Gordon

The Red sand is not red and I have never seen the Shivering Sands shiver!

matin

Clive

I have made two voyages, Colchester and Burnham, this year but old age is catching up with me.

I certainly shall not see Rye again!

Regards Chas.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3YEbt5E9v7c

Thanks

Doug Kelch

Regards

Clive

Corrected link here.

http://naturalengland.etraderstores.com/NaturalEnglandShop/Product.aspx?ProductID=ba73400d-a327-45e1-9ded-eeb6a98251ae

The photo was taken at How Hill in the Norfolk Broads.

The document is "Responding to the impacts of climate change on the natural environment: The Broads. A summary" and can be downloaded (note this is 1.1mb pdf file) by clicking the 'Broads Executive Summary' link on the following web page http://naturalengland.etraderstores.com/...ed-eeb6a98251ae

Perhaps you could contact me next January if you live within range.

Regards Chas.

Have read your book twice now and you find it very inspiring and very much on my own ideas of sailing. I know you do talks to sailing clubs etc and wonder if you had have any more talks planned and when they might be ?

Islandbaggers

I shall ring you tomorrow day at a more suitable hour .

Kind regards

Tony

Chas Stock.

I have a blog where over time i am detailing my adventures in a Scaffie Carravella II in and around the Blackwater Estuary,You may have heard of her as her as the former owner had got into dificultys and someone called the helicopter rescue out early last year near Bradwell.Your book is an invaluble resource for me and my blog would not be complete without an article about you in it. would you be able to visit stone sc for a chat or could i come and meet you at shoal waters and take a couple of pictures?

Thanking you kindly

Tony Smith

Thanks for the reply and the article. I have plans in hand and hope to start construction soon. I don't think you can put enough pictures of Shoal Waters on your site. Keep writing about your trips, I find that inspirational and motivating. I've got to get out on the water more in the near future. I'm currently sailing a Bolger Birdwatcher in the sounds of North Carolina.

The various blocks, spider-bands and other fittings, it would seem, everntually dictate themselves into existance as one tries to refine the proceedure. Thanks to you both and to the illustration in the book, I think I'm now less in the dark. Since it's winter here in the mountains of Arizona, I think I'll go back and read the passages regarding the hot-water-bottle and the Gaz heater. Many thanks.

jw

I have a 14ft Kittiwake and have made a tops'l for her ...brilliant in light airs and looks SO pretty

I set a sheave in the top of the mast to run the halliard ...at midway point there is a hole in the tops'l yard through which the end of the halliard is inserted secured with a fig 8

when not in use for the tops'l this halliard serves as a topping lift

Bottom end of the yard 'adapted' a brass cranse iron from Classic Marine to turn a vertical ring into a horizontal hook shaped bit like a shepherds crook

this 'crook' hooks onto the throat halliard running up easily as you haul up the halliard

this keeps the tops'l yard as nicely snug to the line of the mast as poss and keeps the heel of the yard secured from wobbling about ....sail sets really nicely

Yes, I keep a very close eye on chafe

Outhaul clew rove through a bronze fairlead at end of gaff leading to another by the throat and down to belay

I always set on a st'bd tack for obvious reasons, but she fills and pulls better on port tack

I hope this helps

Neal

I have a 14ft Kittiwake and have made a tops'l for her ...brilliant in light airs and looks SO pretty

I set a sheave in the top of the mast to run the halliard ...at midway point there is a hole in the tops'l yard through which the end of the halliard is inserted secured with a fig 8

when not in use for the tops'l this halliard serves as a topping lift

Bottom end of the yard 'adapted' a brass cranse iron from Classic Marine to turn a vertical ring into a horizontal hook shaped bit like a shepherds crook

this 'crook' hooks onto the throat halliard running up easily as you haul up the halliard

this keeps the tops'l yard as nicely snug to the line of the mast as poss and keeps the heel of the yard secured from wobbling about ....sail set sreally nicely

Outhaul clew rove through a bronze fairlead at end of gaff leading to another by the throat and down to belay

I always set on a st'bd tack for obvious reasons but she fills and pulls better on port tack

I hope this helps

Neal

Regards Chas.

jw

Arizona

I have been cruising (20 - 30 nights a year) in a 15 foot Montgomery 15 for the last 10 years and love the boat. After reading Sailing just for fun I bit the bullet and am converting my sloop to a Gaff cutter patterened after Shoal Waters.

