In which Sid and Doris discover that you can get a lot of pleasure from watching other people messing around in boats.
We are out on a mooring so call up the harbour launch to take us in to Newport. The town, between Boston and New York, became the summer resort for the rich. The first US golf and tennis tournaments were held here. While the harbour seems to be full of leisure boats the US Navy War College is here too.
Rhode Island was one of the early 17th century British colonial settlements and later welcomed Portuguese Jews who have the oldest synagogue in the US. Rhode Island was one of the major ports for the slave trade. Much of this is described as illegal after the 1807 Congressional Act outlawing the transatlantic trade, but there seems to have been no enforcement with hundreds of people taking shares in slaving expeditions.
The town near the harbour is for tourists with nautical tattoria, galleries and fudge shops. It is difficult to be too sniffy about this if you are having ice cream lunch, although one restaurant has very definite views about what constitutes proper clothing.
Our slightly more serious goal is to go see the International Yacht Restoration School. This aims to get people trained up enough that boatyards can afford to take on beginners as they do not seem to be able Support apprenticeships themselves.
There are some big boats about, and for motor racing fans: Roger Penske’s monster Feadship Excellence was in. We were amused to hear them called on Channel 16 the next day by a commercial vessel, ‘Excellence, I am assuming you know that WE are the stand-on vessel ….’
Newport is a little like Cowes but without the day to day Co-op and WH Smiths. We wander through the town not really settling to anything, going in the galleries. There are lots of oil paintings of boats and beaches. There is some quality that makes a painting art. You know it when you see it, and mostly we didn’t though there were flying pigs.
Then we realise that the best fun will be had sitting up on Nereus watching other people’s boats and the sunset.
Waiting for the harbour taxi we see a lesson to Black Watch – yachts can be offered a deck length shorter than their actual length – an example of kerning yachts perhaps? This is not an optical illusion, the left hand yacht actually overlaps the right hand one by several feet, hence the very small fender at the top right corner.
We hope you enjoy some pictures of the harbour:
The sun sets over the scene, giving us all a chance to try out our cameraphones.
