Messing About in Boats Britain on Film

Anyone who has ever been to the seaside knows that the seas

around Britain are perfectly safe from sharks.

But a group of enthusiastic fishermen have made a really

prodigious effort and found that there are sharks off Cornwall.

They are about 20 miles out into the Channel,

and they are not man-eaters.

So off you go to Cornwall and hire a boat for £8 a day and another

£3 for tackle, and what do you get for all this effort and expense?

This savoury looking mess called rubbydubbing,

consisting of pilchards, heads and offal.

You put it over the side in a net and particles of oil

and fish drift away from the boat.

Sharks have a very keen sense of smell,

not that they need it for rubbydubbing.

The first of the novices tries her hand.

The object of the harness is to take a lot of the weight

off the angler's arms and to stop any tendency to be pulled overboard.

She receives last-minute instructions,

how to adjust the clutch on the reel.

And there's her first shark, a fearsome monster, all of 60lbs.

The fishermen say there is no cruelty whatever

in the angling of sharks.

They are just hooked, then gaffed, and then bashed on the head

with a bit of lead piping and shoved below decks. No trouble at all.

The last sight of England, of home comforts

and amusements for three long weeks.

That's what this regular sight means to the 5,000 men who

bring in Britain's deep-sea fish supplies as they head north.

The trip up is no idle period -

every inch of net has to be gone over and checked.

Far from home, home standards must still be kept up

and the roast beef of old England is often a feature of the mess room

in the mist of northern seas.

Serving food in a force eight gale would be quite a test

of the most highly skilled waiter.

Soon the ship will be on the fringe of the best fishing,

off the coast of Iceland, where the newly enforced six-mile limit

means a very narrow margin of permitted fishing waters.

This British gun boat is on constant patrol

at the fishing limits in case of trouble with Icelandic authorities.

The skipper has given the signal to haul in.

The mate undoes the knot fastening the cod end.

And out they tumble, alive alive-o!

Another catch safely on deck.

In a good year, a deck hand working flat out may earn £1,000,

a third hand £1,500-1,700.

The payment is on results. The men sign on for each voyage.

It is a chancy job, and certainly a real hard grind.

As soon as they are inboard, the fish are gutted and washed,

before being stored in ice.

Now the fishing is finished,

and it is just a question of cleaning up the mess.

There is more than one kind of mess to be cleared up.

Since leaving port, nobody has bothered much about shaving.

But as land and home draws near, off comes the whiskers

and the grime of work.

All that remains for the seafarer

is to tie up in time for the early morning market.

Then the dry-land workers take over.

Every year, millions of shellfish are taken out of the sea,

but there are still as many good ones in it as ever came out of it.

And the aristocrat of them all is the oyster.

He sleeps in his bed all the summer

and then in September he wakes to civic honours in Essex,

when the River Colm Oyster Fishery is opened ceremonially by

the mayor of Colchester, following a tradition that goes back 700 years.

A century ago, oysters were everybody's food.

500 million were sold in England every year.

Today, Britain produces not more than 8 to 10 million annually.

And, depending where you eat them,

they can cost up to two shillings each.

MUSIC: "Molly Malone"

"Cockles and mussels alive, alive-oh"

was one of the old cries of London.

At Lee-on-Sea in Essex, thousands of shellfish are brought in

very much alive every day, weather permitting.

And they've sheds on the spot to cook them in.

The hot water opens the cockle shells automatically.

Then they shake them and obligingly the cockles shed their coats.

Out of the window go the shells.

There is nothing, say some people, like a pint of nice fresh cockles -

unless of course it is a jar.

This factory near London bottles

more than 300 tonnes of shellfish every year.

Shellfish stalls are fewer in big cities today,

but you'll still find them on Derby Day at Epsom.

Not everybody likes shellfish,

but nearly 25,000 tonnes are eaten in Britain each year.

Boats, boats and more pleasure boats -

that's the scene around Britain's coastline today.

With overcrowded roads and beaches,

everyone, it seems, wants to get afloat during the summer.

Nearly a million people on these islands are now bitten with

the boating bug,

a sport or pastime that is growing more rapidly in Britain

than any other.

Boating or yachting is not only for millionaires nowadays.

Boats can cost £40,000 or more,

but they can also be bought for as little as £400-500.

About the same price as a small family saloon car.

For many people, a boat is a weekend cottage,

with the added attraction of being able to move it.

Cooking space in the galley with gas stove and sink

and good accommodation have become more and more important

over the last few years, as this sport has changed

from essentially a man's game to a family pastime.

This increased production of boats has been mainly due to the use of

new boat-building techniques,

particularly glass-fibre construction,

over the last ten years.

Boats which would take three months to build by traditional methods

are now being turned out in two weeks.

A glass-fibre hull and deck bonded together to form one unit

means no leaks and little maintenance for the owner.

