Berrimilla Down-Under-Mars

Arse, class or just a black art - the snotter's lament

2009-07-05T19:12:00.001+01:00

Right, topsail up! It's going to be tight - you've gotta get it right first time! Cruncher overhauled? Ok. Downfucker off? Ok. Alex, on the timmenoggy, Keep 'er snug. Mel on the sheet - keep 'er snug. Sam on the halyard, Leila tailing? - Right - go! Get er up! Bloody get 'er up Go! Go! Ok - cruncher on get 'er in! Go on - sweat it - get 'er in!. Take a turn on the timmenoggy and sweat the bugger. Right, make fast Sheet in hard. Get the downfucker on! Right - bear away and we're sailing! Barber hauler on! Trim!

OK - get this bit of rotting vegetation to the finishing line as fast as it will go! Bloody concentrate you buggers! Eyes in the boat....

Another Fastnet.

2009-07-02T08:06:00.000+01:00

Here's Berri looking sexier than she has for years and years.

Workboat intergalactic photos here. Pete was on Moon - grey hull, sail no 58, purplish topsail with half moon and star. The boat was launched the night before the start and they came 5th - a remarkable performance. Victory is yellow with blue and yellow chevrons on the topsail and sail no 7
http://www.tonyhopewell.com/project.php?ID=FALWKBTCHMP09
A burst on topsail terminology to follow.

As for the North East Passage - sadly, not this year. The Russians have been more or less positive - the FSB have sent us a message saying that Dikson and Pevek are closed to visitors but if we are prepared to go non stop from Murmansk to Providenie (east of the Bering Strait and not a problem if it's ice free) and alter our application to reflect this change, they will consider it favourably and get back to us as soon as they can. But we must carry a Pilot (and, I think, pay the pilotage charges) which would mean that we have no room for Pat Hahn and we really need to be on the way now to be sure of being at 105E (Cape Chelyuskin) by the end of August. The minimum time in which I can see us getting the papers translated and together and, permit in hand, approaching the Russian Embassy to get visas and all the other necessary papers is about three weeks if everything goes smoothly and we actually get a permit at the end of the process. So it's really a month too late to do it this year with a reasonable expectation of a safe passage around Cape Chelyuskin. Sad though, but now at least I know more about how the process works. Huge thanks to Vladimir in St Petersburg for being our guide through the maze and for relaying messages.

So, fallback option #1: Berri is transformed and we think we will sail to south west Ireland - Baltimore perhaps - for a beer next week to give her a bit of a thrash to make sure everything works and then back to Falmouth to take everything off the boat except sails and work our way up to the Solent for the Fastnet start on August 9th. And back here again after that and perhaps South Georgia and Capetown. Plus ca change...

Another possible option might be to leave Berri here until next year, apply once again for NE passage permit but earlier and leave in June if we get one. To hard a decision at the mo.but probably too expensive for both of us.

Thanks to everyone who has sent us messages via the gust book. Nice to know you're out there.

Falmouth Workboat Intergalactics

2009-06-29T09:47:00.001+01:00

Boats entered from the outer reaches of the Universe - star clusters way beyond the visible - Squornshellus Zeta, the Frogstar, Kakrafoon - boats from everywhere, due to arrive in warp drive freighters riding the background radiation. Sadly, they all ran into the Vogon fleet and they had to listen to 3 days of poetry as penance and missed the start.

So there were 15. Photos of some of them, parked for lunch between races on Friday. I was in Victory, the yellow one in the middle, Pete in Moon, away practising. Some racing images perhaps later.

Now Saturday eve and I think Victory has a very good chance - we have to do something very silly (like, perhaps, starting the last race tomorrow...) to lose it.

Freaky windy calm windy day on Sunday and the mighty Victory emerged as intergalactic champion - perhaps thanks to Prostetnic Jeltz, but nevertheless, the champ. Last couple of pics with the loot on the ferry going home. David Carne (swigging from the can) very kindly gave me the glass trophy as the novice in the crew so Berri has a proper G & T glass...

