Bradda's Blog

First of the Year (again)

2012-01-29T11:29:00.001Z

This time it’s the first rant of the year.

As I indicated in my previous entry I’ve just got back from my first trip away. The rant concerns a certain large regional airline and a certain large airport located in the northern half of England. I’ve refrained from identifying the airline and airport, because I am at heart a coward and don’t want the either the airline or the airport sending the leg breakers round. But if you are interested, here are a couple of clues - the airline operates services to both the Isle of Man and Nantes, and the airport is, as mentioned, in the north of England, has two runways and three terminals.

Just for once, I was booked all the way home with the same airline, which should have made things easy, and on the whole it was. Except when it came to the change at the intermediate airport on the way back, when both the airline and airport managed to irritate me more than a little.

The flight up from Nantes was excellent, with good views most of the way up - passed just to the west of Gatwick and over Heathrow on the way up, as well as getting a good view of the shipping lanes in the Channel. Just a sad old nerd, me.

Anyway, to the point. When we landed, I followed the flight transfer signs, and ended up in a room with a few seats and a notice telling me to ring for a transfer bus. This I did, and after five minutes or so (although it seemed much longer), a bus arrived and we went on our merry way round the airport. I eventually arrived at the transfer desk, which was unmanned. A chap from security strolled up and asked if I had a boarding pass. I didn't as it happens because the girl in Nantes who checked me in told me I would get one at the transfer desk on arrival.

So, now I had an unmanned transfer desk and no boarding pass. The security chap showed me a sign from the airline which stated that I should phone for assistance. So I did, but nobody answered. I rang again, and again no reply. I rang for a third time and this time they had taken the phone off the hook. Charming. Explaining this to the security chap, he waved me through and saying that I could get a boarding pass from the customer service desk in the departure lounge. So off I toddle to the departure lounge. Naturally, although I got a bus ride to the transfer desk I had to walk back to the departure lounge. Sadistic buggers.

I finally arrive at the customer services desk and speak to one of the gormless girls sat behind it, and I am charmingly shown a notice (the same notice as at the transfer desk, by the way) telling me that I will have to ring the airline. Sigh.

Anyway, this time I do get through and the customer service droid at the other end of the line checks a few details, and promises me that I will get the boarding card when I turn up at the gate. And in fairness, that is indeed what happened.

So two whinges here -

1. The non-existent assistance from the airline. What would have happened if I didn’t speak English? How would I have coped if I was elderly or otherwise needed assistance? Customer service? I don’t think so.

2. The crap airport layout. Why bus me from one place to another and then make me walk back to the exact place I left? I know this because I was familiar with the airport, and when I arrived back at the departure terminal I could see the bloody plane I had just flown in on. If you’re going to bus people around the airport, then you should bloody well bus them back. Again, what would have happened if I had been infirm, and couldn’t make the walk? I am sure it made perfect sense at the meeting with the management consultants when they were working out how to save money, but it is a crappy way to treat your customers. Trudging from one end of an airport to the other is no one’s idea of fun.

Pathetic. Both of them. Bloody pathetic.

First of the Year

2012-01-28T12:10:00.001Z

I didn’t actually get a lot of ship photography done last year – only 20 photos in the 2011 album – so hopefully this year will be a little better.

Having said that, my first trip away (which was to visit a ship in Montoir) resulted in precisely one photo, and here it is:

From Ships - 2012

Still, it’s a start.

Some Postcards

2012-01-21T16:11:00.001Z

Moving on from the Costa Concordia…….

For Christmas, I received (amongst other things) a small collection of old postcards with a nautical theme. Slightly unusual, I’ll grant you, but they turned out to be a little treasure trove. Here are some of them…….

HMS Dreadnought

From Ship Postcards

The first of the modern battleships.

RMS Balmoral Castle

From Ship Postcards

The ‘Balmoral Castle’ was built in 1910 for Union Castle and was scrapped in 1939.

RMS Warwick Castle

From Ship Postcards

Built in 1930 the ‘Warwick Castle’ was sunk in 1942.

RMS Kenilworth Castle

From Ship Postcards

Built in 1904 the ‘Kenilworth Castle’ was scrapped in 1936.

SM UC-5

From Ship Postcards

Perhaps the most interesting card. According to Wikipedia, the UC 5 was commissioned in to the German Imperial Navy in June 1915 as a minelayer submarine and was captured after running aground off the Essex coast in April 1916. In her short career she apparently managed to sink some 29 ships. After her capture she was displayed in New York as well as in the Thames.

