The Flyer
Woodbridge
Cruising Club
Woodbridge Cruising Club
grown to be the respected
institution we know today..
Although having a similar
name it is not related to
Lloyds Insurance except that
the founders of both all drank
in Mr. Lloyds coffee house,
along with some banking
geysers one suspects!
Most club sailors have heard of Lloyds
Shipping Register and many will
have their boats listed on it but few I
imagine were aware of the full extent
of its activities until a recent Sunday
morning talk given by Barbara Jones of
Lloyds Register Heritage and Education
Trust. Barbara proved libraries and
archives need not be dull and dusty as
she enthralled a large audience with
her well-illustrated talk explaining that
it was basically a safety organisation
inspecting ships and preparing reports
for the benefi t of owners, charterers
and insurers. But it was not only ships
a wide variety of structures including
storage tanks, power stations and,
until 1942, aeroplanes also came
within their remit so from its relatively
humble beginnings in 1760 it has
18
Barbara went on to describe
her role in charge of Project
‘Undaunted’ which aims to
digitize over 1.25 million
ship records, consisting of
reports drawings and plans
of craft surveyed by Lloyds since its
founding in 1760. These records will
all be available to the public so if
you’ve already built a lugsail dinghy
in the garage and are looking for a
bigger project then get yourself off to
Fenchurch Street , fl ick through the
96,000 plans in the system until you
fi nd something you fancy, copy down
the details and ‘B&Q’ it. Of course if
your heart is set upon something like
the ‘Mary Rose’ you’ll be disappointed
as she was built well before Lloyds
started but console yourself with the
money you’ll save on Marina fees, not
to mention the time spent anti-fouling.
Companion’ written originally in
1956 by Jack Coote and continued,
following his death in 1993, by his
daughter, Janet Harber and her sister
Judith Jones. The sisters gave a talk
to the club which brought the book
to life with a beautifully illustrated
account of their sailing days visiting
all the remote corners of the Thames
estuary so that their father could write
and update each edition. These were
the days before marinas so they had to
row ashore to fi nd the nearest water
point, bus stop, phone box (how did
we manage before mobiles?) and
all the other information needed for
the book. Now of course there are
electronic aids to navigation and
marinas for overnight stops so the
Cruising Companion is becoming more
of a travel guide with information on
good pubs and local walks but it is
nonetheless important for that and the
superb photographs add colour to the
text and the aerial photos of diffi cult
river entrances are a real boon not
available in the early days.
The sailing season is quickly
approaching so social functions are
coming to an end and dates are fi xed
for cruise briefi ngs and for our regular
VHF radio refresher. Let’s hope that
the benign weather of late February is
a taste of what’s to come rather than
just a tease.
Even if they don’t actually own a
copy most local sailors will also know
of ‘East Coast Rivers’ a Cruising
TH E FLYER | A PR IL 2019
Pl ease menti on ‘The Fl yer’ when respondi ng to adv e rti s e me nts