Pirates vs the moral dilemma......an open letter to Garmin.

I just bought a new electronic chart, Atlantic islands and the Iberian peninsular (Spain) the particular format we use is Garmin Bluechart, in this case it's the all singing and dancing "vision" version.

However, Garmin say that it's not possible to create a backup of this SD card.

That's not true.....

It's not easy, but it is possible.........

I would also venture to suggest that this isn't piracy it's prudent.

So I now have a copy in each of our two plotters and the original as a backup.

Moral dilemma?

Nope....

I know (roughly) the MTBF (mean time before failure) of solid state memory. So I would like a backup of this fairly vital software in case the media fails......

I have absolutely no intention of flogging copies of this sd card on fleabay. That would be immoral.

If I can crack the hidden file security of your software in the ten minutes available before the pub then it does beg the question why bother? The only people your so called security is impacting are infact your customers who you are endangering by your short sighted view.

The real pirates would take less time than me to crack your security, remove it and allow users to create backups of this software. What do you have to lose? If we can all back up in case of a media fail, we all would be a damn sight safer and not so dependent on a one shot deal. I am fairly sure that most of us would have bought an original copy in the first place, after all, this isn't One Directions new album is it?

Or do nothing, and I will just tell everyone who asks how to circumvent your security.

Drifting

Ah Winter..........the time of dreams and plans. I sit in our cozy cabin and reach for a pilot, mentally sailing across the sea and thinking about where to go in the spring. Where will Dark Tarn take us?

I don't have to drift very far before I am sidetracked by an old story.

Sailing South down the East Coast of Ireland you pass Arklow and Rosslare at this point I have promised Lynne we will cross back to Wales to visit Pembrokeshire.

So there we are, crossing St George's channel in my minds eye and suddenly I realise we have just crossed the Sumner line. Of course you can't actually see it, in fact it didn't exist until December 17 1837. Captain Sumner was on a voyage from South Carolina to Scotland. Not having a had a sun sight for a few days Captain Sumner was unsure of his position, however he knew he was in the vicinity of the cluster of islands and rocks off the south west corner of Wales known to the ancient Greeks as the headland of the seven perils. Suddenly the clouds parted and Captain Sumner was able to get one sight. He duly plotted this and he got a latitude fix. However he would need several more sights to establish his longitude. Pondering this he plotted the same fix by reducing the sight by 10 and 20 degrees from his estimated position. Lo and behold the sights formed a straight line. The Sumner line. The line intercepted the position of the Smalls light. Captain Sumner turned to follow the line and the light duly appeared on the bow a few hours later.

This is the basis of modern celestial navigation later refined by Marq St Hilaire, The line isn't actually a line, it's a part of a circle where the altitude of the celestial body is the same from everywhere on the circle. Imagine a room with a single lightbulb and visualise the cone of light it throws on the floor and if you walked around the light measuring the angle between the cone and the bulb the angle would remain the same, you get the basic idea.

There you go, simple idea, but crucially no one had thought of it before.

Unfortunately this story doesn't have a happy ending because our hero ended his days in an asylum.

However I for one salute you. It's a brilliant piece of abstract thinking, this particular area of sea I pride myself on knowing very well. A wonderful cauldron of tides, history, landscape, wildlife and welshness. I need to return and  as I do, I promise I will remember captain Sumner as we cross his invisible line.

Of course I will also remember a day when "Two Timer" was knocked down and rolled off the South Bishop light. But that's my history and another story..........

Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance..........possibly

,Bought two albums this week, although "album" is possibly an anachronism. Let's just call them "downloads" , after all with a finite amount of room aboard. It's just music to my iPad.

I was and I am not ashamed to admit it looking forward with huge anticipation to Pink Floyds new Album ,record, release or whatever, The endless river. Of course being a diehard fan I opted for the deluxe all singing and dancing version which I actually downloaded courtesy of our hosts at the B&B in Horwich. It was however several days later that I actually listened to it.

However in the meantime I had also downloaded an album record or whatever by an obscure Scottish musician called Mike Vass, the music in question is called " In the wake of Niel Gunn"

Mike unfortunately became quite ill after being bitten, and contracted lymes disease. After his recovery he undertook a voyage following the voyage of Neil Gunn in 1937. This trip of Neil's with his wife is the subject of his book ' Off in a boat' which is a very honest and often amusing account both of a not very experienced sailor and the west coast characters of half a century ago, a sort of Para Handi meets Whisky Galore. It kickstarted Neil's literary career and he went on to become a successful novelist.

Although not well known outside his native land Neil Gunn is widely appreciated in Scotland.

Mike Vass apparently composed most of this music on the recreation of Neil's voyage and is a mix of modern and traditional musical styles, if you ever sail the west coast this is the soundtrack. Trust me.

£22,000 of Arts council grant well spent! There are numerous sites a Google search will throw up but it is especially worth finding the you- tube videos of the trip.

