The stars and the rivers
and waves call you back.
Lament

Things of a day - what are we, and what not?
Man is a dream of shadows.

King, enquire of me - thou who knowest
the certain end of all things, and all ways?
How many leaves the earth sendeth forth in spring,
how many grains of sand in sea and river
are rolled by waves and the winds’ stress,
what shall come to pass, and whence it shall be,
thou discernest perfectly.

With no lie will I tinge my tale:
Trial is the test of men

Pindar. Born probably 518 before Chryst at Cynoscephalae, Boeotia, Greece. Died after 446, probably circa 438, in Argos. The prince of choral poets was of noble birth, born at Kynoskephalai in Boiotia, possibly in a Spartan family, the Aegeids, though evidence is inconclusive. His parents, Daiphantus and Cleodice, survive only as names. The family owned a town house in Thebes that was spared by express command of Alexander the Great in the general destruction of that city by the Macedonians in 335 Bc.
The works of Pindar comprised seventeen books, including nearly all choral genres. Only four of his books - the epinikian odes - out of seventeen volumes of poetry known in antiquity, have survived complete. Fragments of others roughly fill eighty pages.
Pindar’s poetry borrowed fundamental characteristics from the cultural traditions of his native Boeotia. Familiar with the great mythological heritage that descended from the Mycenaean period, his poetry is commonly said to hold an absolute adherence to values held as aristocratic. And rightly so, as the translation of aristos as best is bound up with the notion of the fulfillment of purpose or function, with an achievement of living up to one’s full potential. The Ancient Greeks applied the term aristos to express superlative ability and superiority: to the excellence of a bull to be bred, and to the excellence of a man. From this original meaning, aristos was used later in the plural to denote the nobility. Whereas, the poetry of Pindar is more aptly described as a chant already tinged with an anguished sense of loss and alienation, to the eternal heroic themes of loyalty, courage, truth, and steadfastness to the last, based purely in the dread of shame, a code that through toil and deeds coud transcend death, rising the individual to the realm of Gods and ancestors, where he could forever stand over a monument of noble words.
A monument that will outlast us all.

Chris Bolton, who always carries one in his buoyancy aid, commented on the Uk Rivers Guide Forum, the technique for getting oneself inside a polythene survival bag. The bag should be open and held in the leewind, letting the air blew it open. Pulling the rim over the head, the knees should be raised, and bunching the rim into a large fold under the feet, let them slide into the bag. Inside the flooded bag, a swimmer can rest with the upper torso and the head out of the water, protected from spray and splash if the bag is held close leaving 20 minutes of breathing air inside, and by looking like an orange buoy, attaining a higher visibility than simply laying submerged afloat.
The principal advantage of course, is the reduction on heat exchange with the water through forced convection: As long as the water inside the bag, however cold, is not replaced by cooler molecules, it should warm and gain a lower temperature gradient with the skin. The bare lack of relative movement of the fluid reinforces this process.
The best known use of the orange plastic survival bag may be as a shelter.  Used in this manner it provides more storm protection and minimises heat loss to the ground but in this regard, they have been somewhat superseded by the group shelter. A better solution for survival at sea is the thermal protective aids. Known as survival suits, they look very much like a twisted bogey man costume. They were designed for hypothermia protection during prolonged exposure in life rafts or lifeboats, and often have hoods and sleeves, taped seams, a zippered entrance, and reflective tape stripes. Made of waterproof, reflective polymer coated fabrics, the very low thermal conductivity reduces heat loss in cold, wet conditions.
Survival suits can be used as an emergency tent substitute if a day trip is accidentally prolonged, or to warm up a paddler suffering exposure. I once was given a demonstration of this by a Salzwasser coach who deployed out of a small, folded package an immense survival bag in high-visibility orange. I remember the round hood, wide sleeves, and the Solas tape. To avoid wasting energy in warming soaked clothes, the hypothermic victim should ideally be undressed and rubbed gently. I do not recall having regarded at the time, the explanation as sexy as it now seems, but after all, I am very normal. I remember though, the extensive survival instructions printed in the outside. As anything printed in German, they looked deadly. 
Thermal protective aids were produced to comply with the Regulation III/32.3.2 of the Solas Convention 1974 that addresses immersion suits and thermal protective aids, and required every cargo ship to carry 3 immersion suits for each lifeboat on the ship, and in addition, if the ship had  totally enclosed lifeboats or was constantly engaged on voyages in warm climates, thermal protective aids for persons on board not provided with immersion suits. However, somewhere, marine stores should be offering new survival bags as discarded shipping supplies as since July 1st 2006, an amendment to Regulation 32.3 adopted by Resolution MSC.152(78) on May 20th 2004 at the 78th session of the Maritime Safety Committee of the Imo came into force, requiring cargo ships to carry immersion suits for every person on board unless the ships have davit-launched life-rafts or life-rafts served by equivalent launching appliances or are constantly engaged on voyages in warm climates.
The term “voyages in warm climates” means voyages within the latitudes of 30º N and 30º S.

