May 2002

EDITOR'S NOTES The club's sailing members have been busy this month in the yard. Last weekend with very high tides a bevy of boats went into the water. Some boats have gone to moorings in Wales. One unfortunate occurrence was when Nirvana came off her moorings and went ashore. By great good fortune she missed all obstacles as she sailed up river and came to rest on sand. It took two days, two tractors and some hard work to get her back unscathed. Last weekend several boats were boarded in the yard and one was broken into and electrical equipment was stolen. In addition the lock was cut off a dinghy and the dinghy was taken down to the water where it was abandoned. It seems that the absence of a bung prevented it from being used. Please take care to lock all equipment securely and to put your bung in your pocket.
I have been reading some old newsletters from around 1958/1965. It was interesting to read that some of the problems were the same as now eg. Please remove your drums from moorings. However things seemed to be very different in that there was a very active social life with events every fortnight at some stages. There were also games in the bar like bar skittles available at a charge of sixpence (old money) a game. The members did most of the work in the club like fitting a basin in the changing room. It is odd to think that what we busily undo in the name of improvements were themselves the great improvements of their day. Most of the boats were dinghies although there were some bigger boats. The Altmouth Cup race was a big feature at that time and afterwards there was a buffet and a dance in the clubhouse for all participants. It made me wonder how the entrants managed to summon up the energy for all that after the race. One amusing item was that for the sum of two shillings and sixpence Mike Finney had obtained a licence from the police to pack the starting gun for the dinghy races.
On the whole I had to ask myself " Are we much less social beings than thirty years ago?"

It would not be practical to report every word uttered during the General Committee meetings but here is a brief resume of the most salient points of the May meeting.

THE GENERAL COMMITTEE MEETING. The meeting got off to a prompt start and the Commodore was in the chair. Apologies for absence were from Trevor Roberts. Bill Woods and David Rowles.

The Commodore told the committee that he had attended several events . There was a Regatta Conference and he has been in touch with some one about the Mersey River Festival. Peter and Doreen also attended a service in the Anglican Cathedral to commemorate the Battle of the Atlantic. This was followed by a Cocktail Party, which was held on Eaglet. The host was Cedric Loughran.
Peter was still worried by the poor attendance at the spring working party. There are still many jobs to be done in and around the clubhouse and in a later discussion it was decided that those people who failed to attend might receive a telephone call asking them to do specific jobs.

The Vice Commodore gave a report from the sailing committee. The sailing committee has noted the comments about the new slip and the effects it has on dinghies. These will be considered after a few weeks as more people use it and a decision will then be taken. Alan Roe held a small working party to bridge the gap between the old and the new. This works successfully.
The General Committee agreed that the following moorings should be allocated. J Seagraves will use S7 and J Leggert will have S11.
The dinghy slip by the yard is proving very successful. It is proposed that some kind of strong point with a block at the top will be provided to assist with launching and pulling out of dinghies.
The electric winch in the yard will have a lock fitted. The following four people will hold keys Bill Woods. Peter Williams, Ted McGregor and John Heyworth. Stress was laid on the fact that those people who use the winch should have three years experience of using the winch not membership. The best way to get this is to help at launches, to watch how it is done and to ask what you need to know.
The sailing committee had discussed the use of Emergency Moorings and a proposal was made that a charge of £10 per week for use of an emergency mooring for more than six days except in cases of genuine emergency between November and March inclusive. The General Committee agreed this proposal. Both moorings are now usable thanks to work done on the second one done by Tom Carragher and C.Briscoe. A vote of thanks was offered to both of them. There was at this time the discussion about security in the yards. It is really up to members to lock up their property and all members are asked to be alert to any odd happenings. There are two messages for members from the Club Captain.

THE ALBERT DOCK VISIT 15 TH JUNE

All boat owners who are planning to visit the Albert Dock please note that you MUST have completed the necessary form before you arrive or you will NOT be admitted. Forms and other information are available from me. A. Roe.

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THE CONWAY CRUISE AND RANZO RACE TO PUFFIN ISLAND 22 TH JUNE

The sailing committee are keen to promote cruising especially for those who would prefer to sail in company until their confidence in pilotage, chartwork etc has been established.
Therefore an informal meeting for interested boat owners will be held in the clubhouse on 24th MAY at 20.00 hours. The Club Captain will hold a briefing regarding both of the above events. If you are keen to race or just amble to North Wales, this is an ideal chance to hone your skills, so Come on, let's make it a weekend to remember. A Roe.

