The Great River Race 2013 Photos from Putney

There's a tube direct from Tower Hill to Putney Bridge, but Gladys had gone through before I got there (I asked and someone remembered seeing her), veterans that they are.

However got to see the tail end of the Great River Race fleet:

 It was more colourful and generally more relaxed than the serious rowers that went earlier:

 The yoofs, of course, had their iThings and sound systems:

 These two boats I'd seen before at Tower Bridge:

There is nothing - absolutely nothing - half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats:

Can't remember why this boat caught my eye:

Of course some were working very hard - such as those brave souls on the oldest powered lifeboat: you can see why it needs an engine!

Well done to all involved!

The Great River Race 2013

Today was the 2013 Great River Race and I ended up managing to see most of it not just once but twice!

Having enjoyed my viewing point for the start of the Clipper Round the World Yacht Race, and having lots of spare time today, I took the tube down to The Tower. This time I stayed on the north side to be closer to the boats which were sticking close to the right hand side.

Soon we were rewarded by the first few boats, including #1 herself, the world's oldest motor lifeboat, from Walton-on-the-Naze the James Stevens No.14:

Then there was a flood of boats, often with waiting supporters on or near Tower Bridge. It was an impressive sight:

This is a busy, narrow and fast flowing part of the river and at times it was a bit "interesting":

 I kept a look out for Gladys and soon spotted Chris and the others:

They were going strong, aiming for the old farts Veteran's Over 60 Class, though there was time for a quick snap of Tower Bridge:

I was going to yell out "good luck Gladys" but someone got there first. I did consider yelling out "good luck old farts!" but not sure if that was allowed when standing in the grounds of The Tower.

There were too many boats to post pics of each of them, but some of the costumes were good. This one is from Malta:

This one seemed a bit of a joker:

These looked like a hen night:

The river got crowded....

 ... and then the rush subsided, leaving just a few stragglers:

New moto: "Sky: believe in third from last?"

Then it was time to get back on the tube to race the rowers to Putney Bridge.

Would I to be in time to see Chris and co race by on Gladys or would the old farts veterans get there first?

Magical night with northern lights

For the last night at sea my watch was 9 pm until midnight and it was jolly cold. We'd got south enough for it to get dark, just below the Arctic Circle at 65.5N, and it was a clear, star filled night.

Now we were motoring the main duty on watch was keeping an eagle eye out for ice, and it wasn't easy. Ok, some big 'bergs were pretty obvious as they reflect like the White Cliffs of Dover:

Smaller bits are however harder to spot and some become translucent, vanishing into the waves. A couple of times we had to slow down to get through flows of bergy bits spored by an island of ice.

It was hard work and I was looking forward to my warm bunk when it was decided to keep going and do a second watch as we'd be anchoring soon.

We were rewarded for this effort by a mini-display of the northern lights (top pic) which rather remarkably were to the south of us, but that's Greenland for you. They only went for a few minutes but we'd definitely seen them.

It ended up being rather a magical night, a harsh beauty of stars, shooting stars, Iridium satellite flares and what looked to me like noctilucent clouds:

For the first time since Iceland we saw some flashing lights marking out a channel guiding us toward the narrow entrance into Tasiilaq fjord.

Then in the dim light of what was now early morning could make out the town, a jumble of coloured wooden houses clustered around a little hill:

The anchor went down with a splash and rattle of chain: we had arrived and I could head down to my bunk and rest.

Speed boat delivery service

The wind faded as we approached Tasiilaq and our boat speed dropped to a knot or two

Every now and then there'd be a puff, but progress was painfully slow: even with the sun out and the sky blue it was frustrating.

But we had got close enough to Tasiilaq for a high speed delivery service to bring a replacement starter-motor for our engine (above).

There was a roar from below and then a chug-chug-chug. We could get moving again, pausing only to let two who had tight deadlines zip ashore in the speed boat.

The rest of us kept going, passing a dramatic iceberg with a hole in it:

As often is the way, we were predicting an arrival time in the early hours of the next day.

I had one last night watch to do.

Sailing down the east coast of Greenland

Ok, back to Greenland for a few days.

So we escaped having engine failure in Kangerdlugssuaq Fjord by towing using the inflatable and headed south-ish towards Tasiilaq, with a way point a little offshore to avoid ice.

The wind was pretty good for nearly two days, and we galloped along sometimes surfing down waves at 10+ knots.

However during R. & T.'s watch they got gusts 40 - 50 knots which was too much, and which could well have been katabatic in nature, coming off one of the glaciers (see above).

But that's what reefing is for.

The storm that had blown through a few days ago had left a bit of swell, which is always hard to capture in a photo and while this pic looks impressive it probably was taken a bit too close to the wave to really get a feel for it:

The view was always amazing.

Over the two weeks we spent many days sailing down the coast and Greenland was one long line of mountains, almost entirely unclimbed and unexplored. The mountains would go right down to the sea, intercut with glaciers, and behind would be rank upon rank of other peaks fading into the blue.

An empty, beautiful land.

Then nearby there'd be icebergs of course:

We also got the most wonderful sunsets:

But eventually, on the day we were meant to arrive, with under a hundred miles to go, the wind died.

More Clipper Yacht Race Photos

Apologies for the delay in update but I have no laptop and photo editing + blogging with an iPad or Chromebook isn't as easy. At some point the jpegs are reduced in resolution though I then further shrink them to blog size (originals available on request).