Sarah's Photos

2009-06-24T19:50:00.001+01:00

Some more makeover pics - thanks Sarah and also for huge paint job.

A bit more research about Russian ice and the bureaucracy is not encouraging. A difficult decision, even if we do get a permit.

A little bit of everything

2009-06-22T09:58:00.001+01:00

The photos - Berri's evolving new persona - grey blue and white decks with some of the old multi layered gunge still visible on the side decks, yet to be stripped and wire brushed off. Woodwork all sanded and oiled. New gearbox installed after a couple of days of pain and contortion. The old one has gone to Southampton to be rebuilt and we'll carry it as a spare. And Pete brought a shiny new Oz red ensign to replace the one that sailed to Melbourne with Pete Goss in Spirit of Mystery so Berri is now appropriately - if not exactly properly - dressed with ensign and courtesy Red Duster given to us in the Falklands by John M-B so it too has just completed a circumnavigation via the NW Passage.

Sea trials at 0530 this morning on a sparkling calm Falmouth morning - cast off the mooring lines shaped to the bollards after about 6 weeks of attachment and shunted her around inside the marina pontoons so we would not lose our ace spot. She goes backwards and forwards and her extra 6 horses certainly seem to make a difference. And back alongside. Sarah T has driven down from London for a couple of days and is in charge of painting the white bits of deck. Two coats by tonight except the cockpit which we'll do tomorrow just before we all depart for Hatherleigh and then the Katadyn man in Weston Super Mare.

Nothing yet from the Russians. We have decided that if we have not heard by the end of this month, we will pull the plug on the NE Passage and look at other options for getting home. The latest that I think we could safely leave for Murmansk is July 20th and that is cutting things very fine indeed. If we get permit with acceptable conditions by June 30 it gives us 3 weeks to get organised and we still do not have visas - no point until the permit arrives - and I don't want to set off unless we are sure that all the boxes are ticked.

So watch this space...

The mighty Tit

2009-06-14T15:15:00.001+01:00

The photo is David Carne and the mighty Tom Tit - 105 years old and rigged like the boat in the background but only 16ft long. Rig almost as tall as Berri's. Lovely boat - we were racing and Dave very generously let me steer while he did all the hard work and tactics and told me what to do. And we were first across the line by a respectable margin but probably did not save our handicap on the others. Dave is a legendary sailor - was out in Sydney in Blizzard for the 1979 Sydney - Hobart (and, I'm happy to say, was a small boats race that year and we beat them in Miko...) and he sailed with Ted Heath on various Morning Clouds after that. Was a steep learning curve yesterday though for this old fart.

The replacement gearbox should arrive from Sydney - once again, huge thanks to Witchard Marine and John W. - and the penance begins. I have also been given an original Hurth gearbox, perhaps 30 years old, but supposedly in working order and probably containing all the original plates and springs - the parts that seem to fail regularly in the newer versions. Very tempted to fit it and see whether it goes...We intend to make some changes to the exhaust system too while the engine is out of the way.

Pete arrives Wednesday and I'm doing the second mega presentation (both voyages) at Flushing SC that evening.

No news yet from Russia.

The taste and the smell...

2009-06-10T21:02:00.001+01:00

Smell - to me the most evocative of the senses, able to lift me from the mundane here and now to the ghostly thrill of experience long past and - at the time - unrecognisably formative. Parked alongside Berri on the pontoons for a couple of days has been a big (big!) three masted lugger from St. Malo with a crew of 8 or so pipe smoking French speaking men and women - the women without pipes but doing yer ordinary Gauloise or whatever passes as such in 2009. They ate on deck - wine, onions, snags and other much more sophisticated fare but the smell! I was instantly beamed back in time to 1961 and the St Malo race from Plymouth in Leopard - we'd sailed across the Minquiers at high tide into St Malo and there I was yesterday, an old geezer in Falmouth in 2009 teleported into the nearly 50 years younger kid just soaking in delight in my first French port. And my olfactory bits replayed Ambre Solaire - it was really hot and still and we went down to the beach under the fortress walls and all the truly gorgeous French girls were greasing themselves with the stuff - a primitive version of SP150 - and the air was honeyed with the perfume and about as viscous. A naive and inexperienced repressed just out of school 19 year old in heaven.