Costa Concordia again

2012-01-17T20:19:00.001Z

Sorry to keep banging about this subject, especially after a long gap since my last posts, but I think this is an important event. An event that could have a profound effect on our industry.

I would like to quote a letter to the Daily Telegraph from John Lang, a former Chief Inspector of Marine Accidents. It sums up my position much more eloquently and succinctly than I could:

“..it seems to me that the concept of a marine accident has been overtaken by the need to find criminal behaviour. The weakness in this approach is that the desire to find fault with those most closely involved, usually the officer of the watch and the master, takes precedence over a more in-depth search for the underlying reasons.
While I have no doubt that many shortcomings on the bridge of the Costa Concordia will be found, a far more fruitful line of inquiry is likely to be into the way such ships are designed, managed, manned, regulated and run. No accident is the result of a single thing going wrong, and I suspect this view will be borne out by a full investigation.
The way to prevent such accidents is by identifying the underlying reasons, not putting handcuffs on the poor individual who happened to be on watch at the time.”

The assaults on Captain Schettino are relentless, even if he does seem to be making it easy for his detractors. He may have done everything they say he did and be everything they say he is, but that is something, surely, for the inquiry and court. It is reprehensible for anyone to have released that recording to the press. Under arrest in a prison cell, the man cannot possibly defend himself.

Still, he has made things very difficult for himself and for people like me who want to give him the benefit of the doubt and see him get a fare shake. If one tenth of what has been reported is true he is in deep, deep trouble. As, to be honest, is the shipping line, the cruise industry and the shipping industry in general. This accident has opened up a big, big can of worms.

Thrown to the wolves

2012-01-16T19:32:00.001Z

So, the employers of the captain of the Costa Concordia has decided that he was at fault. Well, they obviously know something no one else does. Either that, or they are desperately trying to distance themselves from the disaster.

Either way, it is a despicable thing to do.

He has now been arrested by the authorities and now disowned by his employers. Terrific.

And the talking heads continue to spout nonsense. Nobody knows what went wrong, how it went wrong or why it went wrong, but it doesn’t stop everybody jumping to conclusions and coming up with answers.

Costa Concordia

2012-01-15T10:24:00.001Z

I haven’t posted here for while, but the grounding of the Costa Concordia is a very good reason for breaking the drought.

On the evening of Friday January 13 the Costa Concordia ran aground and sank off the coast of Italy. Sadly, at the time of writing, it was reported that three people had died in the incident. This follows on from the grounding of the MSC Poesia in the Bahamas.

Two superficially similar incidents (cruise ships running aground) so close together is undoubtedly a statistical blip and unless evidence is found to the contrary, I don’t think anything should be read into that. There are hundreds of cruise ships in operation today and most of them operate without a hitch.

Whilst it would be fun to speculate on the causes of the incidents and happily point out things that apparently went wrong, it would be pointless. So I won’t be getting into the details of the incidents, simply because we don’t know any of the details.

All that we do know for the moment is that there is a grounded passenger ship lying on its side a couple of hundred metres off a small Italian island, that three people were killed and forty or more are still missing. Anything else is rumour and speculation.

However, these incidents do flag up a few matters which do concern me.

First off is the media’s typically hysterical reaction to the Costa Concordia incident. A lack of facts and a lack of any knowledge of the subject does not stop the media going wildly overboard on the subject.

Now it maybe that Costa and the Italian authorities were handling the media quite well, but that was not the impression given by the BBC this morning. If there were any press briefings then they were not covered by the BBC.

So the BBC were interviewing crewmembers and passengers – no body from the company or the authorities. Now, again it may be that there were no English speakers available and I am doing them a disservice, but it doesn’t look good. It just led to wild speculation.

The Sunday papers were full of page after page of speculation, with the usual talking heads roped in to give ‘expert’ commentary. That’s something I suppose, but it is all the wildest speculation at the moment. And some of these experts should have known better.

The other, more important, matter is that of the evacuation of a large passenger ship. Now, despite the reports of panic and the difficulties of launching some of the boats, the fact remains that all but a small minority of people were safely evacuated using the ship’s boats and rafts. The problem is not the equipment, it is the practicality of getting four thousand people off a stricken ship in good time. By all accounts it took nearly six hours to get the majority off and well over 24 hours later there are still people missing.

Then there is the question what do you do with the people when they are in the water. The Costa Concordia came to rest close to land, indeed close to a port, and the passengers and crew only had to travel three or four hundred metres to land. Indeed, there are reports of people jumping and swimming for it (not a clever idea, to be honest). However, if the ship had had to be abandoned in the middle of the Pacific, it would have been a completely different matter – the ship would have sunk and there would have been four thousand people in small boats hundreds of miles from help. Not a good thing.

