Hugh Marriage Posts

The breaking news is that Commander Ian Gibson RN (Rtd), our excellent Harbour Master, has decided to retire next spring. He has achieved so much in his six years here: but all that is something for another time. The Harbour Board recently found that planning for new technology is never straightforward. The Harbour introduced a yacht wifi in 2004, using a system that was quite advanced at the time. It would be good to upgrade it and make it free…

Time flies when you are having fun and I see that this is my 50th piece in this series. Over the years some themes recur; but I don’t recall having reported yet on a September Harbour Board as we are generally away. September Harbour Boards are very much business meetings as they review the financial position of the Harbour, set the budget for the forthcoming year, and decide the level of harbour dues and charges. Depending on your enthusiasm for…

It has been a glorious summer but the Kingsbridge Estuary Boat Club (KEBC) was unlucky with its Crabshell Regatta when it poured with rain. So things were looking dodgy when the club was embarking for its annual Rivermaid cruise – leaden skies and a weather forecast for light rain to be followed by heavy rain. In the event, there was hardly a drop of rain, or breath of wind, and the cloud cover kept the evening warmish. An evening cruise…

The sun was shining, the water was calm and I was sitting in a tourist boat. “Please don’t put your hands in the water” said the boatman “as it’s polluted with poisonous algae”. It was August and we were crossing Loch Leven to visit the castle where Mary Queen of Scots had been imprisoned. But I might have heard exactly the same comment in Kingsbridge. Whilst much of the Harbour has been enjoying pretty good water quality this year, Kingsbridge…

I have written before about the day I spend each year with the Harbour staff, in the Office and on the water. This year the sun shone and the Harbour was busy-ish. Not busy-busy, because it was not yet the full school holidays, but a fair number of mostly sailing yachts, largely from Torbay, Dartmouth and Plymouth, with a smattering from France, Germany, the Netherlands, Ireland and the Channel Islands. The Harbour Office is just completing the installation of its…

I was privileged to know Donald Broadbent, one of the first psychologists to be elected FRS. Don came to psychology through his wartime experience flying Avro Ansons. The standard procedure for landing an Anson in those largely pre-wireless days was, on touching down, to turn sharply to port, check that no aircraft were following, wind up the flaps and taxi off. However, about once a month on any Anson base, an aircraft would touch down, turn sharply to port, withdraw…

When I was a psychologist, I used to reassure myself that I could do the job only because human behaviour was predictable. Forecasting is what my father used to do, too, tapping the “glass” each morning and muttering about “rising” or “falling” in a way which I did not understand until I inherited his father’s 30 inches of real mercury. I no longer regularly tap the glass (or adjust the vernier) because I get a much better idea of what…

For as long as I can recall, the Salcombe Harbour Guide has had a two-page spread on the megafauna which one can see in the Harbour. Well, that’s what it says: but I’ve been out and about in the Harbour for at least 10 years and haven’t seen dolphins, let alone killer whales. They can’t be all that common. This year has, however, been better. I’ve seen a seal, a few turtles and a crocodile. Let’s deal with the seal…

Much of the last Harbour Board was taken up with byelaws and the potential implications of the zippilly-entitled Marine Navigation (No. 2) Bill. I’m not sure whether this is really exciting stuff, but let’s try to get just a little excited for a few moments. This Bill is a Private Member’s Bill currently going through the Parliamentary process. Its Third and final Reading is scheduled for 24 April so, although many Private Member’s Bills fall by the wayside, this one…

For some people Heath and Safety generates apoplexy. There are plenty of apparently stupid H&S examples around, most of them apocryphal. However, one caught me yesterday. I tried to buy a loaf of bread but the best-before label had come off. The loaf could not be sold. Could I be given it? That wasn’t allowed either. I never got my cranberry and walnut treat. A harbour’s equivalent of this is the Port Marine Safety Code (PMSC). This is a national…