Sunday 25 September 2011

Historic footage of Toucando

Deep in the hold I recently found footage of Toucando's early days.  Painstaking restoration has allowed this significant material to be made available to the public.  Thanks must go to all the photographers for recording the life of this unique turn of the century yacht.

Saturday 24 September 2011

Toucando's film career - Inspector George Gently

One of Toucando's starring roles was as the yacht of Gunter Schmeichel, the ex-Nazi bomber, whose murder was solved by Inspector George Gently (Martin Shaw) and his hapless assistant ,Sergeant John Bacchus (Lee Ingleby).  Here they are coming on board to collect clues.


The relevant clip can now be seen on Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWcixaJi5GA&feature=related

Tuesday 20 September 2011

A trip to Yarmouth (almost)

Michele and Ava joined Toucando for a trip to Yarmouth.  It was to coincide with the Solent Gaffers' "Centenary Chase".  We left at 1330 with two reefs in the main.  We got the sail up as soon as we were off the mooring and had a very nice sail down Southampton Water.  The barometer had been falling steadily, and Southampton appeared to be under a black cloud as we looked back, but it was fine where we were.

We turned towards Yarmouth after Calshot Spit, putting on the engine to get through the "precautionary area".  The wind picked up to a Force 7 (32 knots) from the SSW (the direction of Yarmouth).  We made slow progress.  We had a go at tacking, but our progress was not good.... another trip with a Force 7 from the wrong direction!  We considered the merits of working our way to Yarmouth, but decided to head for Cowes instead.

We got the sails furled in the Medina and found a berth at East Cowes.  We caught the bus to Yarmouth and arrived in time for dinner at the Royal Solent.  Only five boats had taken part in the Chase, and many of the participants had themselves come by land, or ferry.  The winner of the open boat class had taken a bang on the head from the boom, and had had a trip to A&E as a result.  He managed to get back in order to claim his prize.  Our decision to stop at Cowes was probably the prudent one.

On Sunday we headed back to Southampton.  It was an almost perfect day for sailing... a Force 4 from the west.  We sailed in a nice straight line across from Cowes towards Hillhead.  Then we had to make a few tacks to get into Southampton Water and past the oil terminal.  We then managed to have a long close-hauled tack most of the way up Southampton Water, during which we had lunch.  We dropped the main just off Weston Shelf and headed for the Itchen.  At that point the rain came, heavy and intense... the worst I can recall on Toucando.  Fortunately there was not much wind at that point. We huddled in our waterproofs with the hoods pulled well over, and motored up to the pontoon, where we made a perfect landing.

And so ended Toucando's last scheduled event of the season.... However there will be more weekend sailing, providing the weather is ok.  I have just heard a forecast suggesting we are going to get heavy snows in October.  I hope that is wrong.

Thursday 15 September 2011

Midweek trip to Cowes

Just come back from a rare midweek cruise with Reading friends Jean and Roger. They came on Tuesday afternoon and we had baked cod on board that night. On Wednesday we set off in reasonable weather towards the Solent. It remained pleasant as we went down Southampton Water, although the wind built from a gentle force three to a brisk five or six. The rain came when we were in the Solent: the trawler specification wet weather gear came into its own. We got into Cowes and had plenty of berths to choose from at the Yacht Haven. After lunch Roger and I took a walk to Egypt Point: the weather was fine by now.
In the evening we enjoyed a very good meal at The Red Duster.
Today (Thursday) there was little wind and plenty of sunshine. We motor sailed back taking a scenic route off Osborne Bay, Ryde, Gilkicker, Lee and Hill Head.
The wind picked up in the afternoon and we had a slow run back up Southampton Water and were back on our pontoon by about 1600.
A nice gentle trip with a bit of excitement in the rain on the way out. The forecast is looking windy again for the weekend. Thanks Jean and Roger for giving me the opportunity to get out in the week and enjoy a quieter Solent.

Tuesday 13 September 2011

A windy weekend

Toucando had the first weekend of September off.  The following week the winds began in earnest, said to be the tail end of Hurricane Katia.  I got a call from the marina saying, "Please ring as SOON as possible!"  That sounded alarming.  The news was that the jib had partially unfurled and was flapping uncontrollably.  To cut the story short, Alan from the marina went out in the launch, got the damaged sail down and lashed it to the deck.  We're not sure quite how much wind there was... Sotonmet said gusts of 195 (which is not believable).  Other sources said 50 to 60 knots.  It was certainly very strong.

I went down to Southampton on Friday not knowing what the jib would look like.  It turned out to have an L-shaped rip maybe about two feet in each direction.  The sail was taken ashore and I got the boat ready for the weekend crew: Michele and Sarah P.  It remained windy and the forecast was mentioning everything between Force 4 and 8 for the weekend.  We had venison goulash aboard on Friday evening and agreed to set off on Saturday. We decided to take the cautious approach and stay fairly local.  Plan A had been to go to Chichester Harbour with Southampton Sailing Club, but they had decided against it on the basis of the forecast.  We decided to go and do a bit of sailing in Southampton Water and see what it was like.  To begin we had some practice handling Toucando under power and a bit of a tour of the docks.  We then decided to head for Hamble where we stayed at Port Hamble Marina.  We took a walk into the village and enjoyed a drink or two at the Bugle, before returning to Toucando for pirate stew.

On Sunday it seemed fairly calm at first.  We made a reasonably early start, motoring up river to begin, then turning and raising the mainsail with two reefs.  We sailed out into Southampton Water.  The wind was very variable... never much less than a four and often gusting well into force six and seven.  We had a good and fast sail up towards Weston where we practised tacking and heaving to, gradually polishing our technique. Eventually we turned for the Itchen and went back to Toucando's mooring.  There was a strong westerly wind blowing us on to the pontoon which made sorting out all the fenders a little tricky, but we got it all done before having a late lunch.  Thanks to Michele and Sarah for their help.

Once the crew had gone I drove (the car) to Lee on Solent for a walk along the beach.  It was a bright, sunny afternoon, but the winds were strong, and all the waves had white tops. There were plenty of walkers, fishermen, kite fliers, wind surfers etc., but I only counted two sailing boats, both well reefed, on the Solent.  On Monday I took the jib to the sail maker... and was pleased to discover that it is repairable.  The sail will now get a wash and full service.  I am hoping that we will get a few good weekends before long... it's time the hurricane season was over.

Here are three pictures from the weekend (courtesy of Michele):