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Fantasy cruising grounds

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Michael Rogers:
Graham, I was frankly startled to see the N Devon coast on your ‘wish list’,  because from my own experience of and interest in it (and excluding the Taw/Torridge estuary, including Bideford, Appledore and Instow, which is quite different), it would be difficult to imagine a less hospitable - to the small boat sailor - stretch of coastline! 'Beetling cliffs by the surging main', high cliffs or tumbling promontories above savagely rocky foreshores forming miles of potential lee shore hazards, rolling swells generated by prevailing westerlies across miles of open sea, very few harbours or havens, occasional bays with some sand at high or low tide but not both, huge tides (12+ metres), rips and overfalls off headlands... I could go on! Imagine  the Cardigan coastline without the refuge of the Teifi estuary and much more savage where land meets sea.

There is some small boat sailing at Ilfracombe and Watersmouth: I don’t think they go far. To the East there is Lynmouth - tiny harbour with a few lobster-fishing boats, and a handful of dayboats (on precarious, drying out moorings) which almost never seem to go sailing.  To the West, don’t go anywhere near the leeshore hazards of Woolacombe, Croyde,Braunton Sands. Across Bideford Bay is Clovelly - a 1 in 3 street down to a rocky foreshore. Further West is Hartland, a graveyard for shipping for centuries, Bude - a bit of intrepid sailing there nowadays? Not until you get to Padstow and the Camel estuary does recreational sailing flourish - because it can.

The DCA do go occasionally to Lundy Island. The weather, tides etc have to be exactly right. There is no Lundy harbour as such, just a jetty where it often isn’t possible to land. I think it is regarded as a sort of scaled down version of sailing a Wayfarer to Norway. Just consider that the former working sailing boats of this area - the Bristol Channel pilot cutters - were among the toughest and most seaworthy (and most beautiful) of all UK coastal craft, because they had to be. Not recreational sailing, that.

My credentials for these comments are having grown up through my teens near Lynmouth. I was mad about boats, but sailing just wasn’t feasible on that most beautiful of coasts - we went to Poole to sail! I did do a bit of kayaking, which was a crazy thing to do there (back to that blissful ignorance of danger thing): the local fishermen, when they came across me, almost begged me to take my cockleshell (as they regarded it) ashore and stay there. I was a kid, and they seemed to feel a sense of responsibility, lifeboats (at Ilfracombe and Minehead) being miles away!

So I recommend that N Devon comes OFF your (or anyone else’s) cruising ground list, because it really isn’t one.

Graham W:
Perhaps Watermouth wasn't such a good idea. I used to spend my childhood summers there and we would go out fishing in a 12' dinghy with spluttering Seagull outboard. Being childhood, I only remember flat calm summer days, neap tides and buckets full of Mackerel.

Michael Rogers:
Fair enough! Sorry to be negative, but I think a procession of  BRs, BCs and BREs heading for those waters would not prove rewarding.

It's funny what one remembers. In your first bit you mentioned paddle steamers They plied up and down the N Devon coast and across to S Wales, taking passengers on and off by boat at Lynmouth if it was calm enough (which it often wasn't). They had lovely triple expansion steam engines, and on a calm day (there were a few of those) you could hear the chomping noise the paddles made long before they hove into sight around a headland. They left a very wide white wake of water churned up behind the huge paddle boxes either side.

The other memory I have is of the last very few of the coasting schooners and ketches plying their trade. In the 1950s they had sadly mutilated rigs, and more often than not they chugged along under diesel power. I think a few have been preserved/restored.

When on land-based holiday there, it remains a feature of that coast which, once you are aware of it, is  quite striking - how very few sails one sees on that wide expanse of (usually) grey-green water. Sad really, but it does reflect what an un-sailing-friendly stretch of coast it is.

Rob Johnstone:
I agree with Micheal's comments about the N Devon coast - having sailed past it (once) in Vagabonds trip round Britain I remember large (2m) rollers over taking us and pushing us on our way and strong tide streams round the various pointy bits. However, once we had found the entrance to Ilfracombe, the place was charming and the people in the yacht club very hospitable. We were fortunate - the following two days were moderate SW breezes and the enormous tides were favourable so we were able to anchor overnight in the bay the the east of Lundy and strike out for Milford Haven early next morning. Without those two factors we would have been off to Cardiff and then the long slog along the S Wales coast.

So not for cruising.

I see that the Western Isles don't get a mention. The area around Skye is delightful and I would have thought it would be possible to organise a raid from (say) Gairloch (the northern one) south down through the narrows, round Ardnamurchan point and through the Sound of Mull to Oban. It would involved some nifty driving and ferry/ minibus work but should be able to be made to work.

In fact it was a bunch of Drascombe coasters that were charging about in this area six or so years ago that sowed the seeds for Vagabond round Britain.

Alternatively, you could start from Balvicar, go north through the Sound of Mull and round the outside of Mull, taking in Fingals Cave and Iona and back to Balvicar (tides permitting) through the Corryvechan (there is an alternative route). You'd need a weather window of about a week - reasonably OK in June or early September.........

Graham W:

--- Quote from: Michael Rogers on 21 Jul 2015, 16:20 ---It's funny what one remembers. In your first bit you mentioned paddle steamers They plied up and down the N Devon coast and across to S Wales, taking passengers on and off by boat at Lynmouth if it was calm enough (which it often wasn't). They had lovely triple expansion steam engines, and on a calm day (there were a few of those) you could hear the chomping noise the paddles made long before they hove into sight around a headland. They left a very wide white wake of water churned up behind the huge paddle boxes either side.

The other memory I have is of the last very few of the coasting schooners and ketches plying their trade. In the 1950s they had sadly mutilated rigs, and more often than not they chugged along under diesel power. I think a few have been preserved/restored.

--- End quote ---

Attached a postcard of paddle steamers at Ilfracombe and a couple of old photographs of the Watermouth Harbour area, between Ilfracombe and Combe Martin.  If you look carefully at the latter, you can see some old sailing boats actually sailing.  I think all of these photos are from at least a hundred years ago, slightly before my time.

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