Ambre Solaire still use the same perfume and it inevitably wafts me back to those days of delightful sand in the toes expectation.

The photos just for fun. Sorry none of the lugger - would have been intrusive. Berri just visible on the right of the Chain Locker.

And - glooom - the gearbox we put in with so much sweat and contortion in Dutch Harbour has died. Girding the loins to go through it all again.

Glitch correction

2009-06-06T12:30:00.001+01:00

Here's the proper poster.

second, Falmouth webcam link with the 'l' on the end should work better. http://www.falmouthphotos.com/towercam2.html

2 jetties in the foreground, cold wet and windy. The visitors' pontoons are in the middle distance behind the end of the furthest of the two jetties. Berri just about visible in the middle behind and to the right of the dark bulk of the pilot boat on the pontoons. Chain Locker white building directly to the left of the pontoons. No punters outside today!

More talk sessions?

2009-06-05T13:17:00.001+01:00

If anyone is following this and can't make the Shipwrights talk on Thursday 11th, I will be doing at least one more session at Flushing SC at 1930 on Monday 15th and possibly a second same time Wednesday 17th. If you want to to come to either of these, please contact me on 0781 600 4379

Thanks

My Blunnies died...

2009-06-05T08:31:00.001+01:00

Just before Pete and I set off from Hobart for Cape Horn in 2005, I bought a pair of Blundstone sandals - Blundstones have been making shoes and boots in Hobart since 1870 and were a legend unto themselves - my sandals lived up to the legend but finally karked a few days ago - on the 4th anniversary of their first arrival in Falmouth. Seemed an auspicious day to say goodbye. And, sadly, Blundstones are no more in Hobart - they've gone to China.

Here's a link to one of Paul's Falmouth webcams http://www.falmouthphotos.com/towercam2.htm This one is on top of the Maritime Museum Tower and you can see the Chain Locker, the white building middle distance on the left, and close to it the visitors' pontoons, more or less directly behind the end of the furthest jetty in the foreground with the two big blue superyachts on it. Berri is on the inside of the pontoons behind the orange pilot boat (when it is alongside). Right now the pilot boat is out and we are directly in line with the mast of the left hand superyacht.

The Great Berri Refurbish proceeds. Still working on the deck and don't want to lose my place on the pontoon as it's nicely sheltered so haven't yet been sailing. Some mildly positive but indirect news from Moscow. Things move very slowly.

Wrong poster

2009-05-31T21:46:00.001+01:00

Sorry - don't know how that one got in instead of the finished one. It has typos and wrong venue. Proper one says 1930 June 11th in the Shipwrights Bar at the Chain Locker.

Butterflies don't cut it and other trivia

2009-05-31T21:37:00.001+01:00

Nothing yet from Moscow and the horrors are getting to me - I'm sure people reading this will recognise that rather corrosive feeling of not quite dread but much more than mere butterflies that scours the innards while one waits for a storm or anything that has the makings of gaping way out beyond the comfort zone. Definitely good for the character.

Meantime, Berri is emerging slowly from the winter grime. Still a couple of weeks more stripping the decks before I can feel comfortable with a paint brush. And I have to spend at least a couple of days wrestling with powerpoint cobbling together a new presentation - see the attached poster and, for the Falmouth wise, note the venue. Huge, massive thanks to Paul (www.falmouthphotos.com - have a look!) for doing the poster and staying up most of last night converting all my video clips to work in the new tweaked version of ppoint.

And Patrick gave me back the sails yesterday so at last I can go somewhere - wasn't game to go far with untried engine and no other way of getting home. Early start tomorrow because the big boat inside Berri is leaving at 0500 for the Scillies and then round Britain.