Finally, there is the inevitable arrest of the Master and Officer of the Watch. Now, I know that a ship lying on its side, exposing a 50m gash in the hull, could be seen as being pretty damning evidence, but at the moment we have no idea of what, where, when, why and how. So arresting these men is nothing but a typical knee jerk reaction on the part of the authorities. Hopefully they will be quickly released, but I don’t see that happening. Just another reason I am glad I’m not working at sea any more. Guilty until proven innocent seems to be the rule for the poor bloody sailor. Don’t get me wrong – if the investigations do find evidence of negligence or incompetence then they should have the book thrown at them. However, as ever, there seems to be a rush to judgement.

iOS 5

2011-10-15T12:02:00.001+01:00

Updated the iPad to iOS 5 on Thursday night. There have been a number of horror stories about people having all sorts of difficulties, so I was a little bit apprehensive. However, I needn't have been as it all went without a hitch.

It took quite a while, mind you. However, I just let the iPad and the PC to get on with it. The upgrading seemed to involve downloading the new software, backing up the iPad, removing all the old stuff from the iPad, installing iOS 5, then re-installing all the apps and then putting all the music and other files back on. Though not necessarily in that order. So it's not surprising that it took well over an hour.

I am sure that there are lots of tweaks and changes that I haven't noticed, but for me the standout items so far are:

- iCloud. Love the automatic backup facility. Don't have to worry backing up at all now.
- Reminders. Fantastic little addition. Loved the way it automatically added my To Do stuff from Outlook.
- Tabbed browsing in Safari.

As for the down sides - well, I can't say that I've found any yet. If I was being really picky, I would say that I preferred the earlier Music interface, but that's about it.

We’ve got a number of Apple products in the house, and we’ve all been impressed with them. It'll be another year or so before we'll be looking for a new computer, but when we do an Apple machine will be definitely be on the list of possibles, despite the high prices.

Drunken Stupidity

2011-09-25T21:18:00.001+01:00

The MAIB has released its report on the grounding of the K-Wave off Malaga earlier this year. I strongly recommend it as it is as classic a tale of chronic stupidity as you are likely to find.
After departure from port, the officers of the K-Wave decided to hold an impromptu party on the bridge to celebrate the 3rd Mate’s birthday. They started at midnight and the fun lasted until around 2am when the 2nd Mate told them to get to bed so he could get on with his watch. A little while later, the ship made a large alteration of course and headed towards the shore and ran aground some time after 5am.
The Chief Officer came onto the bridge a little after 6am to find it deserted, the ship aground and the engine still at full ahead. He called the Master to the bridge.
When the Coastguard eventually managed to contact the vessel, the Master denied that they were aground – they were at anchor. However, he eventually admitted his dilemma. And it went on from there.
The officers and crew then lied their heads off. Getting drunk and running the ship aground (and nobody has worked out exactly why that happened – nobody admitted to altering the course around 120 degrees) was stupid. Lying about it afterwards was extremely stupid as the Voyage Data Recorder captured everything, including the party.
Naturally enough, they all lost their jobs, but otherwise they got away with it. They were not breathalysed after the event, so it other than the evidence of the VDR it could not be proved that they were drunk, so they escaped censure. This is probably because, despite running aground at full speed, the vessel did not sustain any damage (which I find amazing), so there was no oil spill and no oil on the beaches near Malaga. If there had been, I am sure they would be in jail. They should not have been allowed to get away with this classic, crass piece of negligence just because there was no damage.

Great Names

2011-09-20T19:08:00.001+01:00

At the moment I’m reading 'Britannia's Realm’ the second volume of Richard Woodman’s ‘A History of the British Merchant Navy’, which covers the years 1763 to 1815, and a great read it is.

However, that’s not the reason for the post. The reason for the post is a great combination of names in the book. A certain Captain Isaac Duck was master of the Dick. Infantile of me, I’m sure, but it amused me no end. If only he had been named Richard instead of Isaac.

It should, nonetheless be noted that Captain Duck was a brave and noble man. When his ship was attacked by a French corvette he successfully held the enemy vessel off, before attacking in his turn despite his vessel being badly damaged. He commended his Mate, a Mr Hugh Morris, and was awarded with 200 guineas for his action.

All of which proves, once again, that you don’t have to make these things up. It’s all there in the records of the period.

