Contents:EDITORIALWelcome to Revelations. In this issue we have the usual news from the Dockyard, detailing the work that has been going on as part of the winter refit. There is also a story from a trip on Eagles Wings - from which we could all learn a lesson or two! Thank you to all who have contributed to this issue. Please do send any contributions for future issues to the office. I would like to draw your attention to the fact that there are lots of opportunities to sail both for individuals and groups. I would encourage you to have a think about whether you might come sailing, or know of anyone else who might enjoy a trip on Morning Star, Tiger Moon or Eagles Wings. You can be sure that it will be time well spent. Will NEWSThe winter refit so far... - Conference season - Eagles Wings - Vacancies - History The winter refit so far...By the time you read this, Morning Star should have returned to the Historic Dockyard having spent nearly a month down the river in a dry dock at Gillingham Pier. 'Dry dock' is a bit of a grand title for the facility. It is actually an old barge hull which can be flooded at high tide to accept a boat before being pumped out to leave the boat propped up in the dry. It is quite a strange sensation being on the boat which is not in the water, yet rocking because the 'dry dock' is floating! Nevertheless, it is a very useful facility. One of the consequences of this dry dock set up is that the tides have to be right and in the event the dry docking was delayed by a day as the tidal level was below predictions. The benefit of being in the dry dock is of course that the hull below the water line can be accessed. This year the hull was probably no worse than for some years so efforts have been concentrated on tidying up the surface. This has involved repairs to the epoxy coating which protects the ferro-cement hull. In places this coating has blistered away from the hull, so these blisters have been cut out and then made good with new epoxy. This is only a short term measure but should protect the hull for this season. It is likely that more major repairs will be needed next winter. Other work whilst in the dry dock has included replacing the propeller shaft. An inspection of the old shaft had revealed electrolytic corrosion. The engine mountings have been changed together with the usual annual servicing of the engine. In addition to the work that has been done whilst in the dry dock, Tim, Will and Kristina and others have been very busy. The aft head (toilet) has been replaced. Other plumbing work has been done: the sinks in the heads now have free draining sinks. The sinks now drain into the bilges, so don't have to be pumped out after use - although now it is necessary to use a plug in the sink. In conjunction with this, the arrangements for the pumping out of the bilges have been improved. Much redecoration has also been done so down below is looking very smart and shiny. The spars (booms and gaffs) have been laboriously sanded down and re-varnished. Conference seasonAs well as being the time for boat maintenance, the winter also tends to be the time for conferences. These conferences provide an excellent opportunity to meet with leaders from other similar organisations, to share ideas and make contacts with like minded people. Tim and Kristina attended the Southern area British Christian Outdoor Centres (BCOC) meeting in Dorset and Tim also went to the BCOC heads of centres meeting in the Lake District in January. Eagles WingsAs reported in the last issue, Eagles Wings has spent the winter in Ipswich receiving a great deal of TLC courtesy of Steve and Jemma Morgan and helpers. This has included a lot of work on the engine and gearbox. Another major area that Steve and Jemma have concentrated on is compliance with the Code of Practice with which the activities of the Morning Star Trust have to comply. One of the consequences of this will be that the hand-over at the start of a trip will be more rigorous, to ensure that the boat and all the equipment is in full working order. This 'paperwork' might seem like hassle but it is essential for the safety of those sailing. As a result of all of this work, Eagles Wings will be in excellent shape for the season and should be ready for use from Easter. So if you want to do a Day Skipper, Coastal Skipper, any other course or just want to go sailing, contact Steve or Jemma (call the office and they can pass on a phone number). VacanciesBy now you should have received your brochure for this season. There are places left on most of the trips, apart from the two Tall Ships races. See the 'advertisement' on the opposite page. If you are a member of a group or even a group leader, have you considered organising a trip for your group? A weekend (or longer) trip can be an excellent opportunity to get away as a group, share fun and build relationships within the group. If this appeals to you, call the office to find out when there are free weekends and obtain more details. HistoryYou may or may not be aware that Clive Miller has written a history of the Morning Star Trust, based to a large part on interviews with Tim. This document makes for fascinating reading, especially for those of us who are relatively new to the Trust. In future issues of Revelations, we hope to include extracts from the history, so that will be something to look forward to. [This can now be found here - Ed] Eagles Wings June 2001By Peter