In this episode Ed tells of his life of sailing and examining for the RYA (Royal Yacht Association) sailing in the Whitbread round the world race and his experience as a skipper in the 1979 Fastnet race.
Pre-Roll Post-Roll short version
Pre-Roll Post-Roll
In this episode Ed tells of his life of sailing and examining for the RYA (Royal Yacht Association) sailing in the Whitbread round the world race and his experience as a skipper in the 1979 Fastnet race.
Pre-Roll Post-Roll short version
Pre-Roll Post-Roll
0 (1s):
The Tim Heale podcasts, ordinary people's extraordinary stories.
1 (18s):
Welcome to series three under Tim Heale podcasts in the last two shares, I've told you about my life. I've met many interesting people along the way who have become my friends and what they all have in common is they all have fascinating stories of their own, which they're happy to share with you now, thank you for listening. Welcome back to the Tim Heale podcast. In this
2 (47s):
Episode, we can have another chat with ed and this time Ed's going to tell us all about his sailing career and what he did as an examiner, how he got to that stage and what he did with
3 (59s):
The Royal Yacht Association. So ed, if you can start off with your sailing
2 (1m 5s):
Career and how you got to where you are
3 (1m 8s):
Today. Okay. Well, I'd say from a fairly young age in just mostly living, living, employment, working, being in a school implement, there was plenty of opportunity to learn to sell, but not, not really competitively until I joined the Navy. When I got swept up into the racing a bit in those days, Dartmouth had a fleet of fireflies that they sell pretty competitively and several people in my term that actually brought their own boats to Dartmouth, which you could do in those days and to sell with on a Hornet with mate of mine, Raz Turner, and also with the other turnip, Bob Turner on his, his boat, which he, he had that that was the start of sailing, I guess, competitively and that sort of blossomed into other things.
3 (2m 15s):
When I went to Maladin at their all Naval engineering college at mannered, and because they had several self-training yachts there at the time, I think we had four sail training yachts of different ages and one racing yacht, which was campaign that was whenever era Nicholson, 36. And I that's what I started sailing off shore for the first time. And because the system allowed it in those days, I became an actual skipper at the age of about just over 20, because they just sort of said, you know, if he can get on with it and several of us qualified for our rinse off shore tickets that just over the age of 20.
3 (3m 9s):
So after that we were, you know, we, we were in heaven, we could take boats and sell them all over the place. And indeed we did. And that sort of started me off for a while. I got quite, we got quite serious about other sailing and together with Raz Turner who who's another now retired captain and a great mate of mine. We got a flying Dutchman supplied or loaned or whatever from basically from the RSA. It wasn't the smartest flying Dutchman. And it was one of the very early plastic ones, which didn't make it that competitive, but we sailed it as competitively as we could.
3 (3m 56s):
And we ended up being the reserve boat for the Olympics to Rob the Patterson who was, who was sailing his flying Dutchman and won several gold medals. We never got very close to, we, we, we actually beat him once in a race I think. And so, but, but, but we did try and campaign very hard. We went to keel, which is where the Olympics were and, but we, we never got too serious that he race then. So that, that was my sort of sailing time during my time at the engineering college, which was pretty good. It gave me a background so that when I finished my first sort of C job and went to the left-handers Greenwich, because at the end of that via pointer sent me down to Gasport.
3 (4m 49s):
I didn't know even know what was that gospel, but at the time they wanted a deputy of syringe challenge of the then GSSC, which was quite a big organization in those days, it was had about 110 people working in the organization. We have our own ship rights. We had sailmaker we had engineers and we did all the maintenance on all the, the GSOC boats, which there were quite a few. Then there, there, there, in addition to the Nicholson fifty-five Richard Cowan, there were, there were considerable. Lot of other ones. We have contesters we had various other boats that were brought in windfall boats that came in and became part of the fleet there.
3 (5m 38s):
And for two years, two and a half years, I think I was the deputy officer in charge down there to commander Alan Williams on them figure. I learned an awful lot there. I became the senior Naval skipper and then qualified as an examiner and used to do the examinations, the Nick 55 skippers take nitpick by themselves. So that, that was a pretty steep learning curve initially, but great experience. And I'd spent most of the year sailing, not entirely popular with my wife, who, who used to live in Monkton.
