Down to the sea in slips.

On slips perhaps…….or at least on slipways.

Pathfinder project post – looking at launching ramps in the south west.

Blog time : it’s June 2023 and while the boat fitting out has completely stalled due to the sails still not being here we have taken a major step forward in that we’ve taken the boat and trailer out from here once and towed it out on the open road. We haven’t done the whole money shot yet – the launch – because we only have a set of oars so far and there’s been a brisk easterly wind blowing here and I think I would struggle to get the Pathfinder any significant distance upwind.

The first 2 driving and towing problems are right here in that it’s difficult with the length of the rig to get the whole thing out of our drive onto the common access drive and then very tight getting down through the village and around the first 3 blind corners…..even more so when the usual suspects are parked both sides and onto both pavements down at the village surgery. Driving can be a bit special round here shall we just say. Following even our first time out on the road I know I need extension mirrors because an ‘Audiot’ chanced it right out of our long blind spot and I think as well that we should invest in a dash-cam.

It’s even funnier when a pair of ‘special’ drivers (Audi’s and BMW’s) meet because neither of them can or will reverse – there’s even a single track bridge on the main road between Tavistock and Callington where we get stand off’s because one or other won’t back up a few yards and give way, I swear that there’s even a local version of the highway code which basically means ‘anything that doesn’t inconvenience me’ even when the other car, pedestrian, cyclist or horse clearly has right of way – add to that a distinct alcohol, recreational drugs and sheer stupidity problem and driving a boat and trailer around Cornwall lanes gets a bit strange at times.

Another bit of negative reporting from this end is that we have decided to cancel part of a planned and booked camping trip because we can’t now deal with the boat at the far end : my cunning plan was to have been to extend a camping trip in Norfolk by taking the boat with us and having a week messing around in the creeks and rivers between Burnham Deepdale, Wells on Sea, Morston and Blakeney. My clever plan needed the cooperation of the harbour-master at Wells allowing us to use the harbour commissioners compound to park the trailer and boat there and then launching off the concrete slipway at the south end of the harbour. The answer was basically a no and the only oter alternatives that I know of are the steep slip and muddy foreshore at Blakeney and the ‘soft’ slipway at Morston Quay.

I don’t know for sure but I think that the combination of a normal car and relatively small (4 inch section) wheels on the trailer might have too much ground resistance and dig in on a soft surface. One lesson from all of that is that this winter I might have to change the conventional 4 inch road wheels to wider (6 inch) so-called balloon tyres to be able to deal with soft surface slipways.

Also – it would have been an uncomfortably long drive for inexperienced boat trailer drivers like us so maybe what we will do is have our away trip, come back here and then go west with the boat and trailer where even the furthest slipways I know are ‘hard’ ones and much nearer to home. As much as I wanted to sail in that area I guess that it’s going to have to wait until I get there under sail.

Wells on Sea……cancelled !

In this post i’m going to pretend that we’ve made it out of the village with the boat still on it’s trailer and still attached to the car, aren’t face to face with an Audi and at a point where we’re going to try and find somewhere convenient to launch the boat and hopefully even park the car and trailer. Right now iv’e even got a check list of everything we need to carry and everything we need to do before we even leave the driveway ; part of the checklist is to definitely not go out on the road when the mummies who drive (but can neither park nor reverse) are taking their precious children to school. That might seem like a joke but it really isn’t and one aspect of our plan for driving to a slipway is to take into account the timing of the various schools, GP surgeries, bin trucks and suchlike.

Just for fun lets go and take a look at the local slips – Firstly Calstock which is the nearest to us.

It says Calstock on the back of my boat so I guess that that’s my home port, it is, kind-of because it’s the nearest place that used to be an established port but the reason it’s there is more to do with the symmetry of the name on the transom. The village of Calstock does have a public slipway and it’s the nearest one to where we live but it’s highly unlikely that we will ever launch the boat there because the access is so difficult and so is the slip itself.

Calstock is in a deep and steep sided valley , the Tamar of course and in fact that’s the point where the railway viaduct leaps across the valley and it’s clearance looks to be about a hundred feet, actually it’s 120 feet so there you go. It’s a pretty spot and I don’t know how many times I have photographed it or filmed it in different lighting conditions and even got some footage of the local train clattering across towards Bere Alston.