The Container

2011-09-19T19:41:00.001+01:00

The Register has an interesting little article on the container marking the passing of Kent Tantlinger, the man who developed the twistlock, the device that allowed containers to be stacked and locked together. A very, very important piece of technology. It was this little bit of technology that really allowed use of the container to expand and change the way the commercial world worked. It is, essentially, what allowed the transfer of manufacturing from the UK to China and other developing nations. It reduced the cost of shipping both raw materials and finished goods to such a point that physical distance became irrelevant.

For those that might be interested in reading further:-

The Box: How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger

and

Box Boats: How Container Ships Changed the World

I haven’t read these myself, but have added them to Mount Toberead.

Piracy Again

2011-09-13T20:07:00.001+01:00

I’ve blogged about the problem of piracy a couple of times (here and here) in the past and will doubtless do so again in the future, and it is deeply unfortunate that this subject will not be going away anytime soon. Whilst the problem of piracy has not gone away (indeed it seems growing), it does not often feature in the media. For example, on Monday Practical Boat Owner carried the report of a French yachtsman being killed by pirates in the Gulf of Aden. Once I read the report there, I did a quick search on the BBC News and Daily Telegraph sites but could not find it mentioned on either site.

There are, as ever, two unfortunate aspects to this story. The first, of course, is the fact that the piracy remains rife. The second is the location of the yacht. What was it doing in the Gulf of Aden?

My opinion has not changed. Yachts simply should not be in the area. They have no effective ways of either defending themselves or evading attack. It is simply irresponsible for anyone to take a yacht into the area. The death of Mr. Christian Colombo is a tragedy but it need not have happened. He and his yacht did not have to be there.

An even bigger tragedy is that this is not going to be the last attack, it is not going to be the last murder. Both merchant ships and yachts will continue to be attacked; probably for years to come.

The Weather

2011-09-12T19:06:00.001+01:00

As the weather has been, shall we say, interesting, over the last couple of days, I thought I would tap out a few words on the subject. Well, not the weather itself, but people's perception of the weather and the different views people have on it, depending on their personal circumstances. It’s a cliché to say that the British are interested in the weather and will discuss it at any and every opportunity. But I have found that different people will be interested in different bits of it.

When I was at sea, and now when I am planning to take the boat our, the most important aspect of the weather for me is the wind, both its direction and strength. For the seafarer, even the modern seafarer sat in his air-conditioned wheelhouse driving a tens or hundreds of thousand tonnes of ship and cargo as much as the yottie in a small boat, the wind is paramount. Other aspects of the weather - rain, cloud cover, air temperature, humidity are secondary.

It's not that these are unimportant as they will have some say in the daily working of the ship or boat - you can't paint in the rain and hot and humid conditions can make life uncomfortable. But it is the wind that governs everything as the wind dictates the sea state, and it is not even always the wind in the immediate vicinity that can affect the vessel. There might be no wind where the ship is, but a storm hundreds of miles away can result in an uncomfortable swell. The wind in the immediate area of the ship of course can make for a nice comfortable day or a day of misery. The direction is important as well. Going with the wind, even on a large cargo ship, is a completely different experience when compared with going to windward.

Blowing old boots in Peel

If you’re not at sea the wind is probably not of much interest, unless it’s blowing old boots, which it’s done today. What’s probably of most interest to most people is rain. There are not many of us who enjoy being out in the rain. It does affect what people will be doing that day - a good dose of rain is not of use to cricketers, for a start. Snow, does not generally present ships with much of a problem, but can have tremendous effect on life ashore. Here on the Isle of Man we don’t often get snow, and when we are on the receiving end of a heavy snowfall things pretty much grind to a halt. The ferry might be able to get in and out of Douglas, but the snow might prevent people getting to and from the port.

Temperature affects us all of course, but unless it is very cold and there is a risk of icing, it is not of great interest to the seafarer. They will continue to work in both the hottest and coldest of conditions. Modern ships have good accommodation and once off the deck. the average seafarer is protected from the extremes of temperature – heating in cold weather, air-conditioning in hot weather.

The weather affects us all, but some more than others. Now that I work in an office, I’m not much interested in the weather, apart from when I’m planning to take the boat out, so I don’t tend to pay much attention. If I do, it’s only to look out of the window to see if it’s raining or not.

Incidentally, what does a Met Office Amber Warning mean anyway? Well, until a couple of minutes ago I didn’t really have much of clue – however after a quick google, I now know: amber means ‘Be Prepared’. No, not doesn’t mean much to me either. Sounds good though – amber warning.

Dylan Winter takes the slug up the River Nene

2011-09-10T12:32:00.001+01:00

Having had a rather frustrating summer with mechanical problems on the slug, Dylan has at last got some sailing in, taking the slug, his 19’ Mirror Offshore, up the River Nene. As I write he is still editing and posting the videos to Keep Turning Left, but the first few are up and available.

