Contents

News

• The year so far 
• Summer programme 
• People news 
• Financial news 
• The Ken Miles bursary fund
• Eagles Wings 
• The Bucket
• Membership restructuring under way
• New evaluation forms a success
• And finally, looking ahead

Features

• Reflections On The Banana Cruise
• Of Fog And Sandbanks
• A Non-skippers Skippers' Weekend
• Quarterly Prayer Diary

The year so far

Despite some very interesting weather, Morning Star has had a successful start to the season. Here are some brief news items from some of the activities:

• Mates training: Strong, bitter north east winds kept us confined to the Medway and Thames throughout, but it was a novel and worthwhile experience for most to sail to central London, mooring overnight just below Tower Bridge. In between, Mike Ling gave us plenty to think about from the Beatitudes.
• Denstone College: Chris Wren and his hardy crew ventured beyond the Medway despite continuing freezing weather. Their biggest challenge came as they beat wetly to windward through the night between Boulogne and Dunkirk in sub zero temperatures. They finished the week well satisfied, though they were not sure they would want to repeat some of it!
• Skippers weekend: The annual one and only chance for our skippers to meet up and learn from each other. Friday evening saw Tim working through a marathon briefing session, with every single current Morning Star skipper present.
• St Johns, Long Eaton: Another week from which the crew returned happy with the physical and spiritual progress made under Mike Ling's leadership. Mike, and Chris Wren, are giving us more than their fair share of time this year - thanks to both.
• Tall Ships training long weekend: With the weather still far from warm, Tim sailed with Tall Ships crew members through Friday night to the Deben (after discovering, at midnight, that the fresh water at the Queenborough All Tide Landing runs extremely slowly and does not taste nice). It was too cold for the customary barbecue at the Rocks, but we had a happy Saturday evening on board, leaving again on Sunday and reaching Stangate creek at 2am. The trip was long enough to discover that we have a marvellous group of people sailing with us on the Tall Ships series in the Baltic.

• June 22: Morning Star leaves Chatham for a two week cruise out to the Tall Ships start port of Rostock, on the German Baltic coast. Steve Morgan skippers this long cruise, and plans to get through the Kiel canal, then spend time in the Danish islands.
• July 7: Tall Ships crew joins, with Tim and Andy Rankin, for the long race to St Petersburg (look at a map if you want to see just how long! After our first ever visit to Russia, we cruise with the rest of the fleet through the endless islands of the south Finnish coast to Turku. Here part of the crew, including the leadership changes, and Chris Wren with Anna Stickland take over for the race to Copenhagen. After that port visit the crew bring the ship as far as Amsterdam before leaving.
• August 19: The Dutch Delivery cruise explores the Ijsselmeer before returning home to Chatham. Mike Ling skippers this special week, on which there are still a few vacancies.
• August 27: The activity specially planned for Duke of Edinburgh gold award candidates looking for a residential qualification was cancelled by KCC in January owing to "lack of interest", but we have now reinstated it owing to heavy demand, caused largely by it not having been removed from listings in the DofE award journal! Please make it known to DofE people in your area. Full details from Jane at the office. Vacancies at present.
• September 6: By this Autumn week the schools are back, so this may be the ideal time for students and those at work to take a break at sea. Mike Ling skippers a week that is most likely to visit French ports. Vacancies at present

Jemma Shaw was a full time volunteer with Morning Star in 1991/2, when she had to cope with some of the worst problems we have known, including spending a whole week stuck in Helgoland with a crew. Despite all that she is now giving us her summer vacation from her University course in Edinburgh. We are short of competent and available first mates, so her help will be more than welcome. It will also be good to have her around again for a while. 

From September we once again have two full time volunteers. They are Abigail Guilford, who we know through Mike Ling's church in Long Eaton, and Brandon Oram. Brandon's father, Martin is an old school friend of Tim's. He is currently chaplain at Denstone College, and was responsible for the group that came on board at Easter. Both Abigail and Brandon are sitting A levels right now, and will be the first school leavers we have had since Andrew Rankin three years ago. Abigail will probably live with Jane, we do not yet know where Brandon will be accommodated. 