3 (6m 18s):
We used to live in Montreal, but I didn't spend much time on that.
2 (6m 22s):
Just stepping back slightly. Can we just look back at that? You did the Olympics, you say we didn't
3 (6m 28s):
Do the Olympics. We were at the Olympics say to embroider too much. We were there. We went, went over as the reserve boat that we never called upon, but we did do the Olympic trials, which were over in Keele and which is where the Olympics were. So, so we, we campaign the boat pretty hard, but it, but it never quite made it
2 (6m 50s):
Where you up a day Olympic village at the time of the Olympics, or it was just a build up to it. Yeah. We, we
3 (6m 56s):
Were there for the, we were there for the bills off in the first festers a little bit. And then we re we had to come back, I think because of the baby infant. In fact, we ran out of leave.
2 (7m 8s):
That's a great time in tying it in with a child sort of meadow, but it wasn't a bad, no,
3 (7m 15s):
I, I don't, I don't think there was a, I mean, by that time, I think Palestinian, but he'd already won the gold medal in the Dutchman at a previous one. And he, he wanted again at that one and we were never going to be in that league, but, but it was fun.
2 (7m 33s):
So coming back to Gasport then, and did you spend a lot of time silent to become a, an examiner?
3 (7m 41s):
Yeah, it was, it was interesting to do that, obviously that you need someone there to, to, there were, I think at the time we had 12, the most we had was 12 senior rating skippers who some of whom were on the Nick, 50 fives, 6 55, some of whom were on the smaller boats. And basically they all reported to me, there was an army section where they had three retired majors who ran their own shop and an RF section where two ref retired officers ran their own 50 fives.
3 (8m 21s):
So, so it was a spit organization, but the Naval side of it came entirely under me, had a fabulous time and did lots of sailing, not just the milk run and ran around the run, the channel, but also, you know, some quite long distance trips and, and actually did one transatlantic on one of the 55 S so I, I gained a lot of experience in that and thoroughly, thoroughly enjoyed it. It was great fun and all the, all the skippers, I think there is sadly, I think there's only one of the, don't give it well-known character or what it is. I think probably the only surviving skipper from my time, there was another guy who sadly died.
3 (9m 5s):
I think about 18 months ago, Terry Nash, who was a terrific skipper and well-known it, no Terry Nash. And he faked them and they were, they were both super skippers and ran their boats very, very well. So th that was, that was basically my, my time there towards the end of that time. I didn't know what I, I, I thought I was probably going to go back to sea, but instead I was kept on for short period to be the, we were just about to have the second Whitbread race and I got to be the navel, not that Abel manager, but the Naval instructor on that and took all the crews out when we were trying to sort out who was, we were going to take for the crew in the navel visit it.
3 (10m 1s):
So I, I enjoyed that. And then at the end of it got a place on it myself and did the first leg down to Cape town, w w w with the adventure, which was, which was a terrific thing to do other, we, by then the 50 fives were really outclass by some of the vets that, that, that were sailing then, and while they they'd done extremely well in the first Whitbread race, we were, you know, trailing a bit. I mean, I think we're about fourth or fifth into, into, into Cape town, but overall we didn't do all that well. So
2 (10m 39s):
This is the pre 67 days challenges sixties seven days.
3 (10m 43s):
Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They didn't exist. It was all 50 fives in those days. And some windfalls, that was a great thing. And again, you know, it was terrific. And my wife got to fly out to, to Cape town and we had a holiday on the way back, although, unfortunately, we got deported. I did, she didn't because the crew on adventure, when we got to K-Town, we forgot, or nobody actually mentioned anything like going through customs or immigration or anything. And when we arrived in Johannesburg to fly back from Johannesburg, they took one look at us and our passports, which had no entry permits in them.
3 (11m 25s):
And
2 (11m 26s):
When they do portals and we
3 (11m 29s):
Had, we had to get our passports and everything renewed. Cause we were actually British airways was told to deport us and take us out the country within 24 hours.