This was a wonderful idea – taking a sail boat right up one of the English rivers and sailing rather than motoring as much as possible. In order to do this, Dylan altered the rig a little in order to make it easier to get the mast up and down as this would have to be done a lot. Most of us, I am sure, would have simply taken the mast down and left it down, rather than faff around raising and lowering it a dozen or so times a day, so kudos to Dylan for making the effort. And as the first couple of videos show, it was well worth the effort – ghosting up the river under sail with no engine noises means that you can hear everything and the wildlife is not as spooked by your presence. It looked like a fabulous few days cruising.

You can watch the videos on the website in a basic format, or down load them in all their glory if you subscribe, and I would urge you to do so - it’s well worth it.

History of the Merchant Navy Vol. I: Neptune’s Trident: Spices and Slaves 1500-1807 – Review

2011-09-09T19:19:00.001+01:00

Originally published in 2008, this is the first in a series on the British Merchant Navy, written by Richard Woodman, the author of the Nathaniel Drinkwater series of novels.

Although there are many, many books on individual merchant ships (the Titanic springs to mind here) and shipping companies and other aspects of maritime history, there is no recent coherent history of the Merchant Navy, telling the story of Britain's merchant ships and the men who manned them. This is a sad lack given the importance of the Merchant Navy to the history of Great Britain. In his introduction Woodman puts forward the proposition that trade, and the merchant marine were the original building blocks of the British Empire.

".. trade did not inevitably follow the flag, it was almost always the other way round. In fact the British Royal Navy has usurped the credit of a second, but not secondary, maritime asset possessed and nurtured by the British: that is to say its once vast mercantile marine."

This series of five books should sit on the shelf next to N.A.M Rodger's two volume (hopefully three volume, eventually) history of the Royal Navy.

Whilst there have been merchant ships owned and operated by inhabitants of the British Isles since before the Roman occupation, Woodman starts his history during the Tudor era and the beginnings of the British Empire. This volume takes the history up to 1807 and includes the early history of the East India Company, the Atlantic trade, piracy and the general problems of the near constant conflict of the period - there were few periods without war between nations somewhere. Merchant ships were generally heavily armed and were well able to defend themselves. Indeed, many merchant ships (operating as privateers) were defacto warships. The fact that they were doing it for profit as well as patriotic reasons was merely a bonus.

The book details how the trade routes slowly developed, how the voyages were funded and tells the story of the men who sailed them. As the title of the book hints, the trades in spices and slaves played an important part in the history of the Merchant Navy and Woodman does not shy away from the slave trade, which is covered in some depth. However, it isn’t particularly a book for those interested in the technical details of the vessels as this is a history book rather than a treatise on ship design.

A detailed and interesting book. However, I do have one word of caution - although Woodman is probably best known as a novelist, this is a densely written book and not a ripping yarn. You have to pay attention. Also, a little more proof reading wouldn’t have gone amiss.

Nelson’s Navy: Back from the Dead - Review

2011-09-07T21:36:00.001+01:00

Nelson’s Navy: Back from the Dead (Channel 4, Sunday 4th September) was an interesting, if at times graphic look at the fate of some of Nelson’s sailors. Although the experts only had the bones to go on, they managed to glean an awful lot of information about the men concerned. Whilst there was no direct proof that the men met their fate as the program showed, there was no reason to suppose that the program makers got it wrong - the man with multiple fractures probably did fall from the rigging and the boy did die from an infection following the amputation of a leg.

Some of the dramatic reconstructions lacked a little something, but only when compared to films such as Master and Commander, but other than that it was an interesting look at the subject and worth a look and it should be available on 4OD if you didn’t catch it when it was originally broadcast.

Finally, it was good to see that the remains were treated with respect and were re-buried with military honours once the scientific work had been completed. These were brave men, and it is just a shame that it was not possible to put a name to any of them.

Cannon Fire and Splinters

2011-09-06T17:52:00.001+01:00

I found this video, which vividly shows the devastating effect of solid shot on a wooden hull, courtesy of the Age of Sail blog. Doesn’t do the crew ‘protected’ by the hull much good either.

Scary, really scary.

The End of the Sailing Season?

2011-09-05T21:01:00.001+01:00

I haven’t mentioned the boat recently, but that is only because not a lot has happened on board over the last couple of weeks. There is a distinct end of summer feel to things at the moment. I might get our on the boat again before the end of the month, but given the weather we’ve had recently that is not likely.

