Home Port; on the Delaware River at Fox Grove Marina Essington PA.

Monday, May 30, 2011

May 2011

May 30,2011

Morning sail, high 80's F the summer heat is building, gentle 5 to 10kn breeze from the west directly in line with the river. Sail up river with the breeze off my starboard stern, to the airport come about in the main shipping channel with the intent of tacking down river to Eddystone, but not enough breeze to counter current and maintain good tacking speed to weave red-green-red with commercial traffic present.

Coast Guard, Coast Guard Auxiliary and PA Fish and Boat Commission patrols all on the river for the holiday weekend.

Come about with the breeze at my stern and duck in behind Tinicum Island at Mifflin Bar Dike. A series of lazy tacks takes me slowly to the airport landing light jetty, drop sails and motor to the marina.






May 20, 2011
More than a week of rain in the Delaware Watershed and the river has debris including some large trees washed out from the banks up river. The marina had loaded two steel piles ready to install at one of the end tees damaged over the winter. To late, a large tree propelled by a flood tide sheared off the end tee. The floating dock riding the tide did a perfect dock in a vacant slip of the adjacent marina.




May 11, 2011
Low 70's F, afternoon sail to Green E1 with 10 to 15kn out off east gusting above 20.

Container ship loading at Penn Terminal

The Delaware Responder, one of 16 oil spill response vessels operated by the Marine Spill Response Corp. (MSRC); making way down river at Green E1 Eddystone
May 7, 2011
Mid-day sail, low 70's F, 10 to 15kn gusting 20 to 25


Ulladh

Ulladh pronounced "ul-la" (null lad).





Uladh the gaelic spelling for the territory of the U-Nail chieftains in the ancient Irish province of Ulster (English/Norse), originally the counties of Down and Antrim, but now including Derry, Armagh, Tyrone, Fermanagh, Donegal, Cavan and Monaghan, also referred to as Ulidia (Greek/Roman),.



Uladh was the home of a pre-celtic, cruithne (crew-en-ya) pictish tribe, who may have been descendants of prehistoric tribes indigenous to the British Isles since the retreat of the last ice age.



Evidence from cut marks on deer bones from more than 30,000 years ago found in the karst formations of the Burren probably from hunters suggest a homonid precence. Archeological finds date first inhabitants (DNA evidence suggests dark or black skin and blue eyes) to about 6,000 BC and trade goods from Rathlin Island, County Antrim off the northeast coast of Ireland made from porcellanite stone appearing in Egypt and Crete by 2,500 BC.



The early tribes of Ireland where displaced by later waves of migrants from mainland Europe; about 1700 BC by bronze age tribes, celtic tribes about 500 BC, and in the past two millenia; Roman trading posts, Viking settlements, English plantations... and in the 21st century a welcome increasing diversity from the European Union and the world.



SV Ulladh (for vhf clarity I use "sailing vessel ul-la") is named for the territory of the first peoples to settle in Ireland after the retreat of the last ice age.



Fisksatra

Since 1949 Fisksatra Varv in the coastal town of Fisksatra Sweden, built fiberglass boats from dinghies to a 300 ton minesweeper for the Swedish Navy.

The Havsfidra 20's were built between 1968 and the late 1970's to Swedish Navy and Lloyd's certification standards.

The Havsfidra 20 and a larger version the Storfidra 26 where sold in the United States by Continental Yachts and Trawler Agency of Atlantic City NJ.

Havsfidra; sea-feather?
(fidra; to touch or tickle with a feather -Icelandic-English Dictionary, Clarendon Press 1874)