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THE REAR COMMODORE told the meeting that there had been some difficulty when erecting the beacon. It is now done, but needs to be straightened. The hanging sign for it has been prepared and etched thanks to Paul Wren and is now being painted.
For the JUBILEE CELEBRATION 3RD JUNE the evening will be run in a similar way to Bonfire Night. There will be a Barbeque and in addition there will be music from 8 until 12 oclock. Provided by The Matthew Street Ragtime Band. The evening celebration will be the responsibility of the club and the daytime (children's entertainment) in the hands of the Parish Council. It is hoped that the weather will be fine and warm. The beacon will be lit after H.M.the Queen has lit the first one round about 10.0pm.
In the bar there is an urgent need for a joiner to help to put up the second shutter. Until this is done the refurbishment of the bar cannot continue. Will anybody who has carpentry skills please come forward and help. More than one person would make the work lighter. Please contact David Wilcox or David Warren if you can help with this.
The end wall has been repaired and rendered by David Warren and Theo Smith. Many thanks to them both,

THE HON SECRETARY Mark told the meeting that Shelagh Warren had agreed to decorate a window in St Stephen's Church on behalf of B.S.C. This is for Hightown Flower Show. Mark also has received notice of live firing on the Rifle Range and a notice from Tranmere. You will find all his notices on the board as usual.
The B.S.C.200 hundred Club Draw is just waiting for a notification from Giro Bank and then it can be started.
Mark also told the committee that Theo Smith has made a Tombola Machine for the club use. This will be most useful, as we have always had to borrow one for the RNLI Day./

THE HON MEMBERSHIP SECRETARY Stan has some spare diaries this year. They will be on sale behind the bar at a cost of £1.00 each if anybody wants one.

THE CLUB DEVELOPMENT OFFICER Carl had attended a talk at the Royal Mersey Yacht Club about the proposed wind-farm development. It seems to have been the same talk, which was presented at Blundellsands, which Carl missed and there seemed to be nothing new. Carl however had reservations about how the club members would be affected. And described the development as being between a rock and a hard place x thirty.
Carl leaves us for Rosslare next Saturday and on 2nd June will join the Yachting Monthly Portugal Cruise. He does not know when he will return. We wish him Good Luck.

THE SOCIAL COMMITTEE Doreen sent her report in which she said that the small number of people who turned up for the last social event had a good evening. Both the food and the music were good and a small profit was made. Doreen suggested that in the coming year social events should be held at times to avoid the sailing season.
The committee will provide the food for the barbeque for the Jubilee Celebrations and after that there will be a need to sort out the RNLI Day.

The next meeting will be 11th June.

THE CLUB FLEET 50 YEARS AGO

Before I continue with this account from Mark Miller I must apologise to you all and to Mark for changing the design of one of the boats he described in last month's newsletter. Unfortunately I put windows in STYX when none existed. Whatever could I have been thinking about? I am sorry. Pat.

CLWYD was the other 'Rivers' class boat. She was owned then by Ken Colley. He was a partner in a business on the banks of the Leeds and Liverpool Canal near its entry to the dock system. She spent the war years hauled out in a field at Hall Road but was eventually moved to Ken's works in Bootle, repaired and fitted with a small cabin top.
She was launched into the canal, towed by man-power down to the Stanley Dock where they stepped the mast and then sailed out into the Mersey with one crew member still aloft reeving off the peak halyard. That was the start of a cruise to the Menai Straits with four adults aboard and towing a 10 ft dinghy.
A week later they left the straits for the return passage, meaning to enter the Alt on the Sunday evening tide. They were late, having to beat all the way and were coming into the entrance on the Monday morning when one crewmember fell overboard. Luckily I believe he was able to grab the dinghy and hang on until he was hauled back aboard Clwyd in the calmer waters of the river.

Another boat I remember was JEAN, owned by Jack Hyde. She was originally a ship's lifeboat. Jack was a really skilled craftsman. He bought the hull which had come off a Norwegian ship and so was a better shape than usual and made an excellent job of the conversion.
Converted lifeboats were very common in those days. The hulls were cheap to buy and many were rapidly converted into 'yachts' with built up topsides of floorboards from bombed buildings and fitted with old car engines, some still with the original gearbox and clutch pedal!
JEAN was not one of those. Jack fitted hardwood floors to strengthen the hull for sailing, a sensibly converted car engine with efficient cooling and an attractively shaped cabin top. Rigged as a gaff cutter and with a centreboard she performed quite adequately under sail.
Eventually after Jack was married and started a family he sold Jean to a Mr Abbott, a scrap metal dealer. He became a keen member of the club and presented a cup to the club. Is it still among our regalia?

