I’ve just arrived back from an interesting time on the boat. No sailing, just cleaning and tidying up, although I did try to get into the jetty to fill up the water tank, but I failed. I thought I’d worked out the tide but there wasn’t enough depth so I gave up.
The first interesting event was the egg. We have some inverted plastic gutters on the deck to prevent the ropes which come from the mast to the cockpit from chafing the spray dodger when it’s folded. These are the standard half-round guttering resting upside down on the deck. When I moved one of these to scrub the deck, I found this egg. I’m not sure 
what bird laid it but there are lots of terns and oyster catchers around. But why leave it here – presumably it wouldn’t be able to incubate it.
Then there were then some interesting exchanges on the VHF. The first was between Solent Coastguard and a vessel in some difficulty: a 23M power boat whose both engines had failed and was unable to anchor because it had no power! 23M is enormous – 75 feet. They sent out the Portsmouth inshore lifeboat. There were no further communications so I’m not sure how a 5M RIB got on with a 23M vessel. The other notable communication was about a laser dinghy that had got into difficulty just inside Newtown Creek. A passing boat had called the coastguard who had located the rescue boat. The coastguard asked the boat that was standing by to tell the dinghy to say where it was because the rescue boat was on its way. The coastguard ended by saying “Thank you very much for going to the assistance of the dinghy and for relaying communications” – they are always so courteous and calm. I hope I never have to call them but it’s very comforting to know how professional they are.
Portsmouth Harbour is a navy establishment and all commercial shipping movements and many leisure ones have to be authorised by the Queen’s Harbour Master – QHM. It’s amusing to listen in to the QMH conversations: they are always very courteous and gentlemanly. “QHM this is St Clare. Request permission to leave The Camber. Over” “ St Clare, QHM, Yes, thank you, that’s approved” “QHM St Clare. Thank you, Sir” Today the Brittany Ferries ‘Mont St Michel’ was coming into harbour – presumably on a fairly fast incoming tide. There’s a 10kt speed limit in the harbour and approaches – particularly for these big ferries. The conversation went something like “Mont St Michel this is QH
M. Please check your speed” “QHM this is Mont St Michel. What is the speed limit?” “Mont St Michel this is QHM, the speed limit is ten knots over the ground, sir” I don’t think there were any further exchanges but the Mont St Michel was seen a few minutes later travelling through the harbour very slowly. International incident avoided.
The QHM web site is www.qhmportsmouth.com and there’s a fascinating web site which shows all commercial shipping movements in the Solent in real time, updated every minute or so: www.ais-live.co.uk
Yesterday Malcolm, the other adviser, and I took the students from the Misbourne Young Enterprise company out for a meal to celebrate their successes. We had a wonderful evening and our guests behaved impeccably and were great company. We discussed their career aspirations, good and boring teachers, driving tests (one member had passed that day) and forthcoming auditions for Junior Apprentice. We also discussed their radio station and the plans they have to keep it on the air. You can listen to it now: click on the Chance logo to the right. At the end of the meal, with no prompting, money appeared on the table to pay for their drinks – but was rapidly pocketed again when we stressed that the evening was our treat. Youngsters get a lot of bad press these days but they’re not all bad.
A college alumnus society I belong to elects members on the basis of the answer to the question ‘Would you like to be sitting opposite this person at dinner in 20 years?’ I’d be honoured to join any of these in 20 years.
I’m trying to sort out some Church things and blog them but Hockney is on the box. He’s talking about his Yorkshire project. He’s just amazing. His art is so varied and he constantly explores new ideas and new media. If you’re quick you can download three originals from bbc.co.uk/imagine. In the programme he paints a vast treescape for the Royal Academy (he just asked for and got the largest wall in the Summer Exhibition – how’s that for influence?) It was painted on 50 canvasses – but he used digital technology to develop and assemble the separate pictures into one. He announced it as the post-photography age... but the program ends with the news that he is now taking photographs of Yorkshire.
Do try to catch the programme again on the BBC Iplayer.
I remember seeing him on TV many years ago in the early days of digital imaging. There were a series of programmes where they gave artists the latest technology to play with. This was simply a way of drawing on the screen. Most found this difficult or uninteresting but Hockney was fascinated. I always remember the comment ‘of course anyone looking at this at home will have an original Hockney for a few minutes’
Yesterday’s rainbow prompted me to look again at how rainbows are produced.
Spherical raindrops act as a prism to split the white light from the sun into the different coloured elements with red refracted slightly less than violet which is at the other end of the 
visible spectrum. The red bow of the rainbow is at an angle of about 40 degrees from the direction of the incoming sunlight. The violet bow is about 42 degrees. The secondary rainbow (just visible on the photos outside the main one) is reversed and at 50 to 53 degrees.
There are some good explanations of the physics on the web – some references below. Neither is very clear on why the reflection/refraction is optimum at the 40/42 degree angles: I think the internal reflection from the back of the raindrop is at a maximum at this angle but the applet that allows you to vary the incident angle of the incoming sunlight doesn’t make this clear. I’ll have to do more research.
http://science.howstuffworks.com/rainbow.htm
While looking at the last of the above links, I clicked on the home page – the (US) National Center [sorry!] for Atmospheric Research. The building, near Bounder, Colorado, a reflection of the surrounding ‘Flatiron’ rocks, is designed by IM Pei. Pei designed the Louvre pyramids in Paris and a similar design that I worked in for a short while at IBM Somers. Although ‘modern’ (it was built in the early 1960s) the NCAR building seems to fit in well. Why can’t we be braver about our buildings?
livered by boat. We watched them preparing Village Bread the evening we were there: first a fire was lit in the oven using brushwood collected from around the area. The oven was on the quayside - no chimney, just a stone structure with a wooden door. When the oven was hot enough, the ashes were raked out and the dough pushed in on a wooden paddle. We sampled the result at breakfast the following morning - great!
The bluebells are as spectacular as ever. If you get a chance, come over and look at them.