The other picture is Martlet, one of the original Morgan Giles RN College Dartmouth yachts. She has an aluminium mast but otherwise much the same. I sailed my first Fastnet in 1961 in her sister Leopard - also still around, I think on the Hamble.

Banging around on the visitors' pontoons in Falmouth...

2009-05-29T20:41:00.001+01:00

I've been horsewhipped for being recalcitrant, so here's a bit of a blast from the recent past. More very soon.

Pete Goss http://www.petegoss.com/blog.php?m=82766 very generously gave Berri a spot on his blog. I went down to Williamstown to hear his talk and at the end he gave me back the ensign - by then probably the only ensign in this version of the universe that has circumnavigated the world via the North West Passage and the Cape of Good Hope and certainly the only one in two such magnificent boats. Pete was raising money for the Victorian Bushfire Appeal, so we signed the ensign and auctioned it. Numbers are perhaps not important, but Carmen won it for a sgnificant bid and here are the photos.

Thanks Carmen and thanks Pete.

Launch!

2009-05-14T21:10:00.001+01:00

Not quite STS 125 but it has its own significance. Only snag so far seems to be a boken throttle cable - improvised for the trip down to the visitors' jetty with string.

Thanks ti Is'n'G for the photos. I'll try to post some video later.

Progress report

2009-05-09T12:08:00.001+01:00

We launch next Thursday. Pics show Gordon and John hard at work while the old fart shirks with the camera. Also featuring the mighty Nijinsky.

Inside is still just as messy as ever - I have just started lifting some of the heaps to see how bad it really is and it's mostly superficial. What is interesting is that 6 months or so of sitting on her keel has flexed Berri's hull slightly - some drawers don't slide properly and there are little stress marks where some of the woodwork has been glassed on to the hull. And that's on a boat with half an inch of laid glass and resin in the hull - doesn't bear thinking about what happens to some of the other boats around the place.

Just a post..

2009-05-07T05:48:00.000+01:00

Tha papers have gone - more on this later - and we launch probably next Thursday. Rather a lot to do in the meantime! Here's a peek at the ecosystem.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNnteen0Rgc

Alone and palely loitering...

2009-05-05T06:19:00.001+01:00

Falmouth dawn breaking and I'm having a Keats attack...comparisons are invidious and I'm no knight-at-arms, tho perhaps a wretched wight. Just that the palely loitering image fits the mood. Final tweak to the papers today and they will be off into the wilderness with DHL. And I shall loiter while the sedge withers and no birds sing and the might of the Russian bureaucracy (Tourism, Defence, FSB and Northern Sea Route Administration in Murmansk) decides whether all that work was worth the effort. Don't think I've ever felt quite so small and puny. The paperwork is just the first tiny step.

Berri's insides are an interesting collection of spores, moulds, green hairy things, fibreglass dust and piles of heaven knows what. I think about two weeks work inside and another week, perhaps in parallel on the decks then we can launch and see whether the engine will start - the sexy new blue one with green bits from the old and faithful original. Nice to know that other bits of the original were salvaged and are probably by now in use on a Falmouth workboat. Then there's the electrics.

Given the world financial crisis, I'm is serious conservation mode too - no car, but I have a tiny folding bike that gets me from elfin grot to green and hairy ecosystem rather faster than just walking but.. but... as someone normally used to riding real bikes, this one's a bit on the derisory side. 16" wheels, 6 gears, flimsy chainwheel that flexes and drops the chain in 6th - but effective if properly humoured. Needs a name - Nijinsky perhaps, in the present context and with appropriate irony.Fine dining with Tesco half price end-of-the-day specials to keep wolves away and small doses of the Doctor's potion from his surgery in the Chain Locker are the order of the day.

One of my mates is getting his legs organised to run the Edinburgh marathon in a couple of weeks - so perhaps there will be company to run with for a few days. Severely tempted to go run it with him but I think I have learned my lesson on that one - we'll see. He promised me it's almost flat...

Photos this evening. I will try to post some video too if I can work out how to do it.

Of shoes and ships and Apostilles, of ribbons green and seals...