2 (11m 40s):
So he was a pop pop project officer missed that one then. Yeah. And the other cruise mistake,
3 (11m 51s):
I know some, some, some people, some people got this same treatment and some stayed on because w w we, it was all sort of sliding change, but not the crew didn't change in its entirety, that Cape town. And that, that was that. And from there, I went to another shore job, which I probably didn't mention in, in, in my history. I went onto to Dartmouth on the staff at Dartmouth. And I think that they actually wanted to use officer rather than a head of re-engineering, which is what my official title.
2 (12m 27s):
So another couple of years of doing nothing much, but sailing, I guess. Yeah. Quite
3 (12m 32s):
A lot of sailing down there. They had, they had a good fleet of boats. I w I bought quite a few boats down there for, for them because they were changing over. We, we bought some new boats because the, the, the, the old Morgan Giles were beginning to get a bit tired when we were phasing them out. And we replaced them with, with new models, including an nerdy 34, which was one of the prototypes. And I sell with Joe, Jeremy Rogers on the prototype ODI 34. And then we bought one for Dartmouth, which was quite fun.
3 (13m 13s):
And 11 days after we took it, delivery of it, we did cows week with it. And then we did the 79 fast, the
2 (13m 20s):
79, or did it survive? It did
3 (13m 22s):
It, did I prescribe bring it with a mixed crews, couple of staff, officers from Dartmouth and several cadets. We she's doing very well.
2 (13m 33s):
I have to say
3 (13m 35s):
Good from our point of view, because we were further ahead than any of the other early 30 fours when the big storm hit and it got really lumpy, but we were still racing to be honest at that stage thought we were anyway. And we got knocked down and lost all the stuff off the top of the mouse. Cause we put the monster in the water and which is quite an achievement in 30, 34 bizarrely. We could here. I probably shouldn't say this when you're recording it. But the reality was that we were hearing so much on the radio, but then I said to my navigator, turn it off. I said, cause if we get a Mayday call, we're going to have to try and do something about it.
3 (14m 16s):
And we've got more than enough to look after ourselves. And we did, we turned the radio off. We, we had a, just a storm give up, couldn't even get the trestle up. We kept the boat getting still getting to Wynwood as best we could in those conditions. And when that was overnight and went on, the came up, I got to shout over, been done, but over it a little bit, and I got a shot to come up and there was another yard, about 200 yards away down to it, of us. And it was a grade Spanish admirals cupper and, and he was waving and shouting and all these radios.
3 (14m 56s):
So we turn the radio back on and he said, we want to retire, but we haven't got any chance to survive.
2 (15m 6s):
Which way is it? Which way is it <inaudible>,
3 (15m 13s):
You know, we were in the days of the old radio fixing, you know, we said, well, we think in sales on this bearing and he said, can you come with us? And so we settled into, can sail with his Apple's capper only to find that we were really still quite well placed up in the fleet, but we'd had a bit of damage. We'd lost all, but one of the Winchester, you know, kids, when we took two, there's a lesson for you, isn't it don't have all the winch handles up. You know, the whole 30 lot went over to south. We have one wind channel. So we were shorter wind channels.
3 (15m 53s):
And so we, we said, you know, this is going to be a bit tricky. And we went alongside fairly briefly, not enough to phone Dartmouth and say we were alive, which was a bit of a shaky thing to do if you think about it. Cause that was Southern Ireland at a time when we were Naval, boats were not terribly popular in Southern Ireland, but, but, but typically, typically, yeah, when we, there were huge crowd of press and people there and whatnot and lots of people. And I was struggling in to try and get to the telephone, to phone Dartmouth and say that we were okay. We were all in one piece. And, and the, this was in the foyer of, of the big hotel there, Blake jumped up on the chair, but from behind the bar and said, that's what you're thinking of there from the Navy board, because the press I'd like to speak to you rather blew our cover.