Adrian, one time volunteer and staff skipper, has a new full time job working in a children's home in Upnor, near Rochester. Richard Peats is now working full time for Arethusa, while Steve works in a similar set-up to Adrian, but in London. Thus the occupants of 7 York Road have gone from all unsalaried to all salaried in quite a short time. 

The Morning Star Trust is still going through a long period of recovery from the overspending of 1993/4. The recovery programme is on target, and the money given towards funding a new boat should all be back where it belongs by the end of this year. The amount in question is 15,686 including tax recovered on covenanted gifts. There is also nearly 10,000 owing to private individuals, and this will be the next target once the new boat fund is intact. That we can make such good progress is largely due to the policy of only paying salaries out of regular committed giving. Once again we urge our supporters to consider a regular monthly gift under deed of covenant so the salaries fund can be built up. As it stands, Jane's salary is below what it should be, and Tim currently only receives a regular 150 per month from the Trust. 

We are in the final stages of setting up a fund that will receive the surplus funds of the now defunct Kent Sea Training Association (KSTA) to use as a bursary fund enabling Kent young people to sail with us (or possibly with other sail training organisations). There are still some details to be agreed, so we hope to let you know the outcome in the next edition of Revelations. Meanwhile it promises well for the development of links with Kent CC and with young people and youth organisations in the county. 

Our smaller training boat has not had an easy start to the season. A number of fairly serious problems have dogged the best efforts of her team. At last these are mostly overcome. She has a new engine water pump, new throttle control, new stern tube seal and a new water tank. She has been quite busy in the last week or two (including a visit to Brightlingsea and getting stuck at Burnham on Crouch), so she does seem to be getting going at last. Talk to Adrian on (01634) 404182 about the possibilities of using this lovely little seagoing vessel. 

We told you last time about the replacement for the barge boat. It is a 13ft aluminium dory, very angular and ugly. With three months experience we can report that it is an outstanding success, just the job in fact. Its 30HP outboard is extremely reliable and is capable of driving it at a frightening speed. This is rarely used, just planing is quite fast enough, but it does allow Tim to get to Ocean Care, or Upnor, or wherever on the river in a fraction of the time by any other means. It is also highly stable, and has a load carrying ability in excess of the old barge boat. Having firmly squashed a move to name it "The Beast", the resemblance of its unpainted alloy to the surface of a galvanised bucket has resulted in the name "The Bucket". Tim has now fitted a rubber fender all round it, and plans to give it floor boards and other accessories in due course. 

Welcome to those who formerly received the monthly bulletin and have now chosen to use Revelations as their main source of Morning Star news. Please let us know whether you now have the right amount of information. Meanwhile the initial list of members of the Trust, i.e. those who will elect the committee at the AGM, will be complete by the time you read this. Please note: 

• You may apply for Trust membership at any time but will need to be proposed and seconded by existing members, before approval by the committee.
• Not being a Trust member does not rule you out from coming to the AGM weekend, which is what our annual conference in Derbyshire now becomes. Dates are November 15-17, details from the office.
• None of this applies to your MSA membership, which continues as ever. You will be asked once a year if you wish to continue, and must then respond if you wish to go on receiving this newsletter.

From the start of the season, we have been using a new style of individual response and evaluation form to get feedback from our crews. This is working well. Among other things it gives people the opportunity to ask to join MSA (now free of charge, of course), to request the quarterly prayer diary, to ask for information on future activities, and even to show an interest in learning more about the Christian faith, The response form that comes with this issue of Revelations is part of the same system, so why not use it to tell us anything that will help us give you a better service. 

The programme for 1997 will come together during this summer. Provisionally we plan to sail in the first part only of the Tall Ships series, which is a race from Aberdeen to Trondheim, which is in Norway and not so terribly far from the Arctic circle. After this the possibility is a major cruise, returning from Norway to the Scottish west coast via Shetland. This could then lead to a return home anticlockwise round UK, perhaps arriving home as late as early September. Watch this space! Meanwhile the Easter programme will be the usual mix, but we plan a special Easter long weekend as an opportunity to spend Easter on board together sharing in the message of Good Friday and Easter day. 