2009-05-02T18:43:00.001+01:00

Monday morning at the Notary - when someone says to you 'We've been here for 40 years and we know what we are doing' but very clearly doesn't, there is the making of early disaster .Sergei, my friendly translator, who knew exactly what was required, was polite, precise and ultimately abused by the front office staff and we left - not without dudgeon - never even getting to speak to the Notary. An astonishing experience.

The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT), on the other hand, our next stop, were competent, efficient, friendly and helpful despite there being only one official dealing with a big queue and complex issues - and several languages. The necessary Apostille was applied and ready by special request at 0830 on Tuesday.

Later on Tuesday morning getting the documents stamped by the Russians became another interesting lesson in perseverance, patience, politeness and persistence. A huge misunderstanding nearly clobbered the whole venture without even the tiniest box ticked - the difference between 'certification' (impossible without paying $40 per page for translating 60 odd pages of what is already translated...) and 'legalisation' - a simple matter of running down the street to the bank to get not insignificant cash to pay the fee and then waiting while the DFAT Apostille was 'legalised' with appropriate stamps and green ribbons. And a delighted and happy smile - which made my day - from the official who first misunderstood but listened and it became possible.

I watched a couple of other Australians - young and arrogantly assertive - pass through the same room and leave, abusive, in anger and frustration because they had not done their homework and expected the officials to do it for them.

The photos show the application - supporting letter in Russian and English, the full English texts and the Russian translations with 5 copies of each - one for me and the rest for Moscow - and some of the seals, the DFAT Apostille and Russian legalising stamps. About 2 month's work and lots of thanks to RORC and everyone else who helped, especially Sergei, who translated with meticulous attention to the precise meaning of the technical bits and Ian here in Okehampton who did the copying this morning with enormous care.

That seems to be the first box ticked. Now to get it all to Moscow and wait. And wait some more. A courageous bet might be even money from here.

Meanwhile, there is Berrimilla's internal ecosystem to be harvested and removed and the rest of the list to be sorted before we can launch.

I'll keep y'all posted.

Alex

The clear call of the curve of high canvas...

2009-04-26T21:57:00.001+01:00

Thanks Cyril!

And a tangled mass of bureaucratic hoops to follow...

I'm off to England on Thursday 30th to start on The List of things to do before we can launch Berri. Then we have to run the new engine and start on The List mark 2. Today is a day of, first, visiting the Notary Public to certify Russian translations of my application for a Northern Sea Route permit, then to the Department of Foreign Affairs to have that certification certified. If all that works, then tomorrow to the Russian Consulate to have the first two certifications certified. If I'm lucky, I will get it all back by lunchtime on Thursday just in time to leap into a taxi to the airport. Then more signatures in London and the whole lot (4 copies of 4 documents in English and Russian, all certified) to the courier to Moscow. Then a 2 month wait, if we are lucky. Pete will be over in June and - if the Russians play ball - Pat Hahn too.

What is the collective noun for a lot of Doctors - Dr Gordon, Dr Cooper, the one from Dublin, even Dr Grumpy? This time there will be one from the Western Isles too - a certain Dr Talisker, with thanks to Pete Goss. A Bar, perhaps? A Saloon? A Barrel? A Vat?

For the time being, if anyone wants to contact us, try my Facebook page and send me a message. There will be a new contact adress on the website soon.

All the best, all y'all

A funeral, an anniversary and other stuff

2009-04-09T07:07:00.000+01:00

David's funeral was the funniest and closest to the man of any that I have ever been to. Hilarious stories, tears, tributes to his wit and sparkling intellect, his shaky courage in the front line against terrorism, his scorn for the pompous and his erratic humanity. I loved him dearly and I wish he'd lived to write the book. Vale, Speedy.

Tomorrow, April 10th Oz time, is an anniversary of some minor significance.

"Hey, see that boat down there? Yeah, that one with the sail, not the power boat. Well, they're on their way to Alaska."

"Blimey".