In January 1942, large numbers of Japanese carrier based aircrafts bombed New Britain, in the Australian Territory of New Guinea. The Australian Army garrison of 1,400 men, known as Lark Force, comprised 716 soldiers of the Australian Imperial Force from the 2/22nd Battalion, deployed since March 1941. The band of the Battalion had been recruited entirely from the ranks of the Salvation Army. They were joined by a unit of the local militia, the New Guinea Volunteer Rifles, a coastal defence battery, an anti-aircraft battery, an anti-tank battery and a detachment of the 2/10th Field Ambulance.
The main tasks of the garrison were the protection of Vunakanau, the main Royal Australian Air Force (Raaf) airfield near Rabaul, and the nearby flying boat anchorage in Simpson Harbour. The Raaf had little offensive capability in the islands: Only 10 lightly-armed CAC Wirraway training aircraft and four Lockheed Hudson light bombers from No. 24 Squadron.
A commando unit, the 130-strong 2/1st Independent Company was detached to garrison the nearby island of New Ireland.
Against the Australian, Japan had assembled the South Seas Force. This Imperial Japanese Army assault formation was a brigade group based on the 55th Division. Its main combat units were the 144th Infantry Regiment, a few platoons from the 55th Cavalry Regiment, a battalion from the 55th Mountain Artillery Regiment and a company from the 55th Engineer Regiment.
On January 21st, eight Wirraways took off and attacked a formation of 109 Japanese aircraft. On January 22nd, the Japanese landed on New Ireland. The 2/1st Independent Company had been dispersed around the island and the Japanese took the main town of Kavieng without opposition. That night the invasion fleet approached Rabaul.
At 2.45 am, on January 23rd, the South Seas Force began to land on New Britain. The 3rd Battalion of the 144th Infantry Regiment encountered stiff resistance from a company-sized force of AIF and militiamen at Vulcan Beach. However, the numerical imbalance allowed most of the South Seas Force to land unopposed in unguarded locations. Within hours, Lt Col. John Scanlan ordered: “every man for himself”: Australian soldiers and civilians split into small groups and retreated through the jungle.
Within weeks, about 1,050 Australians were taken prisoner. At least 130 were marched into the jungle near Tol Plantation in small groups and bayoneted. At Waitavalo Plantation, 35 Australians prisoners were shot. The commandos of the 2/1st Independent Company scattered around New Ireland, were quickly overcome and killed, or taken prisoner.
From mainland New Guinea, some civilians and individual officers organised rescue missions to New Britain and between March and May 450 troops and civilians who had evaded the Japanese were evacuated by sea.
On June 22nd, 1942, 845 of these Australians prisoners of war and 208 civilian internees, were embarked in the port of Rabaul onto the ship Montevideo Maru. She proceeded without escort to the Chinese island of Hainan, when she was sighted by the American submarine USS Sturgeon near Luzon, in the northern coast of the Philippines on June, 30th.
The Sturgeon pursued, but was unable to fire as the target travelled at 17 knots. At midnight, the ship slowed to 12 knots to rendezvous with an escort of two destroyers. The Sturgeon fired four torpedoes at the Montevideo Maru.
According to Yoshiaki Yamaji, a Japanese survivor, some Australian soldiers managed to scramble free and jumped into the water, thick with oil, swimming to cling to wooden crates and floatsam where the layed in groups of 20 and 30 hearing the loud, jarring noises of the metal wrenching, and the screams of the Australian nurses housed with the rest of their mates below decks, in the holds of the Japanese ship. Most of the 1053 Australian soldiers and civilians had no way to escape as the Montevideo Maru reared, stern first, and sank beneath a calm sea, soaked in oil.
As the ship raised and slipped, the men in the water sang Auld Lang Syne for their dying mates trapped in the holds, and for themselves.
It was before the dawn of July 1st, 1942.