(Ed. Yes we still present the Abbott Cup and we also have a Colley Cup)

WHITE SQUALL, then owned by Jim Wyse has been mentioned previously in my recollections. It was aboard her that I made my first ever coastal passage, from Bangor to the Alt back in 1946. She was a canoe-sterned yawl of about 5 tons TM, built by Crossfields of Arnside in 1903. Pre-war she had based at West Kirby and have been told that to this day a half model of her is still displayed in the Mersey Canoe Club on Hilbre Island.

There was FRIVOL, a real period piece. Designed by M.T.Reade,a member of the original Blundellsands Sailing Club, she had been built by A Latta of Hoylake in 1896. Although her centre plate had been removed she still retained the original low cabin top with an elliptical curve to the fo'rad end. She was maybe 21 ft on the waterline and with a straight stem about the same on deck. Her owner, one Eric Behn, fitted a new cabin top of conventional shape. While this provided much needed headroom below it did rather spoil her appearance. Eric Behn retired to the Isle of Man and took Frivol with him. She was sold and I believe her new owner lost her on a rocky shore near Laxey.

CHEERFUL was another interesting boat. Clinker planked with very bluff bows and a short counter stern. "Cods head and Mackerel stern" is the old time description of her shape. I do not know anything of her origins. Possibly John Tiere, who owned her then may have some idea. Rigged as a gaff cutter with quite a long bowsprit she sailed much better than her shape suggested.

MAUREEN, later renamed ALTANA, was different from other boats on the Alt in those days in that she was neither an out-classed racer, an old fishing boat or a converted lifeboat but was built as a yacht. She appeared from somewhere on the Ribble, possibly Hesketh Bank and was owned by a gentleman from Southport.
Around 25ft overall she drew 3ft 6in, about the upper limit for the Alt even then. Bermudan rigged with a short bowsprit but I forget if she had one heads'l or two. She was not underway very often, due possibly to the worrying draught and a dubious engine. Joe Coady went for a cruise in her one summer and no doubt remembers her well.
Years later I was in St Aubin Harbour in Jersey and recognised Altana sitting on legs on the beach.

LADY IDA was another conversion, not of a ship's lifeboat or an old nobby but of an open motor launch. A previous owner decked her in, added a cabin top and rigged her as a gaff cutter. There was little of her under the water so her performance under sail to windward was not inspiring. Bill Parr, who did some of the early extension to the clubhouse, owned her.
She was often kept on a mooring up in Hightown opposite the laying up ground. I have happy memories of a gang of us leaving the clubhouse late on Friday evenings, having tried hard to drink the bar dry, taking any convenient dinghy up on the flood and spending the night crashed out aboard Lady Ida.
I believe she broke adrift from a mooring off the club and became a total loss on the beach.

My own boat was the ISLANDER, an 18ft sharpie. She had been built in 1930 by a club member, Bert Parry. Later someone installed a Stuart Turner engine and based her at Rock Ferry. Brian Pearson who was Commodore of the B S C in the early 1950's brought her back to the Alt and I bought her when he acquired THE SCOT. (see part 1)
I was in the army at the time serving in an R A S C motorboat company based at Menai Bridge. After an attempt to sail the Islander from the Alt to the Straits on Boxing Day 1949, which nearly resulted in her loss, I had her moved down by rail.
After a year based at Beaumaris I brought her back to the Alt. The engine proved both unreliable and unnecessary so was removed and over a couple more seasons we explored local waters including a voyage to the Isle of Man. I eventually sold her to a new owner who based her up in the River Weaver.

At the start of this account I mentioned a total of ten cabin boats but seem to have remembered a dozen. There may have been one or two which I have forgotten but I hope that the details above give an idea of the B S C cabin boat fleet of fifty years ago. All built of wood. With hardly a reliable engine between them they regularly entered and left the Alt under sail. Some even did it at night!!

Mark Miller. 2/02

Very many thanks to Mark for taking the time and trouble to write this for us. Maybe it will provide a few talking points in the bar.

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