Cream tea carnage at sea
Practical Boat Owner|Summer 2024
The crew's 'scone mad' on a Thames barge
Dave Selby
Cream tea carnage at sea

Safety at sea is something you can never ever take too seriously, as I well know as a sometime third hand in a customer service role on a Thames sailing barge that operates in the highly perilous cream-tea trade.

In general, most barge skippers prefer less explosive cargo… such as explosives, for example, as the sticky tea business has landed many a skipper and crew in a jam and driven them to easier professions, like smuggling brandy from France.

All in all, the terrors of cream teas are enough to make you yearn for the good old days when barges carried hay and bricks outward and returned with a load of steaming horse dung from the streets of Victorian London. Sadly those days are ‘long scone’.

On land, cream teas are merely a threat to your cholesterol levels, though in some of the rougher tea rooms in Maldon, brawls have also been known to break out over the unresolved controversy of which goes on rst, the clotted cream or the jam.

The sea, however, is a great leveller where such polite niceties are of no consequence because the cream-tea crowd prefer to spread it all over the deck and spend the day slithering into the scuppers on a 95ft skating rink resembling a giant Eton mess.

Bu hikaye Practical Boat Owner dergisinin Summer 2024 sayısından alınmıştır.

Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.

Bu hikaye Practical Boat Owner dergisinin Summer 2024 sayısından alınmıştır.

Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.

PRACTICAL BOAT OWNER DERGISINDEN DAHA FAZLA HIKAYETümünü görüntüle
Orca sink yacht in Strait of Gibraltar
Practical Boat Owner

Orca sink yacht in Strait of Gibraltar

Spain's maritime rescue service, Salvamento Maritimo, has reported that a 15m (49ft) yacht sank in Moroccan waters in the Strait of Gibraltar following interaction with a pod of orca.

time-read
1 min  |
Summer 2024
No kill cord or lifejackets were worn during fatal powerboat crash
Practical Boat Owner

No kill cord or lifejackets were worn during fatal powerboat crash

A kill cord and lifejacket are useless unless worn-that's the warning from the Marine Accident Investigation Branch (MAIB), following its investigation into a powerboat crash that killed a 32-year-old woman and five-year-old girl on 2 October 2022.

time-read
2 dak  |
Summer 2024
Multihull sail work
Practical Boat Owner

Multihull sail work

Brush up on multihull sailing skills before heading off on charter with Gavin Le Sueur's guide to spinnaker handling, tacking and gybing

time-read
4 dak  |
Summer 2024
Five top causes of engine failure and how to prevent them
Practical Boat Owner

Five top causes of engine failure and how to prevent them

Jake Kavanagh talks to Sea Start marine engineer Nick Eales about how to avoid the five major causes of an engine breakdown at sea

time-read
10+ dak  |
Summer 2024
Sail the Atlantic with strangers
Practical Boat Owner

Sail the Atlantic with strangers

Would you sail across the Atlantic with someone you've just met? Ali Wood meets the cruising crews who've done just that

time-read
10 dak  |
Summer 2024
IZIBoat: simple sailing
Practical Boat Owner

IZIBoat: simple sailing

Rupert Holmes sails an innovative catamaran design intended to widen participation in sailing among those with little time to get on the water in more conventional craft

time-read
7 dak  |
Summer 2024
30 WAYS TO GET AFLOAT
Practical Boat Owner

30 WAYS TO GET AFLOAT

From tall ships to small dinghies, you needn't own a boat to sail. Ali Wood looks at the options, and how skippers can also find crew

time-read
10+ dak  |
Summer 2024
Boats for restoring under £20,000
Practical Boat Owner

Boats for restoring under £20,000

Duncan Kent picks the best sub-35ft sail and power boats to look for when aiming to undertake a restoration on a budget

time-read
10+ dak  |
Summer 2024
Seaworthy dinghies for less than £500
Practical Boat Owner

Seaworthy dinghies for less than £500

For low cost traditionally-styled GRP trailer-sailers, consider the Foreland and the Otter available at bargain basement prices

time-read
5 dak  |
Summer 2024
Playing with coloured sails
Practical Boat Owner

Playing with coloured sails

Maintaining an hourglass-shaped balloon and ratcheting up the log numbers

time-read
3 dak  |
Summer 2024