As I write the first gale of autumn is heading our way. I went out to Peel, where the tub lives, after work today to check on her moorings. I got a couple more ropes out of the locker and rigged some extra lines, just to make sure. She lies alongside the quay and has a small sports fishing boat moored alongside, so she might take a little extra weight if the ropes aren’t balanced correctly. The inner harbour in Peel is very sheltered, and she’ll be fine, but you can never have too many mooring ropes.

This photo shows the tub alongside a fishing boat in Peel back in June. She’s in the same place, but on the inside with different boat on the outside. Space is at something of a premium in Peel at the moment as the harbour has silted up and even with the water retention scheme and the flap gate there is only a couple of feet of water (or much less) at the upper end of the harbour. Alinda draws just over 2 feet and is almost aground once the water in the harbour falls to the level of the top of the flap gate. Hopefully they’ll be getting a digger in this winter.

Anyway, at the moment, I’m deciding on what work to get done this winter. I want to take the boat further afield next year, and that will determine what gets done this winter. If things go to plan, the tub will be out of the water for six months, which will (in theory) give me plenty of time to get it all done.

The Disappearing Bookshop

2011-09-04T19:34:00.001+01:00

The Daily Telegraph has an article on the effect supermarkets and on-line bookstores are having on independent, high street bookshops. It is not a beneficial one - according to the article nearly 2000 bookshops have closed since 2005,leaving only 2,178 on the high street - drop of nearly 50%. A quite alarming drop, if the Telegraph’s figures are correct.

Whilst this is undoubtedly sad, it is not the catastrophe the doom mongers say it is. They conflate the threat to public libraries and the closure of bookshops to come up with the dire warning that certain areas will become 'book deserts'. I will leave aside the argument about public libraries for the moment to concentrate on the bookshops.

The problem for the independent bookshops is not that people are not buying books any more, but that they have large competitors, especially on-line with Amazon being the best example. I buy as many books as I ever used to, but rarely from a bricks and mortar bookshop. I get them on the internet for two reasons - the choice is so much larger and I can buy the book I want and more often than not it is cheaper than buying it on the high street. Sadly, the smaller independent book shop simply cannot compete with the range of books or prices available on line.

I am not so sure of the case against the supermarkets. Whilst it is true that the supermarkets do sell deeply discounted books, they also (in my experience anyway) have a very limited choice. I would argue that whilst everyone goes to supermarkets, they do not specifically go book hunting in supermarkets. If you are after one of the twenty or so titles available, then you will probably put a copy in the trolley with the groceries, but otherwise there is nothing there for you. At least a bookshop will order a book for you if they don’t have it stock – I very much doubt whether a supermarket would offer that service.

In this, as in so many things, I am a hypocrite. Whilst I mourn the passing of the local bookshop, I do nothing to prevent it. Indeed I play an active part in their demise. There is a small bookshop in the town where I live, but it must be nearly ten years since I darkened their door. I first abandoned them for the large national chain store bookshop less than 10 miles away and now I only ever visit that store to browse (and occasionally, very occasionally, pick up a 3 for 2 deal) or buy an expensive coffee. However, if Amazon can deliver what I want within a day or so of ordering for less than the price charged locally, then why should I pay more just to keep a local businessman or a particular corporation in business.

If you want to buy a book there is generally only one edition available (hardback or paperback), so there is no difference in the quality of the product available from each retailer and it therefore makes sense to go for the cheapest. People will pay more for better quality books (here I mean the paper and covers, not the content), just as they will for a car (Ford or BMW) or hi-fi (Tesco's own brand or B&O), but not for a plain paperback copy of a novel available from any number of outlets. This is the problem for local bookshops (and the chains, come to that). Price can relate to quality, but not in a commodity such as a paperback book.

Books will still be produced and sold, and people will always read them. What is changing is how the book gets from the author to the reader, and there will be winners and losers in this. One or two winners and many, many losers perhaps, but it is difficult to see what can be done to change this. What the bookshops and publishers would like, I am sure, is some sort of price fixing system, rather like the old net book agreement, but then you and me, the customers, would be the ones to suffer. We would be forced to pay higher prices in order to subsidise privately owned businesses.

It wouldn’t work anyway. It might suit the publishers, but it probably wouldn’t help the bookshops. Those of us who have switched to the on-line stores would continue to use them because of the convenience and range of books available. After all, they can’t force us into the shops.