Thanks for the insparation.

There are a couple of pictures of the work in progress at http://montgomeryowners.com/gallery/

The only unique aspect is the use of the fife rail to handle all of the cleats and to minimize launching time.

I have cut 3 feet off the mast, built the sub-assemblies, ordered the sails and should have real pictures by March.

If you want to see the before, there is a nice picture on my web site above.

Thanks

Doug Kelch

Now, looking over the photos, I see one showing the Topsail Halyard and Topsail Downhaul. I had so fallen in love with my former notion that, in consternation, I've had to have a small snack and will now need a short nap. Hopefully, as you refine and add to your article on the rigging, the mysteries ( mysterious largely due to my being somewhat obtuse) will be addressed and the topsail will re-establish itself as a source of solace for the easily confused.

Whether I'll ever get my own small craft built is uncertain. I remain buried in the attempt to complete the structure in which I hope to build the boat, with my rigging attempts confined to a vexing contraption posing as a scaffold. Thus -- as for many readers, I'm sure -- Shoal Waters does a double duty. We never tire of reading about her. jw

It's just a first draft. So it should improve.

The details you mention are of great interest to those of us adrift between the armchair and the cockpit. Do you think the photos you mention could be posted on the websight? With the cold weather coming on, you might consider spending some time adding a sub-heading to contents under About Shoal Waters, with photos and diagrams explaining the parts of the rig, how you came to arrange them as you have, and the fine points of using them. I've gleaned some of the information by going over photos in your book with a maginfying glass, etc. but there must be much that could be better explained. You've left us in no doubt as to the advantages you've found in the gaff rig; now we've a taste for the finer points!

Jim Woolsey

The hounds are a metal ring with four eyes. The shrouds have eyes spiced in them an go above the ring. The block for the staysail is shackled to the forward eye. Another bock on a grommet is fitted near the masthead for the jib. The topping lift runs from the port hand eye, under the middle of the boom, up to a hardeye shacled to the starboard eye down to a block on the deck and aft to a cleat so that I can ease or set it up from the cockpit. The peak Halyard runs through a block shacled to the after ring on the hounds. each headsail is on Wykham Martin furling gear. still the best. IF YOU LET ME HAVE YOUR ADDRESS I WILL SEND YOU SOME PICKS hope this helps. Chas Stock

A One-day conference Considering the First World War in Essex Saturday 1st November, 10.00 am – 4.30 pm

10.00 am Welcome and introduction

10.30 am The Men of Hornchurch: An Essex response to the War

Dr Paul Rusiecki (author of the forthcoming book, The Impact of Catastrophe: The People of Essex and the First World War)

11.30 am Coffee

11.50 am ‘Strong arms and stout hearts’ Essex and the outbreak of the Great War

Stuart Hallifax (University of Oxford)

12.50 pm Lunch

Book sales and signing

2.00 pm Internment of Enemy Aliens

Grahame Harris (Essex Record Office)

3.00 pm Coffee

3.15 pm Zeppelins over Southend

Ken Crowe (Southend Museum and author of Zeppelins over Southend)

4.15 Close

Tickets £12.00 (Concessions £9.00 ES40, NUS card or Friend of Historic Essex)

Thanks for your kind words. I manged a full season his year but fear that it will be my last. I just coverd the 1000 miles and visited all rivers between Orfordness and Whitstable. The years are begining to tell (81) and I am loosing the power of my thumbs and figuers. Anyway, I am working on the boat while the weather lasts and hope at least to sail locally next year.

Good luck with your dory regards Chas.

thomas

--- thomasarmstrong 

Sorry about the delay. I haven't been checking the board as often as I should.

Yes sure you can use all the photoes you like.