Motoring up the Medway on the Friday evening, Adrian (the skipper) casually asked me whether I'd ever driven a 38 ton lorry on black ice. "Not recently", I replied. Having explained the analogy of steering a 62' yacht to me, it was my turn to have a go. Out came an extra block for me to stand upon - being able to see over and beyond the cabin was rather helpful. 

The next morning - "Who'll pull up the anchor?" Says Adrian. "I will" says Jane while everyone else is still hauling on their storm gear. Then it was "Put up the mains'l, haul on the halyard, tie a bowline like so, release that runner, pull up the throat, cleat it off, we need the No. 1 jib, tie a figure of eight knot, coil up the rope, winch in the sheet". "Who'll go out on the bowsprit?", says Lucy. "I will" says Jan. And so it went on until we'd got a full house of sail up. "We'll just tack to get round the back of the gun emplacements", says Lucy, when the boat developed a strange lurching feeling. "That's funny" I thought, "it doesn't sound as if we've sailed into anything". Then the caped crusader leapt up on deck, span the wheel round, gunned the engine and we were steering back towards the gun emplacements. Then Adrian handed the helm back to Lucy. The log said something about grounding. As we sailed on, a rather white faced crew member crawled in off the bowsprit. "I only wanted to get my boots wet, not fall in!" 

On Saturday evening, we had a Bible study. Jan had said on Friday that the one word that the Lord kept giving her was 'refreshing'. What the Lord said through Jan that night has made me relax more into my faith for the thing I want at the moment. Which has also refreshed me because I don't have to worry about it. 

The vastness of the sea, its calmness yet underlying power, its constant movement and the fact that despite our own efforts its direction, it seems, in my mind to speak of the greatness of God. Sailing, therefore, provided an ideal setting in which to take time out and to refocus, whilst building up relationships through team work and the time spent together. I seemed to be in a time warp during the weekend. It was so totally removed from everyday life that time seemed to stand still - a strange feeling. Denise, Diana and Anon from Strood Community Church. 

It had always been the plan that our Coastal Skippers practical week would include some blind navigation. Send the navigator down below and close the curtains. After that, the 'visibility' is at the mercy of the Instructors every whim. "Hmm, definitely seems to be closing in, down to about fifty metres, I should say." A bouy drifts by, tantalisingly just out of the decreed range of visibility. The crew exchange knowing grins, whilst down below, the navigator scratches his head and mutters, "are you sure you can't see the Little Gurnard....it should be somewhere to port." The game can of course be made even more interesting by the use of a strategically placed spanner. Eagles Wings has a stowage locker in just the right place - just next to the bulkhead compass. 

Oh, the smug superiority of knowing precisely where you are while the navigator struggles below. "There seems to be something lurking in the gloom. Hang on! No..wait a minute! No...can't quite make it out, I'm afraid". Another vital landmark drifts by. Occasionally, of course, if the navigator remembers to make the instructor a cup of tea, the visibility may unexpectedly lift by several hundred yards. A bacon sandwich might improve things by half a mile. The art of navigation consists of getting information by all available means. 

But how quickly that smugness can be punctured! As we were preparing to leave Brightlingsea, I could see wisps of mist blowing along the beach, like sand being driven before the wind. But above us, the skies were blue and the relative warmth of the sun quickly dispelled any sense of foreboding we might have had. As we headed out towards the Eagle bouy, visibility closed in sporadically, whilst to the North a great sheet of cloud threatened to engulf what was left of the sunshine. When finally the visibility closed in for the duration, it happened with surprising rapidity. There wasn't even time for a final fix. On minute we could see the North cardinal astern, the next moment it had gone. This time it was for real! 

We never saw the Spitway bouys. The tide was flooding and the echo sounder suggested that we had been set to the West of our intended track and were already crossing the Buxey Sands. It was decision time. 