And the second picture is the basis of the plan to get Berrimilla home later this year. I am trying to get an application together for a permit to sail the Russian Northern Sea Route from Falmouth to the Bering Strait. I think the chances are about even, but the fallback will be down the Atlantic to South Georgia. I understand we need a permit to go there too. More, probably sporadically, as we get closer.

Farewell Speedy

2009-02-25T21:53:00.001Z

David Speed - my wonderful, brilliant, frustrating, always there, unconditional friend - Speedy died a few days ago of a heart attack. He was a man of astonishing depth and complexity and I don't have the words to express my sadness. Leave the Speed Six with Marvin in the car park at Milliways and we'll see you there, David.

The Funeral will take place on Wednesday March 4th at 3.15 at
The Chiltern Crematorium, Whielden Lane, Amersham Bucks HP7 0ND
www.chilternscrem@chiltern.gov.uk

Family flowers only with donations to the R.N.L.I. (Royal
National Lifeboat Institution) via the undertakers:
Arnold Funeral Services
38 Oak End Way,
Gerrards Cross,
Bucks SL9 8BR
Tel: 01753 891892

The Family would like you to join them for a drink afterwards at The White
Hart
Chalfont St Giles to celebrate his life.
The White Hart Inn
Three Households
Chalfont St. Giles
Buckinghamshire
HP8 4LP
www.whitehartstgiles.co.uk
Tel: 01494 872441

T shirts and other stuff

2008-10-16T07:55:00.000+01:00

Berri Northwest Passage 2008 T shirts are now available under 'New Releases' here

http://www.dementedferret.com

They have the Berrimilla kingfisher on the front and Pascal's map on the back.

Thanks Nigel.

I'm in New York for a few days more or less on the way home, to go to the Explorers Club annual dinner with Leroy. I have to pretend I'm Karen - interesting and I wonder what people will think. Then a few more days in Falmouth to try to get the new engine into the boat and back to Sydney. Will be good to be home.

Lots of thank you letters to write and there will be an article in Yachting Monthly (UK) in the January or February issue.

In the car park

2008-10-01T11:15:00.001+01:00

Berri is out of the water and in the park and ride carpark in Falmouth. Big relief to have it all finally sorted. Now I have to disconnect the engine once again so that we can lift it out in the next few days and start tranferring the marinising parts from the old engine to what is now a basic tractor engine sitting on a pallet outside Dave Carne's workshop in Penrhyn. Then, with a bit of luck, off to New York to meet Leroy and clap while he gets a big award from the Explorer's Club and then, if I can pin him down, Pascal to get the chart properly signed off with a DCO and an HMP stamp.

There will be T shirts - Nigel, if youre still on air, could you please put a link on the website or email it to me?

And to all of you who came looking for us over the last few days, I'm really sorry I missed you - I'm here for perhaps another week and my mobile number is (0)7186004379.

The Plan mark 27

2008-09-28T07:54:00.001+01:00

I think I have an arrangement for Berrimilla for the winter in Falmouth. There are some generous people around! I will spend the next couple of days disconnecting the engine and unbolting what I can to transfer to the new one and then leave the boat and Dave and Gordo will work on it as a time filler when things are a bit slack over the next few months. Thanks guys.

I am at my sister's for the weekend and my old friend Don Burfitt, who gave me my first (and one of my most difficult!) Sydney-Hobart ride is here too. Don is the convener of the Global Warming Alliance www.globalwarmingalliance.com and he gave us a superb award 'for services to the planet' - the crystal ball sits in a depression in the base and is so finely made that it floats on the trapped air and can be tilted and rotated. Lovely, but very difficult to photograph! Thanks Don.

For those in withdrawal

2008-09-26T08:49:00.001+01:00

If any of you want something to keep the addiction going, perhaps I could recommend this
http://www.petegoss.com/mystery/

Pete will be carrying Berrimilla's rather battered Australian ensign to use as a courtesy flag when they get to Oz - and he's collecting for a charity. Not sure how to donate but I'm sure it's not too hard. Over to all y'all.

There will be more form me in the next few days as well, as things get sorted.