Meeting Reports
February 2019 Nicholas Gray – Astronauts of Cape Horn
Chipping Norton Yacht Club – In February author and sailor Nicholas Gray told us about the eleven extraordinary sailors who had rounded Cape Horn alone by the time twelve men had set foot on the moon. Why compare these? In both cases rescue was impossible, and getting home uncertain. When wondering where to look…
Read MoreJanuary 2019 – Max Liberson and the Vegetables
Max held us spellbound with his saga of the 5-week delivery trip of CNYC member Barnaby’s Danish-built Greek sponge fishing boat Eleni from a mud berth in Maldon, where she’d spent 2 years being re-rigged and re-fitted, to Greece, via Biscay and the Med. Eleni is stylish, attracts admiration wherever she docks, and proved an…
Read MoreNovember 2018 James Byrne – Is there a doctor on board?
Aboard 3-masted Barque Tenacious, one of two of Jubilee Sailing Trust’s tall ships especially equipped for people with disabilities, the answer is a resounding yes. On three of her voyages our eminent consultant neuroradiologist member James Byrne was the volunteer Ship’s Doctor. James reminded us of the long history of this noble calling by showing…
Read MoreOctober 2018 – Fraser Gunn – the RNLI
‘For Those in Peril on the Sea’ We yachtsmen thought we knew about the RNLI – it rescues people like us, fishermen and merchant seamen in terrible gales. Well it does, but as Fraser Gunn – our speaker this month – revealed, it also rescues huge numbers of walkers, sea-anglers, kayakers etc. as well as,…
Read MoreSeptember 2018 – Rowena Verity and Paul Atwood — 2017/2018 Clipper Round the World Yacht Race
As our Commodore said by way of introduction, this race is decidedly not for wimps. Although sailors in the audience are accustomed to the privations and discomforts of small boats, the experiences we heard about were, for most of us, something else. Rowena Verity had us enthralled by her account of her time aboard 70ft…
Read MoreApril 2018 – Penny Tranter “Sailing Weather”
Penny Tranter has had 35 years working at the Met office, and is a sailor. So she understands as we do the importance of weather to sailors, but, unlike most of us, can read and interpret the clouds, satellite pictures, weather data, weather maps and so on to explain what is going on and what…
Read MoreJune 2018 Cathy Shelbourne “William Dampier, circumnavigator extraordinaire”
*Cathy is a professional and experienced speaker, and it showed. Her speciality is maritime heroes, and her normal habitat cruise ships. On cruises she always tries to offer a talk that connects in some way to where they are, but, as she had told us beforehand, finding a nautical topic with a connection to Chipping…
Read MoreMarch 2018 – Barry Picthall – Golden Globe Race 2018
Writer and photographer Barry Picthall, Chair of the Yachting Journalists’ Association, was our March speaker. He won their “Journalist of the Year Award” in 2008, was Yachting Correspondent on The Times for two decades, and it was meeting Robin Knox-Johnston, back in the 70’s, that proved seminal in sparking his lifelong interest in yacht racing.…
Read MoreFeb 2018 “The Careened Ship – a pursuit across the Internet” Frances Miller
This picture shows a boat being “careened” (hauled onto her side) for repairs. At our February meeting Commodore Frances Miller told how she’d come across and been intrigued by this watercolour, which was unsigned, undated, with no hint of the ship’s name. She was sufficiently interested to start searching for the boat’s identity and why…
Read MoreDusseldorf 2018
Barnaby S and Roger B visited Europe’s biggest and most impressive boat show in Dusseldorf in January 2018. Barnaby did it as a day trip, leaving Chadlington at an unholy hour to catch the 0700 flight from Birmingham. Roger spent the previous night in Birmingham, as he doesn’t do early (well not that early!). Flybe’s…
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