The link between Africa and the Netherlands is the ancient lateen sail rig. The latest theory is that this rig was used on a multi-hull in the Eastern migration of Africans toward the Pacific about 60,000 years back. The rig at first glance is triangular in shape but looking more closely the front end of the long and large sail is chopped off, making it quadrilateral.

Goldray Says Provo Day Was Looking Good

   Federation Chairman Goldray Ewing wrote to tell me that the Provo Day Regatta was run smoothly with a lot of competition and a lot of fun. The only boats from the Dean’s fleet was the very fast Wild Thing, who won Class B in the three-way split in the TCI Challenge 2007’s !st Prized of $20,000.

   Goldray also said he and H. Hinderaker took out the Leeward Marina Resort and Spa sponsored Leeward Going True but said the competition  performances of Wil Gibson’s speedster, Lick It, JJ Parker on Mary Jane and both of Sailing Paradise’s DC Evergreen Jr and DC Valley Stream Jr were “something that will be remembered for many a day”.

   Just what that means I would like to know from way over here in London and I am sure others reading these lines would like to know also.

   Maybe Goldray or somebody else who saw the racing can send some more words describing the action and some photos so I don’t have to sit here just with my little ol’ imagination?

James Dean Sloop For Sail
   Master Boatbuilder James Dean needs to sell his 30-foot Wheeland Sloop, Eagle III. Eagle III is a true traditional Sloop with a combination fishing and transport design and a very fast hull. She won last year’s Fools Regatta in the A Class. James has not sailed her much due to his alacrity in starting up another project, Eagle IV, which he finished in time to launch and tri-win the first Mariners’ Week TCI Challenge Cup Regatta in June.

   We try to tell James that the way to sell the Sloop is to sail her and let the people carry the word of her seakindliness and speed. She does charge through the fleet but nobody will know that without seeing her.

   “Two boats is one too many for me.” Are the words he said to me when asking if we could purchase the vessel and keep her for sail training work with youth. We cannot afford the vessel but would offer our usual maintenance in exchange for use agreement with anybody or business that might wish to buy her at an extremely reasonable $14,000.00.

   Contact James at 242 7909 or me by email at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Sail Training In the Turks and Caicos Islands
   Since the inception of the Maritime Heritage Federation the concept of sail training, especially among the youth of the nation has been at the forefront of our programmes. But, we have been hampered by lack of vessels suitable for the instruction of traditional skills, then lack of instructors willing to either donate time or be salaried or contracted to teach sailing.

   We originally thought it would be an easy thing to get people out there to teach young people how to sail and hands on methods of hunting marine prey but we found that the older folk just don’t want to give up the time necessary to pass on these traditions, even for commissions. Maybe it’s the only thing of value they still retain and don’t want to share it or maybe it is that they really feel that the younger generations are not interested as we hear so often.

   For the first concept, they should look at the esteem or value the community would put on their knowledge in place of their secrets and what are they here for but to pass on knowledge? For the second argument why, in our two years of putting kids on Sloops, only one of over five hundred have said that he did not want to have access to a Sloop to sail more?

   Sail training builds morally balanced citizens. There is a right way and a wrong way of doing things based on practical concepts. There is no gray matter for arguments sake in sailing, you either have done it correctly or not. Even tying off a dock line has a few proper knots with which to work.

…but where are the Sea Scouts and the church clubs, and how willing are they to use our Caicos Sloops?

   Last June a study on the effects of sail training on youth has proved that young people confined in close quarters who are working together improve in the social confidences needed to make wholesome citizens.

   The study, conducted by the University of Edinburgh for Sail Training International, the organiser of the Tall Ships races, interviewed 500 sail trainees. Some of the questions included the reasons that the trainees wanted to go to sea and what were their most common fears of being at sea.

   The reasons for going to sea were answered with adventure, making new friends, conquering a fear of heights and exploring. The anxieties were sea sickness and fear of heights.

   A more in-depth, hands-on study involved 300 youth from the ages of 15-25 years on thirty-four different voyages aboard seventeen vessels from thirteen nations.

   An aim of the Federation is to put young girls and boys on deepsea sail training vessels before they make their ultimate decisions in career choices to broaden their horizons and see what else could be of use in this economy that might build, that that has proven itself aboard vessels, a better and more varied society.

   We also want to keep our inside the reef and on sound sailing going to teach the basics about sailing and also sailing in shallow and reef areas, as well as traditional fishing techniques. Of course the ultimate statement of a maritime nation to itself is to design and construct a deepsea sail training vessel that can be used to represent Turks and Caicos Islands’ maritime history and traditions to the world. 

   To do these programmes we need the community to organize youth sailing clubs using our traditional Sloops. The Sea Scouts and church youth clubs would be an excellent way of fulfilling our mutual goals but where are the Sea Scouts and the church clubs, and how willing are they to use our Caicos Sloops?

European Maritime Heritage News
   The fifteen year old European Maritime Heritage organisation is urging regulatory exemptions for historic ships.  Says EMH President Michael Vom Baur, “In European Union policy, culture is normally a  domain of the member states. That’s why we’re very satisfied that cultural heritage has become an element of the commission’s future ideas about maritime policy”

   It is estimated by EMH that there are 5,000 traditional European ships of historic value in sailing today. With an annual spending estimate of no less that E70,000,000 these private owners, associations and maritime museums feel they should have a voice in European maritime policy making.

   Baur pointed out at an April meeting of EMH that modern safety rules are always oriented toward commercial shipping that emphasize minimum crew and maximum automation, the almost exact opposite of sail training vessels that utilize large crews eliminating the need for automation.

   By invitation, the meeting was attended by the European Union Maritime Policy Task Force head, John Richardson and no doubt the focus of the address was aimed at urging new maritime policy at the top.