Give me a list an I will email them to you.

thomas

Thanks, Damien.

http://www.gaw-associates.com/inc/blog.html

having read 'Sailing Just for Fun' many times, and having looked at your website many times as well, I was surprised and delighted to find I could download another of your books. And for free! A rare thing indeed in these money orientated days! Many thanks for this 'gift'.

Too many older than me Maurice Griffiths was there inspiration but for this middle aged man Mr Grifiths 'time' is remote and did not speak to me. You however do. My only regret is I don't have your Thames 'playground' being based on the Humber.

Hope you are well and still get as much pleasure from Shoal Waters as you always did.

Thank you.

David Tyler

When I think back to my early sailing days on the Christchurch estuary in the South Island of New Zealand, exploring the highways and byeways of the estuary, it reminds me of the sort of cruising ground that you inhabit - shoal and very tidal. - I remember those days of very small boats as in some ways being the best of my sailing years - mainly because everything was small and simple and inexpensive. I have your book and it has a special place on my bookshelf. - I grew up reading Arthur Ransome and the whole 'Swallows and Amazons' thing - One of my ambitions is to sail on the Norfolk Broads one day - might see you there!!!

Kind Regards - Alden Smith - Whangarei - New Zealand

The chart of the Estuary has helped immensely my understanding of your home waters and the details of your trips. Very different from my Narragansett Bay, which has no "sands" and few navigable rivers, but quite a few bay islands and some beautiful offshore islands as well. And of course we have a comparatively short history, since the earliest European settlements date from the 1600s, and almost nothing older than a couple of centuries has survived.

Jeff Michals-Brown,

Core Sound 20 Beatrice Ann

regards Charles Stock

I have been enjoying your book, which my wife gave me for my birthday. As I got into the details of your trips, I resolved to buy a chart of the Estuary so I could follow them better--chart C01 is now on its way. I will then pass the chart on to my father (about your age, but gave up sailing long ago), to whom I gave your "55 Years" web book.

I myself sail a home-built 20 foot cat-ketch rigged centerboarder, and have taken much of your philosophy to heart (although I confess to mounting a little bitty motor). I mostly sail the waters of Narragansett Bay in southern New England, in a climate not so diffferent from yours. One question I have it why you always kept your boat on a mooring rather than trailering. My boat sits on a trailer in the back yard, easy to maintain and ready at fairly short notice. Trailering makes possible trips to points too distant to reach if I always had to start in my home waters.

I'm glad to hear you've been out recently and hope you continue in good health.

yours,

Jeff Michals-Brown, skipper, Beatrice Ann

Any information from Yourself or any other person with knowledge would be mosr appreciated.

Thank You Malcolm Spittey (Bodmin Cornwall)

Charles Stock.

--- Chas stock(guest) 

I have been doing some "research" for you regards George Stock & Maria [from Bealings, Suffolk] Can you e-mail me on Geoff.June@btopenworld.com [I have located their MARRIAGE by the way]

Your website is fantastic. I don't think BILL STOCK is from our Finchingfield Stocks, unless he knows more of course.

All for now. Just in case this doesn't get through. Will get some copies ready to post to you shortly.

Yours June [Page]

My name is Bill Stock and I saw you out on the water near Bradwell breakwater on the evening of Wednesday April 2. I was on board a 36ft yacht and I asked the skipper to motor parallel to Shoal Waters so that I could take a few photographs. One of the snaps is especially good and I would like to use it on my own small website about sailing on the East Coast.. I have read and re-read your book many times but have only just discovered your excellent website and would like to include a link to it on my site.

--- Bill Stock 

You are very welcome to use your photos on your website.

Links are also most welcome.

--- Chris Stock (son) 

From Charles - I have no record of the Stocks you mention. My last ancestor born in Finchingfield (1838), turns up in the records at Chigwell in the early 1870s from where they moved to the area of the brickworks south of Woodford Station. At least six families lived in the area of Globe Rd near the school.

Essex records office has extensive details, both church records and census. The church records are not readable for the 1810s - George Stock was in Finchingfield for the 1851 census but not that of 1861. By 1871 he was at Woodford Bridge.

Cccharles Stock