I made it through the coastal skipper examinations with fair scores. In doing so, I enjoyed the company of some other five hundred exceptional human beings who joined me in humouring the teachers in a vivid reenactment of the cabin scene of A nigh at the Opera.
The Nautical School staff is adamant on proficiency in the international regulations for preventing collisions, and a grim forcefulness on instant ship recognition by lights and sound signals was displayed. Ideally you should be as agile as a turret gunner at craft recognition. In truth, these men have an unspotted faith in me if they seriously expect me to remember it all. I shall keep however, a strong recollection of the signals for vessel of 100 metres or more of length at anchor in restricted visibility: My sensitive ear is good at detecting the hissing sounds of a panting ship mate ringing a bell rapidly for 5 seconds in the forepart only to break into a spring towards the stern to sound the gong convulsively for another 5 seconds, only to repeat it all at intervals of not more than one minute until conditions clear.
Now I am relapsing into a state of Christmas coma. The motorboat, sailing and Vhf radio assessments are expected to be easy, and they scheduled for next January. To be followed by Offshore yachtmaster classes.

To conform to the quite stringent SOLAS (Safety of Life at Sea) standards, Pains Wessex stopped the manufacture of the Mk7 red handflare, the Mk3 para-red flare, the Mk3 paralum and the Mk3 Maroon, and the Mk7 white collision flare. Now the new Pains Wessex Mk8 range of pyrothecnics – which include the Mark 8 Red and White Collision Handflare, Mark 8 Parachute Red Rocket, and Mark 8 Lifesmoke – have a different, standardised ignition method.
Basically, the new Mark 8 range is nothing short of the range of marine distress signals produced Comet GmbH, a German company bought by Chemring PLC, parent company to Pains Wessex, who had been lately leading design and pyrotechnic technology.
The new flares and smoke cans are smaller to reduce stowage space in small leisure boats and liferafts. The compact new Mark 8 Handflare - a short range signal for use in day and night time . has an ergonomically designed grip handle with a telescopic design. To operate, the user must hold the flare by the grip marked with deep grooves, extend a telescopic section, and remove the screw cover that shields the ignition end of the flare. A small ball is deployed: Grasping and pulling it, ignites the flare that is released, after a two second safety delay. During this two-second delay, the most prudent of paddlers should know best than to peep into the business end  of the flare to ascertain that the flare is in working conditions.
A similar operating design has the Mark 8 Handflare. As the Mark 7, this red rocket aims to attract attention at long range, firing a 30,000 candela red signal to 300 metres of altitude with a signal that will burns for 40 seconds - its burning time is dramatically extended, would it land in a barn  - suspended under a parachute.
A benefit from this design is the reduced recoil that makes it easier to fire, even in traumatic or in stressful situations such as in symposiums, in front of every coach to see.
There are also new features in the Mark 8 Lifesmoke - a signal that provides for three minutes a foul, dense, orange smoke, to indicate position and wind direction to helicopter pilots. The Mark 8 Lifesmoke is again a significantly more compact design, and features a flat, peel off top cap, which facilitates stowage and packing. The cap is removed to access the friction wire firing mechanism. Once pulled, there is a two second delay - again, beware - to allow the signal to be thrown into the water safely.
However sanctimonius the SOLAS standards may be, I believe that the new ignition designed is as flawed as the old one: To avoid misfiring and the accidental, gross injury, nothing more ergonomical and intuitive that a large, orange revolver that we paddlers, could carry with ourselves in a shoulder holster. True: Helicopters could get intuitively shot off the sky, but by sheer intimidation, it would resolve the angler problem for good. I know that not everybody will back me on this, but I simply do not care as I am right.
Pains Wessex has a  video of the new Mk8 distress signals where a brisk narrator who looks like the English Tony Bennet, demonstrates the ignition mechanisms under a lively tune that rivals with the invigorating opening achords of Starsky & Hutch’s opening theme. To add to the stress, I suppose.
Take your time to peruse and watch line throwing with the indispensable SpeedLine.