Clearly local shops cannot compete on price, so they must do something else to stay in business. Our local bookshop manages to survive (despite my lack of custom) by, if memory serves, concentrating on local subjects, offering great service, and selling other goods such as artist's materials. Waterstones are now ringing the changes as well. There will be less piling 'em high and selling 'em cheap (the 3 for 2 deals are going) and more concentrating on the needs of the customers. That is what is going to keep the local bookshops alive - looking after the customer. Change like this is difficult, and doubtless many more will close, but others will open and a new balance will form.

The internet is changing many things and book selling is just one of them and it will be interesting to see how things work out.

New Authors

2011-09-04T18:36:00.000+01:00

I had thought of expanding Bradda to cover all nautical fiction, but that would have meant adding hundreds more authors and would have taken an absolute age to do, and in any event I keep finding new authors writing nautical fiction set between 1740 and 1815.

I’ll admit that these are fairly arbitrary dates, but they do allow me to keep the database down to a reasonable size. However, never say never, and once I’m sure I’ve found as many authors covering the current period as I can, I’ll probably look at adding another period or genre to the database.

Anyway, to the point. I’ve recently added the following authors:

Doubtless there are more out there I still haven’t found yet. If you know of any, please do let me know.

Nelson's Navy: Back form the Dead

2011-09-03T10:43:00.001+01:00

If you're in the UK, Channel 4 will be showing a documentary entitled 'Nelson's Navy: Back from the Dead' on Sunday 4th September. Six skeletons from naval graveyards gave been forensically analysed. Those examined include a sailor who had fallen from the rigging, fracturing every bone in his body, a boy who died following the amputation of a leg and a sailor whose bones showed signs of tertiary syphilis.

Rather ghoulish, but should be interesting and the Times review promises that nothing is left to the imagination.

Sailing the Tub

2011-08-30T20:25:00.001+01:00

I had taken some time off work to go sailing recently and hoped in particular to sail round the Island. Now this is a simple task that shouldn’t take more than twenty-four hours, maximum. However, I decided to take my time and take a few days over it and this proved to be my downfall. The weather round here is, to put it kindly, changeable - even at the height of summer and I didn’t get my three or four straight days of fine weather with the wind having the right strength and direction.

So instead, it was a series of day sails from Peel. Great fun they were too, but it wasn’t really the same. Still, I did learn a lot about the tub. With the newly cleaned bottom, an engine that works properly, reefing gear on the main, etc, etc, the tub is now a reasonable thing to sail, although she does need a bit of wind to get her moving properly.

As well as taking her out with family members, I took her out on my own on a couple of occasions, including one long 10 hour session and these little trips have proven that the tub can easily be single handed. The only thing she really does need is some form of automatic steering. I do have a tiller pilot, but I’ve got to sort out the boat’s electrics before I can see if it works, which is just one of the many jobs still on the to-do list.

As I mentioned in an earlier blog, I felt it was important to get the tub back in the water and to take her out a couple of times this season as there is still a lot of work to be done and it would have probably have been more sensible to keep her out of the water and finish all the work. The intention is now to take her out of the water in October and work on her over the winter, and to put her back in the water in the spring of 2012. Hopefully with all the work done.

Coast Guard cuts

2011-08-27T11:13:00.001+01:00

The UK government has seen some sense and has reprieved some Coast Guard stations. However, some are still for the chop and there does not seem any sense to the list.

Those on the hit list include Thames, Clyde, Forth and Liverpool. Closing these stations will leave large stretches of coastline with no effective cover. Clyde covers a vast area with miles and miles of coastline, as for closing Thames, that leaves another of Britain's busiest rivers with no dedicated cover. Doubtless it will be argued that Dover will cover the Thames, but Dover should surely be dedicated to the Dover Straits area - one of the busiest waterways in the world. They are also proposing to close Yarmouth, which will leave only three stations - Dover, Humber and Aberdeen for the entire east coast of England AND Scotland. There is no way they can cover that length of coastline effectively with only three stations, especially as one will be busy dealing with the Dover Straits. I appreciate that there will be money spent on the remaining stations, with a larger staff and new eqiuipment, but even so, they will not be able to offer effective cover.

Liverpool Coast Guard is the station looking after the Isle of Man area, so I have a vested interest (especially as they helped me out of a spot of bother last year), and it could be argued that the Irish Sea can easily be covered by both Belfast and Holyhead. However, the Irish Sea is a large and fairly busy place with a large number of merchant ships steaming through the area every day, as well as those visiting Liverpool and the Mersey, not to mention the hundreds of yachts and dozens of fishing vessels sailing and working in the area together with all the vessels working in and servicing the gas fields and wind farms. Removing one third of the Coast Guard stations will not help the safety coverage of the Irish Sea.