3 (16m 47s):
You know, we weren't flying away to incent, which is a good idea. And, and we were very lucky. There was, there was a, an Irish you're going to have to help me on this. There's a famous Irish
2 (17m 1s):
Whiskey Jamieson Jamieson's
3 (17m 3s):
It was Jamison's and James, the, the boss of Jamison's roots there because Jamison's had a boat in the fleet and he came over to see us. And he said, are you okay? We said, yes, we, you know, we'd have to cook a fall out. You know, we turned out so far, it came out, but Jim walls and we'd lost all day. And he came and he said, oh, all right. And he walked away and he came back and he had eight brand new winch handles and said, go get, go.
2 (17m 34s):
Oh, results. So were you able to carry on the <inaudible>? We haven't
3 (17m 40s):
Declared a retirement and we carried on and we got to finish. We don't have a good one because, you know, there were boats, very well sell that got run fast and when whistling back, but we actually did complete it. So that's my, that's my fast net story. Anyway. And of course, two or three of the ODP, 30 fours sank. Yeah. That's not very clever. No, no.
2 (18m 5s):
Cause there's quite a few people lost on it. There
3 (18m 7s):
Were several from that particular patch, but it was just where the Biddle, the wetter happened to hit us. Yeah. We were lucky we were ahead of it. And we had some, yeah, we had some very good people on board and we basically kept saying,
2 (18m 22s):
Okay, I mean, it's fast at going on. Can we speak
3 (18m 26s):
As we speak? I think quite a time.
2 (18m 29s):
Yeah. I think they started off with a bent rough and I think the way it was easier. Yeah. Quite
3 (18m 34s):
A lot now. But yeah. I mean, I have done one since just to make sure I still could, but I don't rush to go to it. So that was, that was sort of the end of my time to darkness, which was a very busy sailing time for me. And I had by then qualified as an OAA examiner and, and did examining for them for some time. In fact, I became an examiner when I was 25. I remember, but in every five years you have to requalify.
3 (19m 17s):
And when I was 50, I decided I was fed up. Both these people coming on and I checked it in. So, so I'm technically not I'm, I'm not an off shore examiner anymore. Although I am an ocean examiner because I used to do ocean examiner from ocean passage examining. So I, I think I'm still qualified as an ocean examiner, but not on an off shore examiner for the whole
2 (19m 46s):
Way. Do you get invited into, to be an examiner rather than applied to people? One quantified?
3 (19m 54s):
I think in my case it was, it was, it was through the GSOC who obviously had in those days close contacts with the Rya and, and I think it was Kmart around and Brian, Alan Williams, who said, you know, you better go and get qualified if you, you know, then you, you, you've got that stamp, you know, and go and get your RT certificate or other certificates and, you know, safety one. So I did all that and I kept it valid for, well, that 20 odd years did quite a bit of examining latterly, quite amusingly. I used to get called on to do the ones where people appealed against being failed.
3 (20m 40s):
And that was quite interesting because I did several of those for the Rya, you know, w where someone had appealed against that being failed. And I would think about 50% of them, I then passed because there was a very rigid approach to it. But, you know, the feel I used to have, I think it's may have changed now. I don't really know I'm out of touch, but what we should have been looking at was where are they competent and safe rather than did they know the right way to do certain knots and bits and pieces and sort of figure. And I had a slightly different approach.
3 (21m 20s):
So there are one or two people around who, who failed their, their Rya offshore ticket, Sue, who I actually got back on the register again, but it was interesting. And for a little while I worked for, for Warsash for the nav school down there, doing stuff for them, teaching Astro and bits and pieces of that. So I guess Astro is cool difficult
2 (21m 50s):
If you, if you've got cloudy skies. So how'd you go about teaching that Astro did use
3 (21m 59s):
Chance to use it indoors
2 (22m 2s):
Or projects and stuff like that, or it's, you have to use the night sky. It's
3 (22m 6s):
Not easy. And, and I mean, I, well, I, I, I, I have done and do done Astro and yachts and whatnot on long passages. I, my motto is, is, you know, well, these days is, you know, don't bother to take a section, you know, have a tin, a Cape tin and put two GPS. Is that it? And stick it down in the village. You know, one of them will work.
2 (22m 31s):
Is that not cheating?