   EMH has gone about influencing the European Union in the correct manner by producing a consultation and discussion memorandum, entitled, “Europe’s Maritime Future is Founded on Europe’s Maritime Heritage”  providing a means and reason for meetings between the organisation and this maritime EU policy making body. The EU is seeking to create an integrated maritime policy, which it hopes to present by the end of this year.

Re-Organisation, A Way Forward?
   When we first started the Maritime Heritage Federation we wanted to spend most of the time promoting a need for cultural heritage preservation, which included pushing racing of the Sloops, which in turn meant building more boats. A lot of the concepts that people, both inside the Federation and outside, had was that we were a group of racing sailors who sometimes had classes in the schools and built Sloops period.

We call on Government and the private business sector…

   We had conflicting concepts even in the Board of Governors with some thinking that the Federation was just another yacht club type of thing and others being dedicated to a heritage conservation organisation. One of the faults that I feel we manifested was mine alone to claim (mine meaning that of H.E. Ross). I combined everything to make it whatever everybody in it wanted and tried to involve all interested in the building of this new organisation.

   My fault in this fault was that I am not a person who works well with others in a leadership capacity. I can work with others and have no problem with supporting the projects of others but I prefer to work alone and assume the responsibility for the mistakes and the achievements. There are a lot of us like this out there reading these lines right now and that is a grave problem with community group start-ups. The individuals with the drive custom create the groups to their concept in order to work with them, usually alone. When the group grows and the members start to create projects it is sometimes difficult for the person who has had most of the creative responsibility, even with the most helpful in intentions, to not try and control the new projects.

   I feel this is a time like that and I feel it might be a good time to stop and re-organise. It might be the perfect time to award the new projects and those who are creating them and to make a little shift in responsibility away from that initial leader and into the hands of the new project leaders.

   Redefining the roles in an organisation, especially a community organisation, can only cause reflection and we can all benefit from reflection.

   For the Federation I would feel that a re-think on presentation of our product is in order. We need professional administrators in a professional setting, while maintaining an inclusive reality for any who wish to participate.

   The proposed Chalk Sound Sailing Centre as drawn by H. Hinderaker & Associates gives a feeling of openness and modern practicality that could assure all of the above in a physical sense. We need the land to put this marvel on which we thought was forthcoming in an area that was created and designated as such by Government but either we are shy in approach or they are too busy with governing for it has not happened.

   We need a different kind of staff then what was needed for the shoestring beginnings of this potentially great organisation. We need professional administrators, the kind that understand and work with systems. A sailor moves with the instincts of nature if she or he is good at that. An administrator moves with the practicality of the procedure or introduces a procedure with which to move. Business is a combination of both, especially a not for profit business such as the Federation.

   Then, we need the professionals to attend our administration and ensure all of our programmes maintain continuity.

   We call on Government and the private business sector to assist by joining the Federation goals and creating a  lasting atmosphere of national pride in a proud maritime heritage.

Baby News
We just attended a water birth workshop at the Bloomsbury Birthing Centre at University College Hospital where we will have the baby, bar no unforeseen early deliveries anywhere between our flat ant and the place. The workshop featured a Russian made water birth film showing how easy birthing is…? with superwomen pulling them out and adoringly gazing upon the. It ended with giving water births on the Black Sea with kids playing flutes and dolphin coming by to watch.

   Just thought I would throw that in there for those interested. Oh, yeah, our midwife, said they did nothing like that at Bloomsbury, they just helped deliver babies. With just five days to go until the expected D(rop) Day that is reassuring to say the least. How would they get dolphins into the elderly brick building in the centre of London anyway?

Last but not least:

   A little bit of SPIRIT would be what I have learned since landing here about the evolution of the Turks Islands and Caicos Sloops. The main thing is the link between Africa and the Netherlands. The ancient lateen sail rig is the link. The latest theory is that this rig was used on a multi-hull in the Eastern migration of Africans toward the Pacific about 60,000 years back. The rig is most famous in the normal glance at antiquity being on the stitch planked ceremonial vessel at Giza. 

   You see the rig on Dhows and at first glance it is triangular in shape but looking more closely the front end of the long and large sail is chopped off, making it quadrilateral. The lateen rig moved over to Spain with the 700 years of Moorish occupation of that peninsula and pops up aboard Columbus’ Nina, the Caravel that sailed closest to the wind and he eventually purchased a half ownership in.

   Later, when Spain was given Flanders and the Netherlands as a marriage gift to the new Spanish king the rig seems to have migrated to the low lands and some Dutch smart guy cut the sail at the mast to create the fore and aft rig, with a spritsail main and a new thing called a jib in the front. From there it came to England to trade and influenced the ready fishermen, who slapped it on their penances and shallops to make them into sloop rigged smacks.

   The Cornish sea rovers recognized the rig in the Caribbean Basin and immediately wanted it for their own by taking it from the Dutch traders and establishing it in Jamaica along with a all around centre for pirates and privateers. The Sloop became the vessel of choice and was being refined when Bermudian Cedar moved Sloop design up into the Atlantic and onto that archipelago’s shores. The Bermudians needed the windward ability of the vessel to be more refined in order to get to the Turks and Caicos Islands, then called the Salt Islands, to trade the precious commodity of salt with the Eastern Seaboard of North Armerica, as well as the Eastern Seaboard of South and even Central America all the way north to Mexico.

   I am concentrating on the drift of the design from the Eastern side of England to the West Country of Devon and Cornwall. By phone there seems to be quite a bit of enthusiasm for this new angle toward an overlooked aspect of the British Diaspora. 

   Barring a baby making our external acquaintance I should be meeting with Lynne Mallet and Paul Ridgeway of the World Ship Trust and Martyn Heighton of the National Historic Ships Committee who created the National Register of Historic Vessels.