The Coast Guard, together with the search and rescue helicopters and the RNLI will do a grand job and will, doubtless, cope with the changes, but there is no doubt in my mind that these closures will make the job harder than it needs to be, and people may be put at risk as no one, no matter how good, can have sufficient detailed knowledge of these huge chunks of coastline and sea areas.

The worry is that if these cuts go through, then in a few years they will come back for another go. And they will keep on doing it until the system cannot cope and there is some form of disaster. Then there will be an enquiry and then the safety coverage will be put back in place at vast expense. More expense than if they had left the cover in place in the first place.

I appreciate that the UK government has huge problems with money and debt and the need to scale back government spending, but as with the disposal of the Coast Guard tugs, these closures are a mistake, pure and simple.

More Photos

2011-08-26T13:12:00.000+01:00

I was out on the boat all day yesterday and managed to get a few more photos of the Manx coastline. Not too high quality, as the weather wasn't really co-operating and taking decent photos whilst single handing a small boat without an autopilot is harder than you might imagine. Anyway, the photos can be seen here:

Manx Coast

Incidentally, this has been an all Google effort - the photos were edited in Picasa, geotagged with Google Earth, uploaded into Picasa Web Albums, this entry was written in Blogger (Google) using the Google Chrome web browser. Now whether this is a good thing or not is a discussion for another time, but for the moment I think this is all quite impressive. Of course, these aren't the only tools with plenty of photo websites, blogging tools, photo editing tools and more than one web browser available, but Google's offers do work well, and the price (in money terms) can't be beaten.

New Photos

2011-08-19T16:32:00.001+01:00

The camera has, sadly, spent much of the year in its bag on the back seat of the car and has had just a couple of outings in the last month or so.

From Manx Coast

Peel Castle from the sea

From Aircraft - 2011

I would like to think that the quality of these photos makes up for the lack of quantity, but I’m probably fooling myself.

The Tub

2011-08-14T22:26:00.001+01:00

Back in early April I was starting to get the boat ready for the season and noticed a small, a very small, leak in one of the loo skin fittings. Now, it was probably perfectly OK, but I decided that the boat would have to come out of the water and get it sorted out. So a couple of days later, out she came. And I was very glad that she did. The photo shows her in the worst possible light. She had not been out of the water for at least three years, probably longer, and the anti-fouling had long since gone, hence the grubby bottom.

Then there was the fender scuff marks on the hull. Unfortunately, someone had (many years ago) painted the hull, and the photo clearly shows why you shouldn't do this. Especially when you change the colour from blue to white. Now it is possible to take all the paint off and repair or replace the gelcoat, but that would cost a lot more than the boat is worth, so was not a realistic option. Therefore the only option was to repaint her and I took the opportunity to do some other work as well.

These photos show the progress:

She was out of the water for a couple of months, and this was the result:

We also finally got round to renaming her – she is Fasitaint no more, but is now Alinda. Why Alinda? Well, it as the name of my first ship and the Sonata I owned many years ago. Shell Tankers named their vessels after species of molluscs, and alinda biplicata is (according to Wikipedia at least) a species of air-breathing land snail, a terrestrial pulmonate gastropod mollusc in the family Clausiliidae. There is also an ancient city in Anatolia named Alinda which dates from the second millennia BC. So, a reasonable name for a boat – certainly better than some of the stupid names that some people inflict on their boats.

In addition to the painting (and yacht paint is rather more expensive than a tin of magnolia from B&Q), various other work was done - swapping the outboard bracket, fixing the rudder (I found, after taking it off, that it was held together by the power of prayer), removing the navigation lights (which were just in the way, but they will have to be replaced sometime), filling various holes, getting the pulpit and pushpit repaired and painted (the pulpit is particularly rotten and will have to be replaced in the next year or so), getting the outboard serviced, and a number of other little jobs. I also got the local sail maker to put some reef points on the mainsail and I put some reefing gear on the boom. All told it came to some six-hundred pounds, which isn't bad considering, but was a bit of a stretch when there was absolutely no money put aside for a refit. I had hoped to sail her (grubby as she was) this season and then get the work done over the winter.

There is still an awful lot to do, but as ever money is the problem, and I thought the important thing to do was to get her back in the water, so we could at least take her out a few times this season. It would have been easy to keep her out of the water and work on her, but I would much rather do some sailing. I am not one of those persons who prefer working on the boat to sailing her. So far we've been out a couple of times this season (not as often as I would have liked, but that’s always the way). On the second time, there was a reasonable amount of wind, and the new reefing system I had put on was put to the test. An excellent day’s sail. And nothing broke or fell off, which was nice.