3 (22m 34s):
So I don't think that the Astro side of ocean passages has probably died out, you know, electronics has taken over, but, but I enjoyed doing it when I did it. And I can still just about managed to do it, you know, some site and whatever, but I, but I don't keep my hand in, particularly
2 (23m 1s):
Now here's a question for you and she had to continue to sail. Do you use paper charts all the time or have you gone the other way? And, and why are we paying for Charleston? Just use your electronics.
3 (23m 17s):
I, I like paper charts, but I you'd be racing by always use electronics these days. You know, it's got so sophisticated and there is such good programs now to help you in what I do, which is tack NAF, really for people I've done it for several people. I did it for the American, for the German, the gentlemen Apple's cup team took me on as a, as a Senate Naveah, you know, tack navigator and, and, you know, the, the, the electronics really helped.
3 (23m 57s):
Yeah. So
2 (23m 57s):
I guess you, you pointed out a bite point and figure out where to turn, to get in the best routes and stuff like that.
3 (24m 5s):
Yeah. It, it, it's, it's, it's even, there's even more that you're feeding in or should be feeding in because basically when you're racing then on something like that, you're looking all the time at the Polaroids. You have, you have Polaroids, but for the yacht that, that tell you what it should be achieving at that wind angle, with that wind speed in that sea state. And you keep looking at this and if they're not, you can give them rats up top, cause they're not saving. So the maximum set, so there's a combination. It's not just where you go and where you, you know, where the tide is.
3 (24m 46s):
There's a lot more to it. You want to keep the boat performing at its at its best plus local knowledge, you know, knowing where people have left the old, you know, supermarket trolley and
2 (25m 2s):
Yeah, I suppose local knowledge, particularly if you're racing in the solar. Yeah. <inaudible>,
3 (25m 8s):
It's, it's very key to know your way around. Yeah. And then I, for a while I went back to sailing as just as a skipper for GSOC. I did that for a year after I retired from the Navy, I did a year's worth of I've just sailing as a skipper for Genesis C, but then I kept getting all the really shitty chips, you know, everybody else was carrying out to the Caribbean and I ended up going around the north of Scotland and winter, you know, I thought this is a waste of the time, you know?
2 (25m 43s):
So say the fun out of it a bit. So
3 (25m 46s):
I rather walk away from that one, but that was probably that's the last time I stopped sailing big boats seriously. And I've stopped doing track nerve. I I've sailed as, as Peter and Martins tack now for about eight or nine years. But I have to say that it's, but it's not necessarily at the front of the fleet drawers and it's not always my fault. You're not casting aspersions on. He is a lovely man. Yeah.
3 (26m 26s):
I've done for him for years and yeah, I enjoy sailing with him, but, but it can be fraught at times
2 (26m 35s):
As ration does, I suppose. Yeah. I've delved into a little bit of racing and we entered the boat into the army offshore regatta. And unfortunately we had a bit of a coming to it, another boat we T-boned at other boat and it wasn't entirely our fault. The conditions were, it was a bit of a breeze blind. We tacked the boat stalled completely. And then when we went and grabbed it, it just part of straight into the side of another boat that didn't see us coming move there. So that sport our little journey into the army or shore Rick Hatter.
2 (27m 16s):
But the good thing about the RV show regatta is that you go to the Royal yacht squadron for a barbecue on the Wednesday. Yes,
3 (27m 23s):
That's great. That's quite nice. I mean, I used to do the, I've done quite a few of the, the services. So are there services or shore race over the years with a variety of people and I've always enjoyed that. <inaudible>, you know, fun. Cause the vapes are usually very evenly matched. So it was, it was a fun event and people like motorized and whatnot myself against and others in that for years. Yes, I did
2 (27m 59s):
My show a couple of days ago. He's got fantastic stories. Yeah.
3 (28m 4s):
Yeah. That seems like same sort of time, but, but more recently I've, I've moved away from, well, Peter weaker miles has given up racing anyway and I I've done a few bits and pieces for people, but, and we've done some not, not quite as adventurous as you, but, but w w we've done some off shore. Jenny and I came back from Oslo with one of the old Morgan Joneses and brought that back from store. Not, not with two of us. We had some other health on bullet, so I, I must, must come clean.
