Skiff

Interesting history of Kent and Kentish history you linked. Thanks.

 

It's 1-35 am & I'm still awake. When you're 72, sleeping is a waste of resources.

 

Anybody ice-skating on the Thames this year?

 

How did the Thames get its name? Here we have the Hillsborough River named after an English explorer.

 

The Thames was a tributary of the Rhine, or so it has been said. That was before the English Channel opened up.

Before the end of the Devensian glaciation (the most recent ice age that ended around 10,000 years ago), the British Isles were part of continental Europe, linked by an unbroken Weald-Artois Anticline, which acted as a natural dam that held back a large freshwater pro-glacial lake in the Doggerland region, now submerged under the North Sea. During this period the North Sea and almost all of the British Isles were covered with ice. The lake was fed by meltwater from the Baltic and from the Caledonian and Scandinavian ice sheets that joined to the north, blocking its exit. The sea level was about 120 m (390 ft) lower than it is today. Then, more than 200,000 years ago a single catastrophic glacial lake outburst flood overtopped the Weald-Artois Anticline and scoured a channel through an expanse of low-lying tundra, right down to the underlying chalk bedrock. In a study published in 2007[15][16] high-resolution sonar revealed the unexpectedly well-preserved scourmarks and the telltale lenticular island forms characteristic of torrential flood. Through the scoured channel passed a river which now drained the combined Rhine and Thames towards the Atlantic to the west. As the ice sheet melted, a large freshwater lake formed in the southern part of what is now the North Sea. As the meltwater could still not escape to the north (as the northern North Sea was still frozen) the outflow channel from the lake entered the Atlantic Ocean in the region of Dover and Calais.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_Channel

The Thames, from Middle English Temese, is derived from the Celtic name for the river, Tamesas (from *tamēssa),[3] recorded in Latin as Tamesis and yielding modern Welsh Tafwys "Thames". The name probably meant "dark" and can be compared to other cognates such as Russian темно (Proto-Slavic *tьmьnъ), Sanskrit tamas, Irish teimheal and Welsh tywyll "darkness" (Proto-Celtic *temeslos) and Middle Irish teimen "dark grey",[3] though Richard Coates[4] mentions other theories: Kenneth Jackson's[5] that it is non Indo-European (and of unknown meaning), and Peter Kitson's[6] that it is Indo-European but pre-Celtic and has a name indicating "muddiness" from a root *tā-, 'melt'.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/River_Thames

The pub is The Ferry, my favourite haunt & its just possible to observe the slipway alongside the moorings.

http://thames.me.uk/s00770.htm

 

If I make it to England, perhaps we can tilt a pint or 3 there.

 

Oh yes. It would have to be a little more than that. Lunch at http://www.theferry.co.uk/home/ & cruise to Wargrave & supper at http://www.stgeorgeanddragon.co.uk/home/

That would include not passing any hostelries en route & imbibing draughts of cooling refreshments of an inebriating nature.

"Are you a gin drinker Number 1?" "Certainly am Cap'n. Many are the pink gins I have swallowed in the Wardroom whilst the ship has engaged U-boats mid-Atlantic." Those lines give you the gist of a book that has been in my family since it was published in 1951 & which I have read many times. Get it if you can. You will not be disappointed.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Yankee-R-N-Street-volunteered-America/dp/B0000CHZ02

Lt Commander A H Cherry sailed on HMS Starling with Captain "Johnnie" Walker's 36th Escort Group.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederic_John_Walker

 

Good thing to do before you hang up your sea boots is a one or two week canal boat cruise.

One of the great pleasures in life

 

We just watched the movie Three Men in a Boat. It was very enjoyable.

A cruise in a canal boat would be a great pleasure.

 

Hoyt,

You don't fancy sculling then? Very wise man. The idea is to be able to order one's pint of warm bitter in a clear & confident voice. Not wheezing on the threshold & gasping to hold on for dear life. That was me yesterday, as I wielded a saw to cut up a few logs. Shoulders & arms big enough to wrestle a bear & let down by lungs wasted by genetic emphysema.

Although, of course, my sons point out that my corporation enters the pub before the rest of me; the blighters!!!

 

Au contraire. Rowing, as I call it, has proved valuable to me in the past and although it isn't as swift as motoring, it is more efficient than moving the boat by pulling the starter cord in gear when the motor won't start.

 

Ahhh having a Wench do the Rowing , whilst sitting in the Stern sipping a Pint ...

 

Is it once again a case of two nations divided by a common language?

Supposedly, sculling involves a seated rower who pulls on two oars or sculls, attached to the boat, thereby moving the boat in the direction opposite to that which the rower faces. Rowing is one, two or more pairs of rowers, each pulling on a single sweep oar on alternate sides of the boat.

Single, double & quad sculls.

Coxless pairs & fours & coxed pairs, fours & eights.

Cornish pilot gigs are coxed & propelled by six rowers.

http://www.ilfracombepilotgigclub.org/wp-content/uploads/08.jpg

Shallops are just the more oars the merrier & they might have an odd number of sweep oars on one side or the other.

As shown below, the Lady Mayoress shallop has six tholes per side, yet is being rowed by only five men at "Our Richmond Boats".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pleasure_barge#mediaviewer/File:LadyMayoress01.JPG

http://mysheenvillage.com/local-news/our-richmond-boats/

Three double benchers, two single benchers.

http://cdn.c.photoshelter.com/img-g...fit=1000x750/Great-River-Race-GBPhotos-18.jpg

Heavens to Betsy, I cain't takes no more!

 

Apropos of not a lot, has any consideration, ever been given, at any time, by anyone, to the sheer lunacy of mounting & securing an aluminium stepladder on the sole of a small skiff in order to spot fish & also to jury rig a "get you home sail"?

Something like this?

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Scaffold-Ladders-Multi-Function-Platforms/dp/B002VKDRH0/ref=pd_sxp_f_pt

It would also support a tarpaulin longitudinally as a shelter on board like a Thames camping skiff.

http://www.skiffhire.com/picturestrip/lg2.jpg

Perhaps too left field?

 

We have a bimini top, but I doubt its adequacy as a shelter. We also have several blue tarps of various sizes that we can lay over the bimini top and secure to make a better shelter should the need arise.