Yachting

The Admiralty chart is a wonderful

creation that most of us tend

to take too much for granted. If

you don’t have a copy, get hold

of Chart 5011, which isn’t really a

chart at all, more of a booklet. It

spells out every symbol found on

these wondrous publications and I,

for one, am well served by reading

through it at the beginning of the

season to make sure my memory

isn’t rusting out. This April’s trawl

reminded me about the fi gures,

with which this tiny section is

indeed rich. Note the following:

■ Depths and drying heights

(underlined, of course) – italic,

with decimals in subscript

■ Heights above MHWS – upright

letters in brackets

■ Contours – fi gures as near

perpendicular to the plane of the

contour line as practicality allows,

and bang on the line itself.

■ For light characteristics, ‘m’

signifi es the height in metres.

‘M’ is the luminous range in

nautical miles. The cartographers

sensibly don’t use the superfl uous

‘NM’. After all, what other miles

would they be?

If you’re uncertain about the precise meanings of any symbols or

numbers on this chart excerpt, grab a copy of Admiralty 5011

Tom Cunliffe has sailed tens of thousands

of miles all over the world and has been a

Yachtmaster Examiner since 1978

26 http://www.yachtingmonthly.com MAY 2016

PHOTOS: TOM CUNLIFFE UNLESS OTHERWISE STATED

‘What does

that mean?’

Washed up

Berths facing

away from the

fairway are less

prone to wash

Mid-stream river pontoons can make

an attractive proposition when you’re

looking for a berth. There’s only one

problem. Unlike a formal marina, whose

fi ngers are (or at least should be) in quiet

water, a midstream pontoon has all the

river traffi c barrelling by, and they don’t

all respect your topsides and slow down.

The result is that every weekend your

poor yacht spends hours bashing against

her fenders, which is no good at all.

What’s more, any grit in the equation

will grind away at the gelcoat. If there’s

a choice, the berth on the inside – away

from the main waterway – will be a lot

quieter. If it’s also the leeward berth with

the prevailing weather blowing off it, it’s

even more attractive.

Do not be misled by the

illustration. I am not advocating

getting rid of our lovely dry

GRP or teak-over-ply decks,

to replace them with the

traditional plank-on-frame

equivalents. What you see

here is the caulking kit for

tightening up the fi fty feet

of fl ush deck on the old pilot

cutter I sold years ago.

That was an awful lot of

seam to stop with cotton and

hot pitch. All history now, but I

still have that wonderful tarp of

proper cotton canvas.

Every boat needs one. I

use it every year to keep my

decks clean if I’m varnishing

my capping rail, servicing my

greasy windlass, or setting out

a picnic with red wine on the

foredeck. But only real canvas

will do. Plastic equivalents

are hateful. They’re slippery,

they crackle and they just

don’t work, so next time you

see a bolt of the right stuff in

a boatyard bin, grab it. You’ll

never look back.

A proper cotton

canvas tarpaulin –

every boat needs one

All hail, the good old tarp