Author Archives: Bertie Wheen

Nancy Blackett goes VI Sailing

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by Mark Taylor

Editor’s Introduction (Julia Jones)

I’m aware that we offer surprisingly little disabled sailing (or other diversity projects) on the Deben. (Shout at me if I’m wrong because I’d love to hear from you – [email protected].) HOWEVER there are many people from the Deben who volunteer at the Woolverstone Project on the Orwell and also at EAST, the East Anglian Sailing Trust. Among their activities they have a Visually Impaired Section which welcomes additional volunteers and yachts to get involved in their cruising programme. If you are interested in helping please email [email protected] or leave a voice message on 0333 0883278. This article by Mark Taylor, sailing secretary of the Nancy Blackett Trust, describes the day Nancy got involved. (Reprinted here by kind permission of the Trust.)

Nancy alongside at Suffolk Yacht Harbour.

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Conservation and Climate Change: The National Trust on the Suffolk and Essex Coast

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By Matt Wilson

RDA co-chair Colin Nicholson, NT countryside manager Matt Wilson and RDA vice chair Liz Hattan at the AGM

The speaker for this year’s River Deben Association AGM was Matt Wilson, countryside manager for the National Trust for the Suffolk & Essex Coast. His subject was Conservation and Climate Change: his topics were varied, reflecting the varied nature of his responsibilities in this area.

Matt’s title is countryside manager – and that gives him a wide remit, which he’s still exploring. He’s already spent 25 years working in Local Government, within green spaces and blue spaces including for Essex County Council, the London Borough of Barking & Dagenham, and Exmoor National Park authority. Now, with the National Trust for the last 2 and a half years, he has a team of Rangers (currently six) who undertake the practical management and wildlife monitoring on the ground while Matt’s remit is slightly more strategic. He has a particular interest in developing partnership work with other local conservation and environment groups, working at a landscape scale. The area for which he’s responsible runs from Northey Island on the River Blackwater in Essex, to Darrow Wood, over the Suffolk / Norfolk border.

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Maid Marion

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by Julia Jones

Maid Marion passing HMS Severn with the Association of Dunkirk Little Ships (ADLS).

Maid Marion (PZ 61) has been a familiar sight on the River Deben for over 60 years. It was in 1964 that her new owner John Hunt, together with David Mellonie of Small Craft Deliveries brought her from her original home in Cornwall to the mooring at Ramsholt, just down river from the Quay, which she has occupied ever since. This year, 2025, she reaches her 100th birthday.

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A Two-Felixstowe-Church Walk

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Janet Harber and her sister Jackie Jones are the first to take up the challenge of linking two of more of the Deben churches described by Gareth Thomas in his four-part series last year. Their Felixstowe-based walk was published in The Deben magazine #70 and is reprinted here with additional photographs taken by Janet.

If you feel inspired to try to devise your own walks, linking different Deben Churches, you will find a list at the end of this article. Alternatively you might enjoy Sue Ryder Richardson’s circular walk from Hemley Church.

This five-mile route, a mix of coastal and surburban walking, links the churches of St Peter and St Paul in Old Felixstowe and St Nicholas at Felixstowe Ferry. The two churches are described in detail by Gareth Thomas in his RDA Journal series Churches of the Deben: Part 3B.

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‘Cachalot’ (1898): a ‘gentleman’s yacht’ and a Dunkirk ‘little ship’

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by Steve and Beverley Daley-Yates

Steve and Beverley Daley-Yates, current owners of Cachalot, were the first to send their yacht’s details to the RDA ‘Boats Still Floating 2025’ project. This year-long project aims to identify boats currently on the Deben which were built during 1950 or before. During the year we will be building a database of such vessels, large or small. You can find it HERE. We will also run occasional articles giving some of their histories, as they are part of our river heritage. Thank you, Steve and Beverley, for starting us off.

Cachalot came back to the River Deben in September 2005 and made her home in the Tidemill Yacht Harbour, Woodbridge. She had certainly visited the Deben prior to this and possibly spent some of her neglected years sitting in the mud of the Woodbridge Town Dock. Built in Folkestone in 1898, she has spent most of her life on the East Coast. Her major restoration took place ashore at the Tidemill, 2007 – 2017. She regards the River Deben as home.

2022: Felixstowe [Josh Masters].

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Pre-1950 Boats Still Floating, 2025

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By Julia Jones

How many boats on the Deben are more than 75 years old?

The RDA Journal is beginning a year-long project to identify our oldest boats of any type and size. The only criterion is that they must still be floating for at least part of the time — either with the tide, if they live on a beach or are in use as a houseboat, or seasonally if they are laid up ashore for part of the year. Venerable wrecks like the Lady Alice Kenlis (1867) who no longer rises with the flood, or the longer term inhabitants of the Woodbridge Boatyard’s ‘rehoming shed’, can’t qualify – unless their fortunes change.

The Dragonfly class was created for members of the Waldringfield Sailing Club and turned 75 years old last year. [Photo: Alexis Smith]

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Confessions of a Serial Litter-Picker: The RDA Autumn Talk, Nov 5th 2024

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By Julia Jones

I’ll be honest – I had no idea that a talk about litter was going to be so interesting and emotive. Not only the emotions of disgust, incredulity and anger — which thinking about litter evokes all too easily – but engagement, humour, surprise, compassion, admiration. Yet that’s how I felt listening to Jason Alexander’s presentation to the RDA on Bonfire Night. A good moment to be sweeping up some old preconceptions and seeing them burn away cold night air, giving out warmth and inspiration as they go.

This is the story of a one-man campaign and a movement we can all join, on our own or working with others.

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Best Wishes to Deben sailor Pip Hare as she tackles her second Vendee Globe race

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By Julia Jones and Nick Cottam

The Vendée Globe is a single-handed, non-stop, non-assisted round-the-world sailing race that takes place every four years. It is contested on IMOCA monohulls, which are 18 metres long. The skippers set off from Les Sables-d’Olonne in Vendée and sail around 45,000 kilometres around the globe, rounding the three legendary capes (Good Hope, Leeuwin and finally Cape Horn) before returning to Les Sables d’Olonne. The race has acquired an international reputation, attracting skippers from all over the world. Beyond the competition, it is above all an incredible human adventure.

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A Walk from Shottisham to Ramsholt (and Back)

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by Sue Ryder Richardson

Like the River Deben itself, this walk is one of two parts: from dry pastoral uplands to the salty, tidal marshes and mudflats. Start in the tiny village of Shottisham, a place where time has stood still; a cluster of cottages nestle around the picturesque Sorrel Horse pub, a path leads up to St Margaret’s church, and a playground. There is a white weatherboarded watermill set Constable-like amongst trees, and all this is surrounded by cornfields and pastures. The village captures the essence of Ronald Blythe, as it settles in a landscape that recalls the horse-drawn plough of George Ewart Evans.

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