Strumble Diary 10/09/2020

 It was a day of calm seas good visibility but overcast skys. With high tide falling shortly after noon it was a good opportunity to catch two sessions over both tides. I arrived at 09.15 and straight away saw a good number of porpoise milling around and as the tide race formed many more came in to feed. Before that though several groups of common dolphin were spotted at distance but in good numbers. indeed the commons stayed around and were  showing throughout the day with a couple of smaller groups coming closer in passing west to east. I was joined by Cliff, Fran and Lloyd with the Thursday volunteers. Later, the afternoon dropping tide was just as productive for porpoise and I'd estimate 30-40 animals on each tide. One marked animal today, confirmed female as it has a calf with it.

It was lovely to see an old Liverpool Class Lifeboat passing through and performing well as it ploughed through the swells of the tide race. You need to be a hardy sailor to take one of these a long distance as it has no cockpit to protect the helm and no auto steer either. If it's moving you steer it so cudos to this sailor and safe sailing to you sir.

The single-engined version entered service in 1932 and was powered by an RNLI designed, Weyburn Engineering built AE6 six-cylinder 35 horsepower (26 kW) petrol engine mounted in a watertight compartment. Like all early motor lifeboats, the Liverpool class carried an auxiliary sailing rig and had a drop keel just forward of the engine room. 28 boats were built between 1931 and 1941. So this one is just short of 70 yrs old at least and incidentally the designer had the same surname as myself James Barnett (no relation as far as I know)