3 (28m 47s):
W we, we, we had other people youngsters on board, but that was a nice trip from reported back from also to Dartmouth in
2 (28m 57s):
Your mind. Or did you have some stock off?
3 (28m 60s):
Some stuff was, yes. We had some pretty lousy weather at times too. So yeah.
2 (29m 5s):
That no say can be rather unkind. Could be, yeah. We had to wait for several weather windows last year, coming back down, we set off from Inverness on the afternoon and it was forecast to be normally for, for a couple of days. And we got, we were going really, really well. And we got off of Scarborough when we picked up a line of lobster box, which, which scuppered us totally. And it took several hours for the life by just come and rescue us and, and France, by which time in do I never start a change, we would have been seven hours work done. We ended up going into, going into three and we sat there for a few days waiting for the next one at the window.
2 (29m 49s):
And we left on the back of a Gale coming south on another, all the lists, data Ramsgate and influential at home. So that was an interesting, it's really interesting style.
3 (30m 2s):
It's quite, it's quite a long way. We, okay. Now we can, we've got friends in Sweden. We came down and stopped in Sweden on route and then came through the cure canal. So cut that bit off and, and then sell down from there. But even so that, that coast is quite featureless down there. You know, even with, even with decent, nah, nah, it's difficult to pick up. Yes,
2 (30m 34s):
We, we we've came down. I think, I think when you get down to sort of the
3 (30m 40s):
Dutch Belgian border and then you pick up the flags and that Belgian
2 (30m 45s):
Border, that Belgian coastline is just
3 (30m 49s):
One long flat,
2 (30m 50s):
Pretty much. It just blocks flat all the way down. It's a horrible, horrible coach line.
3 (30m 58s):
We got to pick out where you are and yeah, but we did go going up. We went into new new ball and then we went into, but after that I knew one Cox, not Cox kittens. Haven't been a corner,
2 (31m 17s):
Which is before we went across and up into the Dutch inland, we went up to alternately inland. We was Royal and a limit, but they would adapt so that we draw one, 1.9. But when all the stuff on pause with close to two meters and two meters is about as much as you want to go for it. It canals. And we did touch a few times. And when we came down, came back down, we were talking about coming back down through the entire mall twice, but we got as far as Amsterdam and we couldn't come any further south because I closed the off cause he had a whole summer in 2018 and we ended up going into iron mountain and then came down for my move to that.
2 (31m 58s):
So
3 (31m 59s):
That's the same way as we came back. Funnily enough to Amsterdam. Yeah. But interesting trip. But yes, but we haven't done having no movies, you know, hunter, hunter 30, I'm not planning to ready trips in that range.
2 (32m 21s):
Are you not doing the Wednesday
3 (32m 22s):
Series now? No, I I've. I've given that racing probably because take racing very seriously. I can't be too keen on the Wednesday series, but I think, you know, my wife knows that sort of thing that I partly have a very different personality on a boat when we were racing.
2 (32m 49s):
So, so going out on a Wednesday, didn't drift into random, randomly compensated a backache. Not
3 (32m 55s):
Entirely my same day, but yeah, I, I don't, I don't regret it. Then I've got some great memories of, of some of the racing, but I don't miss it that much.
2 (33m 11s):
Excellent. Well, ed has been a brilliant, brilliant chat. Thank you very much. Pleasure. Thanks.
1 (33m 19s):
Thanks for listening. I look forward to the next one. Thank you for listening to my podcasts. If you have enjoyed them and your podcast app allows, please leave a comment and share it with your friends. The reason I got into this podcast, malarkey is so I could leave a legacy for my children and my grandchildren in the years to come. So they will know what I did with my life. I wish my grandparents had done the same for me. Unfortunately they didn't in my latest series on giving people the opportunity to leave their own legacy for their children and families for the future.
1 (34m 3s):
If you have any criticism, positive or negative and you wish to get in touch with me direct, you can email me at timheale@hotmail.com. That's timheale@hotmail.com. I thank you for your time and thank you for listening.