Tag Archives: dinghy

Les Turner: Harbour, 1970s

I shall never forget the day we had to deal with a fifty foot sort of Edwardian steam yacht.  Apparently they’d gone out the harbour and something had fallen off – I think it was a clock or the barometer. The husband and wife were having a bloody good old argument about it and they hit the Admiralty buoy out there, and so they comes in screaming and shouting.
We managed to get a line. They got the bow to about here, and of course the tide was  going out and I managed to put a line on there on to the quay.  People with pumps came from everywhere. They even got the Fire Brigade down here.   Poor old Bob Woodford went and got this pump off Vic. He went running down this little slip. Course he forgot the bloody thing ended, and the people on the boat just managed to grab hold the pump before Bob disappeared off the end.

Yarmouth Harbour 1960s

Yarmouth Harbour 1960s

That’s where Cecil Doe, George Weston and Jack Harwood used to keep their sailing dinghies, their Enterprises, GP14s and stuff. We used to go down there lots of times, find a dinghy with an oar, scull up to the top of the quay or up the top of the harbour if there was westerly wind blowing, and either Al or myself would stand up with our jackets wide open, and one of us would steer with the oar while the other one stood with their jacket and sail down the harbour.  Les Turner  b 1944

 

Les Turner: Harbour, Smiths welcomed back 1949

I remember my dad taking me and my sister Pauline (now Woodford), down on to the Quay to see the celebrations for the Smith brothers, Stanley and Colin Smith, who had just sailed across the Atlantic.  They sailed from Dartmouth, Nova Scotia on 6th July 1949 to Dartmouth, England in 43 days.  This yacht, they had constructed it in Nova Scotia.  It was a twenty foot open yacht, clinker built, and as a cabin they used an up-turned dinghy.  What a feat for those days!  No wireless, no dehydrated food, no electronic instruments to guide them across the ocean. Photo

 

Yarmouth Quay,:elcoming the return of the Smith Brothers 1949

Yarmouth Quay,welcoming the return of the Smith Brothers 1949

The quay was covered in hundreds of people.  Stanley Smith senior went on to build a class of yachts:  Siani.  There are still a few around.  Some carvel, some clinker, based on the design of the Nova Espero.
They built these yachts in a shed next to the Institute, in a building that was between the bungalow ‘Seascape’ and the club extension.  Before the mid fifties, there was a creek from the bridge right round to ‘Seascape’ and Smiths yard.  When the tide was in, you couldn’t walk along in front of the wall that’s the back of the coastguard cottages. Les Turner b 1944

Crowds on the Quay to greet the Smith brothers on their return from Dartmouth after crossing the Atlaantic in 1949

Crowds on the Quay to greet the Smith brothers on their return from Dartmouth after crossing the Atlaantic in 1949

 

Harbour: Jim Cooper 1920s – 1960s

Coming in to wooden stage at Sandhard to avoid toll

Jim Cooper coming in to wooden stage at Sandhard to avoid toll

It was a basic dinghy shape.  They called it a ‘lanch’ the old boys, so that differentiated it from a rowing boat.  It was bigger and it had a net board in the back.  In the transom, six inches below, there was a net board about two foot wide which we used to lay the net on when we were shooting nets out the back of the transom.  It was a very wide boat and the oars he used were about ten foot long, huge big ash oars, they weighed a ton, I couldn’t lift them.

In those days he made a little bit of a living on pout which these days is much maligned.  ‘Sweet little pout’; my mum still says now, ‘Why can’t you get me a sweet little pout?’
It’s like a mini cod, the same flesh, same family.  He used to catch those.

When we used to go out we used to row down to Fort Vic., go out in the tide. You remember those old iron wheelbarrow wheels with a spike in the middle? He used to have one of those, that was his anchor and a big bit of grass rope and he used to chuck that over and he used to have the oars ready. They’d get to where they wanted to go and drift back, and let a bit more rope out;  so they stopped and then they fished, and all they used was line, about three or four hooks on the bottom and garden worms.  They’d catch a few pout and then they’d run out, or they hadn’t caught one, then they’d trip the killock [small anchor]. Pull the anchor up a little bit, let it go, give it a shear with the oar now and again, and drift in the right direction to another bit of ground.  And they’d do that all the way to Bouldnor. There was about three or four places where they stopped.  And of course by the time you got to Bouldnor inshore, the ebb was down again, so you had the tide back the other way.  Alec Cokes b 1945

Janet Hopkins: Early Days

Yarmouth harbour showing old bridge 1930s

Yarmouth harbour showing Bridge House on the old bridge 1930s

Doe family at Bridge House

Doe family at Bridge House

I can remember as a toddler going to visit my grandparents when they were living in Bridge House, and standing on a table to look up the river. The top storey burnt down when someone was doing some decorating and using a blow torch, then it was used as a Customs House, and later still the Sailing Club.

The Harbour Commissioners gave my grandfather, ‘Pop’ a nice present when he retired – a launch. When I was young I used to go out with him over to Key Haven collecting seagulls eggs. We used to bring them back and eat them, they were quite strong, but nice. We used to go out winkling and prawning, and cook and eat those. I used to go with him, pigeon shooting up the railway line.

I had my first dinghy at 8, before that I used to borrow Pop’s. I suppose it was a bit unusual, there were hardly any others moored up the river where I kept mine. I always enjoyed small boats. Janet Hopkins b 1947