Since Colin Mortlock suggested in 1975 the idea of a kayak expedition along the Arctic fjords to Nordkapp, for eleven years first circumnavigations, open crossings and expeditions followed one after another. In these few years, the North Sea, the Bass Strait, Cape Horn, and the Pacific from Monterey to Hawaii were crossed, Iceland, New Zealand, Great Britain, Australia, the four main Japanese Islands, and Tasmania circumnavigated, and the coastline of Alaska, together with vast stretches of Greenland, explored in sea kayaks.
The common notes in these expeditions were both the development of the modern expedition kayak, and the hazards confronted in attempting by the first time such staggering feats of seamanship in so an adverse environment, in the smallest of crafts. Often this meant that the expeditions turned into feats of endurance, that tested its members fed by the meagre supplies carried in their boats, to physical and mental limits, and sometimes beyond.
The merit goes to a handful of men. That many of them are mountaineers suits well these early expeditions that evoke the climax of the heroic age of English alpinism, for their understated drama was moral too, as in the face of the adversities overcome, it mattered not only what was done but how it was done.
From that close but distant age, there is almost not any documented evidence, and few images remain. Here there are a happy few:
In 1986, the members of the first Australian Arctic Expedition arrived at Ammassalik aboard a 50 foot steel ketch. The “Eleanor Rymill” had been built in South Africa under plans drawn by Ricus van de Stad, and named after the widow of John Rymill, the Australian polar explorer who assumed command of the British Arctic Air Route Expedition to Greenland, when Gino Watkins disappeared hunting in his kayak.
Earl de Blonville who first conceived the expedition to retrace the 1931 open boat voyage of the English Polar explorer Gino Watkins, had raised the money through sponsors and had gone - in true Polar fashion - to the extremes of selling everything he owned to cover the costs, and paying the members of the expedition for their services. A sailing master and a yacht crew was selected, and a film crew hired to record a film that released in 1987, helped to raise the balance. Earl de Blonville, Larry Gray, Giorgio Pompei and Graeme Joy made the kayak team that in early carbon-kevlar Icefloes designed by Derek Hutchinson and built by P&H Mouldings in England, paddled among flows of thick, brash ice and unstable, late summer icebergs.
From Ammassalik - now, Tasiilaq in West Greenland - to Julianehaab - nowadays, Qaqortoq -, a Force 10 storm capsized the “Eleanor Rymill”, the tiller was broken and steerage lost. As winter descended the sea froze each night, facing the paddlers who often had to bivouac in bare rocks, with the need to hack their way to open water through harsh sheets of solid brash ice, fragile remains of colliding floes or collapsed pressure ridges.
As the winter set in, the paddlers reached the southern end of the expedition. Very heavy weather drived them to land on a barren island. On the first day almost all food and equipment was swept away by the raging sea. The kayaks, frozen solid to the ground, had to be dug out with bare hands and carried uphill through steep rugged masses of rock projecting upward to avoid the mountainous waves. Over five more days, the paddlers shifted camp six times, retreating with their kayaks up the rugged crags until when there was nowhere left to go, the hurricane abated.
I needed no more to buy the book. Earl de Blonville has made available three extraordinary videos of the expedition: To the Arctic, Into the Void and Hell and back.
There is a gallery of twelve of the original photos to remind me that from these strange and dangerous dreams, the sport was born.

