What's your image of a typical Thames Barge Master?  Grey hair, beard, more than a few wrinkles, plenty of weight to cope with hauling all those ropes?  Well Stephen Hunt doesn't conform to that stereotype (see photo, he's the one with the (spiky) hair on the left in case you weren't sure.....) as he told us in a superbly entertaining talk at the Club on Tuesday 30 March.

Reminder extIn fact conforming to stereotypes doesn't seem to have been his way at all.  From unlikely beginnings in Sheffield he got into Thames Barges via work experience from school, and hasn't looked back. He told us his very amusing life story including his experiences as crew with masters of varied and unlikely characters and his interview for his masters ticket at the age of 23.  Stories of life aboard included the time they cast off without his stag party guests, assuming they were sleeping it off below, when in fact they hadn't got back from clubbing in Colchester.

It was fascinating, and as the commodore said later, humbling for those of us who sail plastic boats with powerful winches, electronics and all kinds of mod cons and still sometimes find it a challenge, to learn what manoeuvring and boat handling entails on a Thames Barge.  Climbing the wooden, tallow coated mast to rig a block for yet another staysail, and still finding time to admire the view from the top, and doing "handbrake" turns using the anchor to manoeuvre in narrow channels were just two of the skills which sort these men from the boys.

Reminder intOverall Stephen's humorous and knowledgeable presentation gave us all a highly entertaining and informative evening, and inspired several members to think about going for a trip with Stephen themselves.

 

For more information on sailing on Thames barges visit the Topsail Charters website