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Secretary's report

In the best of times, the job of SOA secretary is never particularly busy, but
since the last magazine I have only received notification of the RYA AGM
and correspondence from a member who is selling his boat. There has
been no need for any committee meetings. Is anybody out there?

Earlier in the season, I had hoped to be joining Sally T (S35RS) on a trip from
the south coast to Norway, but of course it didn’t happen. While I have
made the North Sea crossing on a number of occasions; never in a Souther-
ly. On the first occasion it was in an old Colvic with the skipper navigating
by sexton, and I was put in charge of a piece of new equipment called an
RDF (Radar Direction Finder). As it was cloudy for the three day crossing, it
was fortunate for me the signal from Stavanger was strong and we found
our way to Farsund in SE Norway without a problem.

It was also the days before AIS and half way across, when approaching the
oil fields, we received a call from a patrol ship. In a strong Scottish accent
we heard ‘Wee Little Red Yachtie, where are ye headin’? We then went on
to have a very pleasant lengthy conversation, because we were the only
vessel they had seen for at least twenty four hours. It was also the days
when the coastguard would ask us to contact them the next day when they
would have a weather forecast waiting. No navtex or sat phone.
How sailing has changed. While all the old equipment such as RDF, Decca,
morse and flags have disappeared, I wonder in the days of social distancing
and quarantine, do we need to dust off the Q flag when visiting foreign
ports? Looking up quarantine in an old sailing manual, it states ‘while un-
der quarantine, the vessel must fly the Q flag, which is square and yellow
and usually known as the ‘yellow jack’ and her crew may not land until ei-
ther the infectious period (a maximum of forty days in case of plague) has
elapsed or she is granted pratique as free of disease’.
As I write this, we are in another lockdown. For those of you who lay up for
the winter, I hope these restrictions do not cause too many problems.
What next sailing season holds for us is difficult to predict, but let us hope
there is some semblance of normality for the SOA.
Les Webb
Best wishes for the New Year.
Secretary SOA
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