On the last month of November, Andrew Elizaga filmed a gathering of paddlers playing at Deception Pass. Warren Williamson is in the wooden Hawk SS by Superior Kayaks, Andrew himself paddles his own cedar-strip Baidarka, and Hoffmeister - soon to leave for Australia - is in a red Illusion made by Sterling’s Kayaks.
This short video illustrates well how enough speed to cross the eddy line, sweeping as the feet cross the interface, turning head and shoulders, weight forward, inside edge and leaning downstream, work best for fast, clean turns when breaking from eddies into the flow.
I look forward to more moving waters in 2009. Practice and then, more practice towards fluid breaking in and spins are two things I need. Badly.

I attended this evening a travelling display of Coast Guard vehicles and uniforms. As I bounced along, glancing at replicas of Coast Guard vessels and airplanes in glass showcases, and casting brief looks at uniformed mannequins and gleaming dioramas, I bumped into the Chief Coast Guard officer, and then, the Maritime Captain: Our naval governing bodies made corporeal in two Bilbao gentlemen.
Slowly munching my canapés, I observed a fine selection of anglers coming in violent proximity to Coast Guard personnel who acted as if dislodged by the force of the collision.
In the most prominent places, photos of the new Augusta Westland AW-139 helicopters, the medium range Cn 235-300 twin-turbo-propeller, maritime patrol aircraft, and one of the two coastal protection vessels designed by Rolls-Royce. At 262 feet of length, a beam of 69, a draught of 27 feet, 3,000 tons of displacement and 17,5 knots of speed, the ship was based in an Ut 722 L Ulstein Group design - an offshore anchor handler -, and built for emergency towing of large tankers, salvage and containment of oil spills. It is powered by Four Bergen engines totalling 16,000kW that give a bollard pull of about 220 tonnes matched by a very large towing winch and with an escort winch on the foredeck to complement it all.
Painted in orange rescue, beautiful, and massive.

I set off last Saturday in some swell and a wind at right angles blowing at some thirtyish knots. It is very me to find at times like these that I had locked each blade at the wrong ends of the shaft. Tsk, tsk. I noticed too that the Nordkapp leecocked slightly at the high end of a strong breeze but edging against the wave faces was enough to keep a straight track without deploying even a bit of skeg. Taking land with boiling streaks foaming after me was speedy fun.
At the same time, a Merchant Navy Captain in Cadiz was having all the fun: A floating dike being towed from the Canary Islands to Rota naval base where it had to be stably anchored to begin the production of concrete caissons for a long new dike in the harbour, broke the towing lines in a gale, running aground 50 yards off the shore.
The floating dike made of reinforced concrete has a length between perpendiculars of 112, a beam of 92, and a height of 66 feet, though its towers reach 111 feet. The light draught is only 5,4 feet when ballast tanks are kept watertight. If full, draught increases dramatically to 60.6 feet which makes quite a point of checking fissures in the concrete hull and bilging any seepage before attempting a tow if you do not wish to row a long, deep, wide trough in a piece of the Atlantic seabed, dragging the thing offshore for cables and cables with no end. 
All in all, a new landmark for the weeks to come. A notable lawsuit.

