water, while firmly griping in his other hand the rope of the other bucket!

Three of us on board (Mandy, Glen and myself) were, at various stages of the day, all reading copies of the latest Harry Potter book. It was decided that the sight of me sitting on the hatch-covers reading Harry Potter while smoking a large pipe was "seriously weird". However, I did make the discovery that when one wants to lie down on the hatch-covers and grab a few minutes' zizz, this thick new Harry Potter volume does make a good pillow.

I had another conference with the Skipper about where and when to end the day. Having ascertained that some of the charter party wanted to go ashore to a pub, it was decided that we'd anchor off Bradwell at about 17:00, they'd take a run ashore in the small boat to the Green Man and come back for Supper at about 20:00. We dropped sail (various of the charter party assisting the crew) and anchored pretty well on schedule, and were soon joined by a covey of yachts. Several of them were, unusually, flying Red Ensigns defaced by a badge we couldn't see clearly enough to recognise. Martin thought they were something to do with the Scout movement.

A very convivial evening

Martin prepared the boat, and the run ashore set off, Andrew, Tom, Sture, David and Glen forming the shore party, with Martin as their boatman, while Lesley, Mandy and Steve prepared dinner (mixed grill with all the trimmings followed by fresh fruit salad and cheese) and the more indolent of us sat or lay around reading, snoozing and drinking. By the time the shore party had returned and the cooks had finished their work, dinner was served at about 21:30 and enjoyed by all.

After dinner, further socialising took place (Nobody got too "tired and emotional"). Interrupted by the need at one point for Martin to un-bung the sink outlet (the Mate gets all the nasty jobs like that). One by one we tricked off to bed, the incurable gossips (Glen, Andrew and myself) being the last, at about 02:00.

Sunday - a short sail back

Getting up to cook breakfast (I was in charge again, this time with David as my assistant) was harder on Sunday than it had been the day before. The skipper had said there was no urgency to start, so we'd aim for the same time as yesterday. The time-gap between the early and late arrivals at the breakfast table was even longer on Sunday, so the first volunteers were on deck raising the anchor while some others (no names, no pack-drill) were still in their pyjamas eating breakfast.

It was another hot, sunny day, with just enough wind for us to sail back up-river in a leisurely manner. Steve & Mandy decided to pose some pictures of their two teddy-bears and a PG Tips Chimp for Boating Bears Magazine.
Mandy: It's a fringe publication.
Me: Don't you mean a lunatic fring publication?
Mandy: Well, perhaps.

Once again several of us helped with bits of the sailing, but the general air was one of indolence. At one point a sailing dinghy seemed determined ram us, but sheered of at the last minute, its single-handed crew calling out "Sorry, I didn't see you - don't know why - you're big enough." After we'd passed Heybridge, the Skipper realised we would arrive at Maldon too early, so we went about and sailed back down the river a little way before resuming our original course. We arrived back at Maldon Hythe a little before 12:00, on the last of the flood tide, as planned. We'd passed the barge Cabby on our way in, on a short tourist trip, and as we moored Hydrogen was leaving the next berth for us, so after we'd moored we were able to watch their sails disappearing down-river.

The normal routine when mooring at Maldon is to turn the barge above the mooring (using the tide to help turn) and tie up with the head of the barge facing down-river. The wind allowed Nick to bring the barge right up to the turning point under sail, then we all pitched in helping stow the sails in a hurry, as Nick started the engine to make the turn. Or at least that was the theory. As soon as it started, the engine stopped again, so there were a few worried moments until a second attempt at starting it proved successful. As we came alongside Sailorman to moor, Andy was there to take our ropes and so we invited him to join us for lunch. It takes a little time to settle a barge at her mooring and stow the sails properly, so it was a while before Lesley, Andrew and Sture were able to serve lunch (as assortment of cold meats, with as centre-piece a terrine of pressed chicken and ham that I'd cooked at home on Thursday) served with pasta and salad, followed by a strawberry gateau (Mr Safeway's finest) and the remaining fruit salad.

Some people needed to leave early, so it fell to Lesley, Glen and me to clear and clean while Steve and Mandy washed up lunch, then we made a final farewell to the crew, I had a brief chat with Pete and Pat Boss (officers of the Barge Trust) and we were ready to set off home. We'd had some good sailing in very pleasant weather, and eaten well in good company. I think everyone including (and especially) our first-timers had enjoyed the weekend. We discussed whether to go for a longer (perhaps 4-day) charter next year, in order to get a bit further afield, but I decided that I wouldn't take the financial risk of the larger outlay this would involve, as a charter of that length would need to be booked quite a lot further ahead than many people would be able to commit their diaries. So next year's trip will be very much "the same again".