Oostend 2007 pt 2

Hundreds of classic boats are brought together over the weekend from all over Low Countries and the UK....well, six or seven from the UK but the town of Oostend make every effort for those of us who brave the crossing and the sea's. They very kindly provided us with 250 litres of Fuel and lunch time meal tickets throughout the four days.

Our mascot T-Rex is hung from the highest yard arm

Music is a large feature of the festival with folk bands, rock bands and marching bands all taking their turns on the stage erected in front of the station and when evening comes and the visitors depart, the stage and beer tent become the meeting place for the crew's and again the folk and shanty bands go through their repertoire.

The centre piece of the festival however has always been the Replica circa 1800 RN Frigate 'Grand Turk'

Here she is just arriving in Mercator Dock being aided in her manoeuvres by 2 small RIBS

Another regular British vessel is the Motor Tug 'Kent'

Going down into her engine room and you feel like your in a cathedral, with her huge diesel motor reaching up to the skylights, and of course, every bit of copper and brass is gleaming

The Days are long with the public shows opening at 10am and then the boats being open to the public at 11am through till 6. This trip we were stuck on the outside of 2 other boats so our visitor numbers were very limited except for those engine enthusiasts who where willing to clamber over the boats to come and view Emblems 1945 Gardner 4L3.

Once all was cleared away for the evening ourselves and the crew of Mary Jane

would repair to the Crew tent for a few well earned sherberts and a listen to the bands

There is always a downside and sure enough, as the beer flowed so our inhibitions departed.....unless your steve, he just falls asleep

Paul, the owner and skipper of Mary Jane was suddenly the victim of an assault by his mutinous crew who were hungry following a long day of polishing bright work and smiling at the belgium public so it would appear, that their usual method of getting him off his chair is to clang him on the head with a beer tray, cover him in the dregs of left over glasses and then force feed him whatever he has left in his glass.....only then can they depart to find a restaurant.

Clang on the head

Spill beer

and drink up

Thankfully, the crew of Emblem were more gentle with their skipper guiding me back to my berth when they felt i'd had enough, which was usually when I started singing and talking Boll***s to Jamie and smoking my pipe.

I wish I could remember what I was saying

Much words of wisdom no doubt

The weather gradually deteriorated over the weekend and by the closing day on the monday, the rain was lashing down and the winds were gusting force 7-8. A number of the British boats had already left the day before due to the weather reports. Jamie jumped ship and returned to blighty with the crew of Mary Jane on the Ferry to Ramsgate as Paul was leaving MJ at Oostend for the week while his steering was repaired.

Steve and myself however still had the rest of the week off so we remained to brave it out. Rachael and Dan needed to return home by Wednesday so we managed to get them train tickets to Calais tuesday morning where they then caught the Ferry home and were picked up by Dan's dad at Dover.

That just left Steve and myself and a now very empty Oostend. The forecast for Wednesday was still pants and a walk over to the Harbour wall tuesday afternoon certainly cast doubts in our minds as we watched the breakers smash onto the beach. Wednesday morning dawned bright but still with the wind gusting 4-5, a quick look at the outer harbour and we made the decision to 'run' for Dunkirk knowing that if it got too bad we had 2 other minor ports we could hide along the way.

As it turned out, we kept to the inshore bouyed channel along the Belgium coast to Dunkirk and the wind had shifted from the NE to the SE so the land was acting as a 'lee' and keeping the swell down to a manageable level.

We arrived in the safety of Dunkirk harbour and enjoyed an afternoon wandering around its streets and port. It had also been the weekend of the Dunkirk Little Ships visit and there were still a couple of boats waiting for a weather window.

Our weather reports had been varied and very unreliable so far, this was due apparently to severe cyclonic weather all along the UK east coast which made predictions very difficult, The good news was that Thursday morning was expected to be SE winds 3-4 increasing to 4-5 by the evening with a sea state as slight.

We set off Thursday morning just after dawn and although the wind was already quite strong the sea hadnt had chance to 'get up' and in 5 hours we knew we would be within reach of Ramsgate so even bouncing around for that length of time wasnt too bad. As it turned out, the sea didnt get any worse and we enjoyed another decent crossing and by the time we approached North Foreland the wind had eased and we had blazing sunshine.....again, in total contrast to the weather report.

We arrived off North Foreland just before low tide so wouldnt be able to use the quicker, inshore Gore Channel so we moved out further into the thames mouth and entered the Princess channel and mixed it with the cargo ships heading in and out of tilbury.

Red Sand Towers

They are old WW2 anti aircraft gun towers

our position marked on the chart approaching the

towers times at 1620hrs

Re dressing the ship in order to dry out the flags

which had got a soaking at Oostend

We finally came alongside Thunderbolt Pier at Chatham Dockyard by about 7pm following another 12 hour cruise. The Old girl had done us proud once more in getting her crew there and back again.

Long may she continue.