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Egremont’s routine refit has come round again and by the time you read this, she should be safely in Penzance. It is obviously a struggle to keep her going – the tow there and back costs around £100k and that is before inspecting, repairing and maintaining. Having a sailing school up north in the Harbour is so valuable and Egremont is so large, with kitchens, lavatories, dining room and bar, let alone considerable sleeping accommodation, that she would be difficult…

I may need to explain to the readers about the excitement of page 3 – because this month’s Marina World features Kingsbridge on its prime slot on page 3, pushing marinas like Abu Dhabi’s latest 1900-berth creation deeper into the magazine. All this makes it such a pity that the wall collapsed so catastrophically at Kingsbridge. This was not, of course, a surprise. The Harbour Board decided over two years ago that, for reasons of safety alone, moorings should be removed…

It was certainly an impressive sight: mainly white and brown and much larger than anything else in the harbour. We don’t see many super-yachts in Salcombe (some would say, thankfully) but this one was calling by, not through the whim of the owner to see Salcombe but because the crew were Salcombe lads who wanted to come home for a day. For me, the ultimate super-yacht visit was paid to the Faroes in July last year by the Queen Victoria.…

We went to the Channel Islands earlier in the year and this involved passing through the ports of Weymouth, Guernsey and Poole. They are all very different harbours and all clearly well run. What was really remarkable was that in all three harbours boats observed the speed limit impressively – even, in St Peter Port, dropping off the plane at just the right spot. I was left reflecting why this is not the case in Salcombe. Perhaps it is because…

The Harbour Board takes to the water in July for the annual Harbour inspection. This year we started in Kingsbridge which is, of course, in good shape. But the handover of the Rivermaid has not been as swift as originally hoped and the new owners may well have to operate for much of this season with Peter Moule acting as a pilot/instructor. Meanwhile the Dartmouth ferries are running right up to Kingsbridge on occasions. As we came through the Bag,…

12 June and the sun is shining, so we stop off at Small’s Cove for a swim. The temperature of the water is 14.6⁰C and ripples clearly above the beautifully clean golden sand. There are two points to note here. First, that 14.6, although still fairly bracing for swimming, is nearly a full degree above Salcombe’s June average of 13.7 (it was 15.3 the following day at Ditch End). The sea is warming and rather more quickly than we thought…

Kingsbridge has been twinned with Isigny-sur-Mer in Normandy for over 50 years and the latest visit was this May. Despite its name, Isigny is not actually on the sea. It is on the river Aure, just south of where the Aure joins the much larger Vire, the border between Calvados and La Manche. Normandy has huge tides: they are often around 7 and never less than 5 meters. Isigny’s small harbour gets water for the top 3 metres or so…

The opening of the Kingsbridge pontoons by the Mayor of Kingsbridge may have managed only page 16 of the Kingsbridge Gazette but around 200 people came and there was much excitement and talk of a new boost for Kingsbridge. The pontoon is gradually becoming populated with boats and is so popular that a waiting list has quickly grown up. The Kingsbridge pontoon project was Ian Gibson’s last big task as Harbour Master. Ian was appointed in 2006 and came directly from…

We have a problem in Salcombe. Normandy pontoon is sinking, because the winter storms seem to have cracked a weld in the section of pontoon which supports the bridge; and it’s leaking. This is an odd-shaped pontoon and the only one not to have been replaced when Normandy was extended last year. The section needs taking away to be repaired: but it is difficult to get out. The steel bridge is very heavy and the only crane strong enough to…

January and February saw storms and floods. ‘Global warming’ seemed such a cuddly term and there I am sure there were people who felt that a little warming wouldn’t be so unwelcome. I’ve always used ‘climate change’ partly because the warming bit applied to the whole Earth and, in the UK, we might actually end up a good deal colder, particularly if the jetstream insists on slipping south and giving us Scottish weather; and partly because I always expected any…