Anyway here are a few more in particular of Derry Londonderry Doire - and we get to find out what Susie says.

More photos of the other three yachts that went into the Pool of London on request.

BTW Clipper experts - how were the four select yachts chosen?

Clipper Round the World Yacht Race starts in London

No blog posts on Greenland as this weekend's been busy with a Prom and the start of the Clipper Round the World Yacht Race.

It's been sad how many of the big races like Volvo have ignored the UK recently - another sign maybe that sailing isn't as thriving as it used to be.

So it was good to see a major race starting not just in the UK but here in London. I was able to go down to Tower Bridge to see them leave on what turned out to be a lovely sunny day.

Good luck to all yachts and their crew and well done for getting to the starting line. Ahead will be a great adventure you'll never forget.

Engine failure in Kangerdlugssuaq Fjord

The experts, from Bill Tilman to Robin Knox-Johnston, are categorical in their advice: to sail the icy waters of Greenland you must have a reliable engine.

Luckily we did - or thought we did right up to the moment it failed to start.

While Siggi tried to get it going we had time for another hike up to the lookout over the fjord (above). 

It was remarkable how different the view felt when you're not sure how you're going to escape, and the weather was suitably chilly with a harsh light.  

I decided to treat this episode as an adventure, the sort of thing that Scoresby and co wouldn't have batted an eyelid at, and used the time to think through our situation. 

There was no Solent Coastguard, listening patiently on channel 16, let alone the hunters on the locally used C08, which was a shame as they could have been very useful.

Given an outside tow wasn't possible, what were the options? We couldn't kedge as the fjord is too deep (I mean really deep, in places deeper than the Denmark Straits) and we couldn't sail out as the anchorage in Suheili Bugt was too well sheltered. 

But there was one workable solution - towing ourselves using the Zodiac and its outboard engine. However it would need the tide to be flowing out with negligible wind in the fjord.

And by golly on the Thursday late afternoon that's exactly what we had, as as quick look at the water level showed it was just after high water. 

As Nelson would have put it: "lose not an hour"!

So off we went, me, R. and L in the Zodiac, not my most favourite of methods of transport, with two thoughts high in my mind:

1. It was going to take a long time to reach the fjord's opening where the wind would be strong enough to give the boat steerage way (three hours was my guess as I stepped off Aurora)
2. It really wouldn't be a good thing if something went wrong, as the route was rather wiggly close to various rocks plus of course icebergs

This graphic from Google Earth shows our approximate route at the start, and for scale the red line is about 1 NM in length (and of course the ice wasn't at those locations though the density isn't far off):

There was a certain amount of debate about what to do with the tow line in the Zodiac.

One view was that we should do a big bowline to make a V-shape around handles on the inflatable but another view was that this could cause problems such as drag its stern down and threaten to wrap the rope around the prop.

As we wanted to avoid any problems with this operation, instead we went for the more controllable human approach in which I was basically a cleat controlling the rope's direction and L. anchored the tow line's weight while R. was in charge of the outboard.

It felt like a very long three hours, which is what it indeed took to get us out of the fjord.

What was really frustrating was that there was just an amazingly stunningly beautiful sunset and I had my camera in my pocket but couldn't reach it as had to hold onto that darn tow line all the way out.

I think the others might have taken pictures: I'm just hoping not too many of me straining to keep that tow rope high enough not to decapitate R. or fray on the fuel cap of the outboard (which we had to re-fill half way out).

Eventually, close to Overhand Mountain, we were called on-board: the boat was finally sailing. It might have been only a knot or two but that was fine by us.

As we crept out of the fjord we picked up speed, and I remember steering Aurora between icebergs at a wacky 3 knots.

Finally we were clear and I had time for one last pic of Kangerdlugssuaq Fjord as we headed out to open seas and safety:

Yet again the weather had captured the mood perfectly.



Updated: I've just seen that the latest Yachting Monthly has an article on towing a yacht with an inflatable and outboard from none other than Tom Cunliffe. I must go and have a read....

Visited by Inuit Hunters

We were staying cosy indoors, enjoying our movies, when we heard an engine sound outside. Sensation - other human beings!!

In east Greenland there really aren't that many people at all with as far as I'm aware no permanently occupied settlements within about 200 miles of Kangerdlugssuaq Fjord.

We'd seen evidence of at least one hunting party with the narwhals by Turner Island but on wet Wednesday we were to meet some in person.

They were a cheerful bunch - or seemed to be, as none of the trio spoke English and I'm gathering that there wasn't much Danish either. But then this is Greenland, where locals are Inuit and that's their culture, not anything European.

They were sheltering from the bad weather outside the fjord and had heard us practicing with the guns. They came aboard and went below where they had some of our rather good home baked bread over a coffee and chat with Siggi.

Then they explained their hunting technique which is to use the kayaks as they are silent and means they can get up close to whales. Then they use the stick to throw the harpoon head which has attached to it via a line a buoy which stops the animal from diving.

After this demo there were friendly waves all round and they pottered off to stay overnight in the so-called abandoned village:

And then we were on our own again.

These three hunters were the only other people we saw in two weeks between leaving Isafjordur and arriving at Tasiilaq, and we weren't to see them again.

As it was to turn out, it would have been rather good idea if they had stuck around a bit longer...