Ring of Gullion Way

We have been itching to get out walking in the local area but with a particularly long period of 'soft' weather among other things it has not proven possible. However the day before we fly home for Alex's birthday, the sun was shining and the air was still.... A walk that starts effectively from our mooring in Newry is the Ring of Gullion Way, the whole walk is 61 Kms in length but we had decided to walk the initial section to Flagstaff which is a hill and viewpoint above Fathom Forest which itself adjacent to Narrow water near Warrenpoint.

Most roads out of Newry involve a climb out of the valley and this was no exception, a good couple of kilometres steady climbing on the main road to Dublin saw us just before the motorway roundabout. The path however sneaks off down a small road which becomes a track and then a path.

The country is a heathland in character and doesn't really encourage rough wandering as it would be a painful struggle through the gorse. We were also unsure as to the legality ( in England we are now blessed with the "right to roam" ) so we stuck very closely to the marked pathways.

After walking around the lower slopes of Fathom Mountain, suddenly the view opened up, looking down on the Clanrye river we had come up in Dark Tarn a month ago. Lynne was looking towards Hilltown and the land of her ancestors.

The channel was fairly obvious from this height, as were the shallow bits!

To the right was a magnificent view down to Narrow Water and Carlingford Lough beyond.

We dropped Into Fathom Forest below and joined a small road climbing through the conifers towards th next hill along, Flagstaff and its viewpoint.

This was very nicely laid out with picnic benches and plaques with information on local history.

The Gullion ring is in fact the remains of an ancient volcano, the ring is actually the ring dyke formed by the rim of the Caldera and is actually a very famous geological structure. The footpath largely follows the rim hence the name. Ring of Gullion.

On our way back we decided to carry on for a short distance to the village of Clontygora in order to have a look at the chambered graves. These are dated to between 2500 BC and 3500 BC. Known locally as the  "Kings Ring" 

Chambered graves normally face East but this one faces North and would have been a very impressive structure in its day, consisting of a three tiered chambered structure. Used as a communal burial site.

At this point we were nearly back in "the south" being about 200 metres from the border.

Clontygora translates as " valley of the goats" however there were non to be seen, but almost every farm and small holding had a dog, some of which sounded a bit vicious! Most were actually very docile, this one was very friendly. He had obviously been in the wars having only three legs and being blind in one eye. We christened him " mad eye " after  mad eye Moody from Harry Potter.

 

I have always had a soft spot for Collies.......

A fantastic day out in the hills and some stunning views, we are obviously out of practise on the hillwalking front as we were both suffering from very tired legs when we got back to Newry!

On the shoulders of giants......

Everything happens for a reason, it usually starts as a really small thing, this peculiar sequence of events is sometimes described as the "butterfly effect". In my case, a few years ago, it was following an Irish boat called Mithril, and her owners Pete Maxwell and his partner Geraldine Foley. I have to admit at this point it was a virtual interest, following their adventures on the Internet. You can do much the same, as in the way of these things, their footprints still exist in cyberspace, look at http://sailmithril.tripod.com/thevoyages

 I hope I may be permitted to share a few of those memories and images for the sake of historical interest. As far as I am aware Mythril was the first boat (yacht) to winter over at Newry.

This was I the heady days of 2005, ( giving my age away yet again! ) The fishermen are actually fishing in Soterias berth. I believe that in those heady days of yore Mithril was the only boat here. Sainsburys however, had seen the future, Pete and Grealdine took full advantage of the close proximity and used the local supermarket to provision for a long voyage, a circumnavigation in fact. I remembered Pete (or was it Geraldine? ) commented on the good shelter and cheap mooring as well as access to useful stuff, later I would tell this story to my wife while editing out the drunks midnight visits that were also a feature!

This is a photo of Mithril at Strangford Lough, as you can see she is a righteous, black, steel hulled ocean wanderer. Kind of why I was interested in her story.

So as we approached the North East Coast of Ireland I remembered Mithrils story and a few inquiries told me that not a lot had changed. Which is why we are here, or more correctly ,its how we began to think about wintering here.

As it turns out, Pete and Geraldine sold Mithril after their last voyage, I believe their plans involved the European canal system, however...........

Before that Mithril had voyaged to the ends of the earth, this is a photo of Mithril at Kerguelen in the Antarctic.

Of course it has to get a lot warmer before it goes cold again and I love this picture of our heros looking out a the waves breaking over a coral reef somewhere in the tropics,  Well  that's the dream isn't it? To be honest so are the high latitudes........... At least for me anyway.

I raise a glass to you both, and the strange thing is that I have recently discovered that our heros are still around in Newry.

At least I think they are, It would appear that Pete is a leading light on the ongoing struggle to open up the Newry canal. He is I fact the president of the local branch of the IWAI . My plan now is to swap some physical labour for a chance to speak to one of my heros.

Yet more detective work needs to be done.

Pilotage notes for Kerguerlen Pete?