No port in a storm, written by Bob MacAlindin and published by Whittles Publishing is the story of an earnest interest in these working boats. The many dramatic, poignant stories of lightships moored in the worst possible waters, too deep or otherwise unsuitable for lighthouse construction, that were lost in gales with all hands should stir the heart of anyone who has set his heart in the sea:

“The ships of this book evoke none of the usual romantic images of ships and yet may be the noblest of all. Invariably painted a gaudy red, no other ships spent more time at sea yet sailed fewer miles, their crews compelled to scan the same water and stretch of coastline for the bulk of their working lives. The life of a lightshipman in a hurricane was a sleepless nightmare of holding on, body braced against every combination of rolling and pitching, with tons of water burying the ship.”
 
The world’s first lightvessel was the result of a business partnership between Robert Hamblin, an impoverished former barber and ship manager from King’s Lynn, and David Avery, a projector and inventor. After securing a patent on the technology, Avery had a lightvessel placed at the Nore in the Thames mouth in 1731, against the wishes of the lighthouse authority Trinity House, who considered the scheme worthless and the two men to be little more than adventurers. Yet, the lightvessel proved to be a great success, and Trinity House moved to acquire the patent themselves, granting Avery lease revenues in exchange. A further lightvessel was placed at the Dudgeon station, off the Norfolk coast, in 1736, with others following at Owers and Newarp. Many others were commissioned during the nineteenth century, especially off England’s east coast and the approaches to the Thames, where there were many treacherous shoals.
Following their acquisition of the patent, all English and Welsh lightvessels were maintained by Trinity House. In order to act as effective daymarks Trinity House lightvessels were painted red, with the station name in large white letters on the side of the hull, and a system of balls and cones at the masthead for identification. The first revolving light was fitted to the Swin Middle lightvessel in 1837: others used occulting or flashing lights. White lights were preferred for visibility though red and very occasionally green were also used.
The most crucial element of lightvessel design was the mounting of a light on a sufficiently tall mast. After the first oil lamps, vessels carried fixed lamps, which were serviced in place. Fresnel lenses were used as they became available.
Initially, hulls were constructed of wood, with lines like those of any other small merchant ship. This proved to be unsatisfactory for a ship that was permanently anchored, and the shape of the hull evolved to reduce rolling and pounding.
Much of the rest of the ship was taken up by storage and accommodations for the crew, whose main duties were to maintain the light, keeping records of passing ships, observing the weather, and on occasion, performing rescues.
Holding the vessel in position was an important aspect of lightvessel engineering. Early lightships used fluke anchors, which are still in use on many contemporary vessels. These were not very satisfactory, since a lightship has to remain stationary in very rough seas which other vessels could avoid, and these anchors were prone to dragging.
Since the early 19th century, lightships used mushroom anchors, invented by Robert Stevenson and named for their shape. This new anchor design with a weight from 3 to 4 tons, improved the effectiveness of mooring dramatically.
Until the later 20th century, all Trinity House vessels were permanently manned. By the start of the 20th century, Trinity House lightvessels had a crew of 11, of whom 7 would be on active duty at any one time. It was an extremely demanding and dangerous profession, where it would take 15 to 20 years of service to be promoted to master.
The official use of lightships in the United States ended on March 29th, 1985, when the United States Coast Guard decommissioned its last such ship, the Nantucket I.
The majority of British lightvessels were decommissioned during the 1970s - 1980s and replaced with light floats or Lanby buoys, which were vastly cheaper to maintain. At the time of Trinity House’s original project to develop Lanby buoys, a lightship costed £30,000 annually at 1974 prices to maintain, whereas a buoy cost £3,000.  This proposition though unfair to mariners, should appeal the interest of social reformers as it very much applies to a vast range of public servants who could be efficiently replaced by blinking navigation marks with neither loss nor damage to public service.
Today, the remaining lightvessels in the United Kingodom have been converted to unmanned operation. Most use solar power.