NEW YEAR COMPETITION!

Pilot verses
My first introduction to the sea was with my father and one of his WW2 comrades in an old sailing coble on the North East Coast. It was a blue summer day and he and Johnny were fishing. I was seasick! On returning to the shore mum scolded them for returning home empty handed and more importantly for not looking after me. To which my Dad replied "We were fishing, not catching! And anyway, I've taught him something he will never forget!" This is what he taught me:-

"First the Dudgeon, then the Spurn,
Flamborough Head is next in turn,
Filey Brig as you pass by
Whitby Light bears northerly
Huntley Cliff the great highland
Is five and twenty from Sunderland
Our Old Man says, if wind holds right
With luck we'll be in Shields tonight" (Old Collier Rhyme)


As a result of this early indoctrination I have always been fascinated by the pilot verses, which were used by mariners from the beginnings of navigation. Greek explorers in search of the source of tin and amber wrote their pilot verses for the British Isles hundreds of years before the birth of Christ. All over the world, from the North East of England (Collier Rhymes) to the Southern Ocean (Star Songs) examples of this method of remembering essential navigational information can be found.

Often illiterate, the Collier skippers conned their "Whitby Cats" from London to North Shields with rote, lore and experience. Soundings and samples brought up by the tallow on the lead were used to establish position. One can imagine the conversation in the chains as the leadsman informs the master "Smells like Skinningrove bottoms!" rather than the romantic "Mark Twain!" or "By the deep nine!"

James Cook leavened his intellect with this learning as he served on Whitby Colliers. He wrote pilot verses of his own to navigate the St Lawrence and helped bring General Wolfe to Quebec. In the Pacific there were "Star Songs" to navigate canoes across the ocean to distant islands. Much is now lost and will never be re-discovered, it owed its existence to a time before printed charts, magnetic compasses, chronometers, radar and GPS. It was a time when "navigators" were an aristocracy and the "knowledge" was passed from father to son or uncle to nephew.

There is a profound satisfaction to be had in bringing your boat home using old-fashioned skills and seamanship. It can also be an insurance against power failure or GPS "closedown" at the whim of President or Pentagon. So to keep tradition alive, I would like to offer a bottle of "Single Malt" as prize for the best pilot verse for approaching and entering Hartlepool Marina. Entries to Mick Fellows the Editor before …March 2005 -

Lee Ho! John Harris. Captiva.