The original plan had been to head off across the Thames estuary, approaching after dark, so that we could practise picking up lights. This was now clearly not a sensible plan. The options were: turn around and head back to Brightlingsea; anchor in shallow water in the shelter of the sands; or pick up a depth contour and head for a harbour of refuge. Brightlingsea was tempting. It was relatively close and it seemed likely that by heading back on a reciprocal course, we might find clearer visibility but, this could not be guaranteed. It may have been from precisely that direction that the visibility had closed in. The approaches to the Colne are not uncomplicated even with good visibility and there was no clear contour to guide us back. We never seriously considered anchoring. Theoretically, there are sheltered anchorages out there, but they feel very exposed and the wind was forecast to increase from the East to force five or six. On the other hand, the entrance to the Crouch was easy to find. Once in it, with the Buxey Sands to the North and Foulness sands to the South, with no potentially misleading kinks in the contours, it was difficult to imagine what could go wrong. Following the Northern shore, turn left if it gets shallow, right if it gets deep. Easy! The only snag was that if the wind behaved as forecast, we would have a long, difficult beat out of the river, wind against tide the following morning, but it still seemed the best option. 

 And so it was that we ended up in Burnham. Apart from one bouy, which we practically ran down, we saw nothing for the best part of four hours. Then, just as we arrived, the visibility lifted. And there we were. It was a good experience. Following contours works. But leaving the next morning, that was another story! Mike Maconochie 

As usual for training events, there was quite a lot of discussion time - updating everyone on the changes made to the boat and equipment over the winter, and information on the changes in regulations, especially regarding safety briefings and the correction of charts. 

Refamiliarisation and "circles and bumps" were Saturday mornings activities (not many bumps, just a little one by me in order to facilitate a demonstration in stantion fixing). We had a good beat down the river in the afternoon, excellent to be back on a boat in the wind again. Ada [Hasleton, our tame ambulance man] joined us for dinner after an amusing and informative talk on the use of all the medical equipment that we now have to carry (from oxygen to neck splints). 

Arethusa, also on a training weekend, had also made it as far as the exotic location of Queenborough and it was great meeting up with someone who had first sailed on Morning Star during my year as a volunteer (1992/3) and has since moved on in many ways. 

Sunday included a slow drift back to Chatham, with very little wind and therefore a chance to talk to one another and clean the boat (or study Brecht with Mike Mac). Back to the dockyard in time for the rededication service, in which about 30 people (and several babies) squeezed into the saloon to focus on God and the reason for the boat. Anna Stickland 

We have had several favourable comments on the new style diary, together with two letters arguing strongly for keeping the old day by day monthly diary. If you want to join this debate, let's be hearing from you. In the meantime, you can ask to receive the new quarterly prayer diary, helping you to pray regularly for the work of the Trust, by using the response sheet. 

Our stated aims in the Morning Star Trust have to do with the personal development of individuals and groups. We concentrate on working as teams, on learning about ourselves and others and on growth in confidence. And we do all this because we believe we have a God who wants us to do it as our contribution to a needy world. He has met all these needs once and for all in Jesus, but he chooses to use his people to make this provision real in the world. However, as we focus on people, we still need to raise our eyes and see the power and wonder of the creation that it is our privilege to take those people into. It was no coincidence that the earliest Christians in Britain established themselves on islands and remote places on the coast. There they experienced the presence of God's Holy Spirit, in the sea and the shore, the rocks and the sky, the storm and the calm, and that Spirit gave them the strength for their intensely practical mission throughout the country. Small wonder, then, that many over the years have found on board Morning Star a sense of something they cannot always name, but is the presence of the Spirit that God breathed out over and into his creation. 

        Lord, you are my island, in your bosom I rest.
        You are the calm of the sea, in that peace I stay.
        You are the deep waves of the shining ocean,
        With their eternal sound I sing.
        You are the song of the birds, 
                in that tune is my joy.
        You are the smooth white strand of the shore, 
                in You is no gloom.
        You are the breaking of the waves on the rock, 
                Your praise is echoed in the swell.
        You are the Lord of my life; in You I live.


        Based on a prayer attributed to St Columba