For a little bit of local trivia the viaduct is the longest viaduct in the UK to be built of concrete blocks as it has a span of 800 feet except sadly it doesn’t have a footway. At one time there was a system of raising and lowering ore carts from the railway to the quay as the port was at that time a part of the local Tin and Arsenic industry…..the river bed is said to be still loaded with Arsenic…..which is nice !. It’s a very pretty spot and if you like that kind of thing a nice ride on the train into Plymouth.

The first problem with Calstock is access, it’s both a narrow and steep access road to get down to the village, then two tight turns to get around the back of the pub and then what looks like almost no space to reverse the trailer onto the edge of the slip. The slip itself is short and steep which means that it has a steep pitch or slope and a raised lip – even a local mate who is good at this kind of thing says that it’s a difficult slip to use and really needs a tongue extension. We’re going to have one anyway as it’s already made but what that means is needing even more space for the trailer, the car and the extended draw bar. The final problem is that every time I have been down there, and I used to walk down there often, is that a local driver (BMW of course) seems to regard the access onto the slip as being his personal parking space.

Last time I was there a local working boat also seems to consider the slipway to be his personal mooring as well…..normal for Cornwall is my best guess !

Before anyone comments…..yes, I know there is a technically better slipway just down the lane at the boatyard but the access is even more difficult in that just getting a car down there requires the driver to mount the pavement and squeeze between parked cars and a high granite wall. Secondly I am banned from the yard anyway…….

So anyway, lets not burn the clutch out – instead we’re going downriver to the yard that was my home for a while and where I know there is a very good slip with a dock at the end. This was at one time the Royal Navy’s ‘timber pond’ and is now the site of a commercial boatyard – Huggins marine. I have a bit of personal history with the yard in that it’s where I completed the refit of my Frances 26 before heading off to Brittany on my first solo offshore voyage. It’s also the yard where owner (Shaun) rescued and lifted the Frances when it tried to sink on it’s winter mooring.

Huggins yard regards it’s mud berths as a marina but it’s not like the posh marinas on the other side of the river (Mayflower, QAB and Mountbatten), I once heard them described as being a bit Howards Way and Huggins as being more Eastenders. Whatever….brothers Shaun and Trev were always very fair with me mainly, I think, because I paid my bills on time and was polite to them.

Huggins yard is looking like a good option for driving because once we’ve wiggled our way out of this end’s problems it’s then fifteen miles or so of mostly A roads except for a couple of tight turns onto Carbeile Wharf and iv’e seen long transporters get in and out there so even while being completely incompetent with the trailer I should just about be able to do it. It would also mean that we could drive down there, launch the boat and hopefully put it in a mud berth and then turn around and bring the trailer straight home which then avoids the problems of parking it that end and keeping it secure.

My Frances 26 at Huggins yard : that’s quality mud let me tell you.

The other side of the river.

According to my blogger friend Steve Parke (Arwen’s meanderings) the better slipways are on the other side of Plymouth- one being at Queen Ann’es Battery (QAB) and the other over on the far side of the Plym at Mountbatten. Another friend tells me that the slip at QAB is officially a public slipway because it was gifted to the people of Plymouth after it was built by the US forces who used it as part of the preparations for D day. QAB is a bit of a wiggle through the city for us but once again they regularly have HGV size boat transporters in and out, the downside is that every time iv’e been to QAB recently there hasn’t been any parking available but that might change in the summer when they’re not resurfacing their yard and more of their stored boats are in the water.

Both are apparently ‘easy’ slips with good access , gentle slope and kept clear of mud and weed ; both would seem to also give us the option of leaving the boat alongside a pontoon while we get the trailer home and then even better have access to the Marine Bazaar (chandlery) for bits and pieces.

Having not done the money shot at time of writing I have no idea what my slipway reversing will be like ; my best mate in NZ says to get a wireless reversing camera – something i’d never heard of and to get the whole thing lined up straight first before backing down the slip. On the road I found rearward visibility quite bad as mostly all I could see was boat but funnily enough that might improve with the extension bar on as it gives us an extra 2.5 meters between car and trailer.