Brooke I had finally managed to convince three other level headed people that to go sailing with me as skipper for 10 days would be an experience which few people ever have. With my reputation, that wasn't lying, it was just hoping they would expect an experience which most want but few have, rather than an experience which few have and no one wants. Well, I say level headed, but two were physicists (one of whom is a vegetarian - enough said) and one had been sailing with me before (enough said again). The latter remarked at the end of the trip, "Each time I go sailing with you, you always manage to go one better. To top this one we have to have a Mayday. When are we next going?" Maybe they weren't as level headed as I was trying to lead myself to believe. We arrived in Chatham in good spirits. I had informed the crew that I was going to break my personal record for longest passage as skipper, which then stood at 61 miles. (Miniscule compared to Tall Ships 2000 standards, but its all relative). It was the first time I would have three competent people as my crew. Shame about the skipper, but as long as they thought to the contrary. After the standard stop off in Stangate, we headed for Lowestoft. It wasn't until we were off the Naze did I realise that there were no charts on board which went past Orford Ness. Whether this was a deliberate conspiracy by the hegemony of the Trust, or just my stupidity and inefficiency in setting off for a place for which we had no charts, we will never know. Needless to say, we pulled into Woodbridge for the night in the hope of buying a chart. The plan was to set off early with the newly purchased chart and reach Lowestoft after lunch sometime (which was about the standard accuracy of my carefully calculated ETAs).  Problem was they had sold out of exactly the chart I needed. Were I superstitious, I would have taken this opportunity to give up, but being told I can't do something only makes me more determined to do exactly that something. Anyway, to cut an already too long a story short, we set off at about the time I had originally planned to arrive in Lowestoft. The journey was uneventful. Pity. The biggest problem I had in Lowestoft was trying to prevent one of the crew from buying the biggest spinnaker he could lay his hands on for the run down to Ramsgate the following day. Thing was I agreed with him in principle, it was just I wasn't sure Tim would refund a £1000 credit card bill. Needless to say, it is this crew member who is quoted above. Forgetting mistaking a light house on North Foreland for a red buoy, and trying to leave it to port (for about 4 hours), it was also an uneventful trip down from Lowestoft to Ramsgate. I even cleaned and refuelled the boat on my own initiative in Ramsgate, which I think is pretty good considering I have trouble remembering to clean myself on a regular basis. (Jemma Morgan might be partly to thank for that use of initiative - sometimes when I cut corners on cleaning I imagine her looking directly at the back of my head, and that is always enough to make me clean not only more thoroughly but also a little faster too). I was beginning to think I could do this skipper lark, I was even writing stock lists (if you know Jim Smith ask him how many days on EW we spent eating biscuits because neither of us had bought enough food, and, whatever you do, don't believe his answer). It was sunny and W 5/6. We had run down from Lowestoft, the wind had shifted, and now we were actually going to fly up towards Colchester. I just could not believe it was sunny as well. This is what living a life consists of. Everything was going right. This was the best sailing of the trip: we were revelling in the achievement of a successful 80 mile overnight passage, the crew were gelling and they were strong (which always justifies more canvas), I hadn't run aground at all the whole trip, 3rd year exams were behind us, and the 14 weeks of a student summer lay before us. We even had the odd plane doing a fly by just for us (including wing dipping). If heaven is a place on earth, this was it. We reached SW Sunk really rather quickly, and rather than go round I thought, since it was low water, we would use the 0.5m spare we had and charge straight over. Chart datum was out by about that amount, and anyway the swell was about, and this is just an estimate, 0.95m. So we touched very gently. Nothing major. I'd been here lots of times before. Thing was, we bounced a couple of times too. It was then that I noticed that the rudder was no longer moving with the boat. Oh dear. So I put the anchor down and put the kettle on. We tried to get the rudder on board, well, we tried to get the rudder anywhere except where it was. The drogue wouldn't work with a rudder hanging off at an angle offset to the hull. I had another cup of tea. If I could get it off, I could almost certainly get into the Crouch under sail with no rudder. If the swell would just stop for a minute, I could get the excuse for hacksaw on board to the metal shaft. Then we could move it. But swells don't do that. And three of us couldn't hold it still long enough for the fourth to get at it with the saw. After a few hours of trying lots of different things, I decided to call for help. The tow arrived a few hours later, and towed us at 8 knots to Queenborough. The rudder had to be held to prevent a battle with guardrails on either side, which would have ended with no obvious winner.
