Mini 6.50 update

Mad Spaniel, one of the Lymington to Plymouth via the Wolf contenders is currently still trying to get to the Wolf Rock lighthouse - and at 1.7 knots things are moving pretty slowly for the Kiwi, Geff Duniam. It's bad enough for the Kiwi to discover that in the UK at this time of year the sun is hardly a source of heat! No doubt Roger aboard the inshore trawler Imogen II,  who is only a short distance away, will have spotted the tiny yacht after checking the blip on his radar against the AIS readout, small yachts were notoriously difficult to spot and identification nigh on impossible - what a difference AIS has made at sea, to the safety of all concerned.


Two other 6.50 contenders are just SW of the Mad Spaniel, unfortunately they are both now on the home run to Plymouth so sighting them running in the opposite direction will provide little for the crazy dog boys to cheer about!


Local sailmaker Woody from Solosails will be willing the boat on - they are sporting one of his sails!

Big tide, busy market

Plenty of marine art is on display at the Tolcarne Inn.......

some areas of the fish market had a distinctly blue aura to them this morning, something to do with temperature control.......

on goes a topping ice as the last of the Cornishman's fish is set out for auction......

no ifs and buts, just big bass from the Butts........

a couple of unlucky ones, the last of this year's cuttles

end-to-end with beam trawl fish this morning......

along with a handful of inshore trawl fish.......

high water on a big tide......

and someone must have put a good word in for the weather given how bad the forecast was for the week.........

time for all those jobs 'down below' to be done on the netter, Silver dawn.......

this solid looking aluminium Breton yacht - well, with a name like Gwen ar Dhu (Black and White) - suggests she's owned by a serious ocean traveller rather than someone who nips out of the marina for a spot of day-sailing.........

back to the same home again, local residents atop the net loft keep their clutch warm for this year's fresh batch of s**** hawks........

all set for the summer gold as signs of the mackerel are about at last.......

a fresh hanging at Helen Feiler's Gallery opposite the market......

in contrast.........

young Roger Nowell heads out to sea with the Imogen II......

and begins his first tow heading east.

Lymington to Plymouth via the Wolf - Mini 650 update

 After all the mini yachts made it safely round the Isle of Wight overnight they headed for Swanage Bay and hugged the shore in the early hours of Monday morning......

 a coupe of hours later and the tightly bunched fleet, apart from Mad Dog who seems to be taking some very creative tacks at times, have left Portland Bill way behind......

by 10pm on Sunday evening the wind, gusting up to 35 knots has spread the fleet, and the unfortunate Mad Dog has been forced in to Plymouth with repairs big enough to put her out of contention - Jake will be gutted as he was up near the front before running into problems.......

coincidentally, a bigger fleet of similar yachts were racing from the French port of La Trnité to Plymouth, chances are that with the visibility being poor none of the boats sighted one another despite their paths crossing!

Dolly update......

The headstone erected to commemorate Dolly Pentreath, last known speaker  of Cornish, lived and died in Mousehole.

This is an extract from my book A History of Cornwall (p. 76)

"The final demise of Cornish in the 18th century was rapid. By 1735 two local scholars, Gwavas and Tonkin, could find only a few speakers in the small fishing villages and coved between Penzance and Land's End, and it was in one of these,Mousehole,lived Dolly Pentreathy.......she died in 177 but nine years before her death she was visited by the antiquary Daines Barrington who noticed that there were still other folk in the village who understood her,but could not speak the language readily. Dolly's place in the history book was confirmed in 1860 when a bilingual tombstone in Paul churchyard was erected to her memory by Prince Louis Lucien Bonaparte, a descendant of Napoleon and a keen antiquary.

A year before Dolly's death a  sixty'five year old Mousehole fisherman called William Bodener wrote to Daines Barrington saying "there is not more than four or five in our town can talk Cornish now old people four-score years old . Cornish is all forgot with young people".

Information courtesy of Ian Soulsby

Lowena Mor

PZ 47

Classe Mini 6.50 race from Lymington to Plymouth today - Mad Dogs and other Englishmen......

The aerial view of Lymington where competitors for the Lymington to Plymouth via the Wolf Rock Lighthouse race are assembled - courtesy of YellowBrick who have an app for your phone that will provide livetracking of the event!

The boats make their way to the start line at 1512.

Local Sailmaker Andrew Wood (who provides one of the Through the Gaps web cams) - himself also Minitransat competitor - is a co-sponsor of the event with Geoff Duniam carrying a Solo Sail aboard his boat Mad Spaniel - the second of two Mad Dog competitors!


Follow on Twitter here: https://twitter.com/search?q=%23solent650

Check out the Lymington Yacht Club web cam for local weather conditions here:

A pleasant day for a stroll.

 If you've lost a buff........

 blue is the colour......

 one well-worn slip......

 and a great source of nitrates for the garden waiting to be collected.........

though that bank of clouds looks ominous

 but where are we?..........

for a change, the beachgoers are dressed for the occasion..............

 the old ship's daughter passes a famous rock that doesn't.......

 the boulders run way down to the back garden of this house.......

 not partisan then.......

 memorial to the first skateboarder in Cornwall.......

 Cap'n Nudd is on his way in,,,,,,,

 what's in a name.......

just wondering who she used to speak to and why she was pals with little Louis?

S.O.S. - Men from Mousehole man Penlee Lifeboat - a film from the 1930s

Original Description:


The Work of the Lifeboats 'Britain's lifeboatmen must be ready at all times to put to sea to help sailors in distress. At a lifeboat station in Cornwall fishermen are ready to man the lifeboat and go to the aid of any ship in distress however rough the sea. From time to time an inspector from the headquarters of Britain's voluntary lifeboat organization , the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, carries out a rigid inspection and test of the boat. A fault in the propellor is remedied in time for the men to put out to sea in response to an SOS from a ship in difficulties.' (Films of Britain - British Council Film Department Catalogue - 1941) 


Trivia: This film is set in Mousehole in Cornwall. 

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If you intend to visit the old Penlee Lifeboat house it is easy to drive past, as it is set below the road level.

The ships in the harbour at Mousehole all carry the registration mark ‘PZ’, for nearby Penzance. The main character in this film, Bill Blewitt, was a genuine Cornish fisherman and postman. After a chance encounter with director Harry Watt, he starred in GPO documentary The Saving of Bill Blewitt (1937), and would go on to have roles in a handful of feature films such as Nine Men (1943). He also appears in the British Council Film Trinity House.


Fil archive courtesy of the British Council Fil Archive.