The harbour master was also amazed at my incompetence. When I gave him an uncertain answer as to when we were departing from the ATL, he became rather angry, claiming that I didn't know what I was doing. (Who, in their right mind, would claim that?) He even threw his receipt book down at me. So when I finally made contact with Tim on channel 67 (he was on Morning Star at the time), and he asked me whether I had spoken to the harbour master, I replied quite honestly that he had gone off in a huff. When our conversation finished, I sat down with my crew ready to organise the logistics of departure when a voice came over 67, "I was not in a huff." Ooops. Of course, that's an open channel. Tim, very diplomatically, called him up and promised payment for all their expenses and assured him that EW would be off the ATL as soon as would be possible. So we went to the pub to finish the trip on a good note. Tim came round in Morning Star the next day to tow us to a buoy, where we spent the weekend. As he was manoeuvring in between two rather closely spaced boats, he nonchalantly looked over his shoulder and asked me, almost too casually considering he was in the middle of turning through 180°, to be nice to the harbour master. The same crew member again, "He is the man. You can't even manoeuvre a boat half that size while looking in the same direction your going." Thanks. Nothing like moral support from the crew. Oddly enough, the crew want to go sailing again. They have actually asked me, rather than me pleading with them. Unbelievable. Obviously, as level headed as they come. PoemBy Catherine Bertrand When it is dark and the stars are bright Thought for the quarterWorking out God's calling in our lives...A sailing related analogy which I hope illustrates a point. When sailing at night, following illuminated buoys, there are several scenarios. Sometimes the spacing of buoys that you are following is such that the next buoy is clearly visible just before you pass the buoy that you are currently heading for. This makes for relatively easy navigation. More often than not, either the visibility is not so good or the distance to the next buoy is greater than you can see. This means that it is necessary to work out a course to steer from the chart and head off in this direction until the buoy comes into sight. Another scenario is that several or all of the buoys that are marking the channel are visible, but it is difficult to work out the order in which the buoys need to be negotiated. Heading for the wrong buoy or following them out of sequence might have disastrous results. I think that following God's calling for our own lives can be a bit like this. Occasionally the stages of our journey and our calling is very clear. Any changes that we need to make become apparent in good time, so that making the change is relatively easy. At other times, this is not the case. We do not have the luxury of knowing where we should be heading, or what we should be doing, but know that we need to be moving on. In this situation, similar to the sailing, we have to set off in faith. Rather than this being a compass course taken off a chart, we have to discern where we think that we are being called based on prayer, listening to God, and Bible study. Of course this is not always easy but I believe that when we step out in faith on a new course God will affirm our actions, one way or the other. Whilst it might seem attractive to be able to see our entire journey mapped out ahead of us like the clutter of buoys, this could be confusing and harmful to us. We might misinterpret the immediate path in front of us and miss out stages that we need to follow in order to fulfil our calling as God intends. |
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I was a broken man. Our successful trip had been cut short. While telling my story to the assistant harbour master, he responded, almost rudely, that he would rather paddle than face the embarrassment of a lifeboat tow. The friend already quoted suggested I should ask him that since the distance from here to the Dockyard was only half the distance we were towed, and that since the Medway didn't have a metre swell, perhaps Mr 'I would have paddled' Assistant Harbour Master would demonstrate to four willing pupils just how, if you are a man, it should be done. In my more headstrong days, I would have done as suggested, but I was still feeling rather humbled.