At the last International Boat Show in London,

55% of the boats exhibited were made of glass-fibre.

The Boat Show is the biggest boat show in the world -

bigger, let's whisper it, than New York's.

The centrepiece of the show is a 2.5 million gallon swimming pool,

converted into a harbour,

with cottages and village built around it.

313,000 people went to the latest Boat Show,

compared with 120,000 11 years before.

At the pre-race briefing

Sir Max Aitken, founder of the event,

wishes everyone good luck.

Everything is set for the big race.

The crowds are out to see the start.

A rolling stock with a pack of high-speed craft coming up to

the Royal Yacht Squadron line at a controlled speed of 20 knots.

And now thousands of horsepower are slammed into full speed ahead.

Number 111, the Gardner brothers' 36ft Surfury, is away first.

Streaking past spectator craft off Cowes,

the aluminium-built Flying Fish, no 275, is fourth.

With Lady Aitken well placed at ninth.

Lady Aitken, mother of two children, took up offshore power boat racing

in 1963 to finish fifth in the Cowes to Torquay race.

Today, nothing will keep her away from the sport.

From the crowded clifftops near Torquay, thousands of spectators

waited to see who'd survive this gruelling 198-mile dash.

It was Ghostrider all right,

crossing the finishing line with an average speed of 41 miles per hour.

So Ghostrider, first in the Miami to Nassau race,

and now first in the Cowes to Torquay, gets the two blue ribbons

of offshore powerboat racing for her owner Hugh Doyle.

CANNONS EXPLODE

Co-driver Bob Sherbet had smashed his ankles

when caught off-balance in rough water off Portland.

For nearly two hours he had lain painfully in the bottom

of the boat, refusing to let Jim Win retire and get him to hospital.

But they had won, 42 minutes ahead of the next boat,

Britain's Spirit of Ecstasy.

Out of 40 starters, 18 finished.

And that's powerboat racing for you - the agony and the ecstasy!

Sir Francis Chichester's solo round-the-world voyage

in Gypsy Moth IV, with one stop in Australia,

had set yachtsmen wondering whether the trip could be made nonstop.

Then Sir Alex Rose, a greengrocer sailor from South Sea,

completed the same voyage, also with one stop -

but in a smaller 20-year-old yacht designed for family cruising.

This varied collection of sailing boats had one thing in common -

they were all fitted with self-steering gear.

For it's this device, developed by lone yachtsman

Colonel Blondie Hasler,

that has made solo long-distance sailing so popular in recent years.

And has made it possible for men to attempt the Everest of the sea -

the nonstop round-the-world trip.

"Sailing around the world - this idea first occurred to me

"as a naval cadet at about the age of 15."

Ten men leaving separately

were competing for a Golden Globe for the first boat home

and £5,000 for the fastest man round.

Galway Blazer II, 42ft long

with Chinese junk sails on unstayed masts,

proved on trials to be a flyer.

Speeds up to 10 knots were recorded, and she handled like a dinghy.

The biggest danger to the lone yachtsman at sea

is the risk of being run down by a ship.

For a man cannot stay on watch indefinitely,

he must sleep sometime.

So he keeps well clear of the shipping lanes

and the automatic steering gear keeps his small boat on course.

A naval launch took Galway Blazer II

to the starting line off the breakwater.

Once clear of the coast, Bill King would head south

for about 6,000 miles to round the Cape of Good Hope,

eastwards across the southern Indian Ocean and southern Pacific,

to the notorious Cape Horn,

then the long haul home up the Atlantic.

The exploits of Britain's sailors added glory

to the reign of the first Queen Elizabeth.

Bill King and the other lone sailors

are doing no less for the second Elizabethan age.

Bigger and faster ships, which have doubled the world's

seaborne trade over the last 12 years,

are too often on a collision course, say the experts.

Especially in the approaches to the English Channel.

Every day, 750 pass through the five-mile-wide shipping channel

of the Straits of Dover, making this the busiest

and the most dangerous sea lane in the world.

There are 25 collisions a year - five times as many as 12 years ago.

Now a new two-lane traffic system is being tried out

at sea for the first time.

Northbound ships are advised to take a new channel near the French coast,

southbound ships take the old channel along the English coast.

One-way traffic, in other words.

This is the river, the river of endlessly flowing history,

the river without which there would be no London.

The river of breathless beauty and teeming commerce,

both changing and changeless.

Kings have sailed on it, feudal overlords have

joisted on its frozen surface and millions of people have loved it.

But how is Britain's most famous waterway

measuring up to the demands of today?

One of the problems is lost traffic,

in a port which handles one third of Britain's imports and exports.

Despite setbacks, the signs point to a new surge in foreign trade.

Can the river, with its present port set-up, handle it?

We have moved into the heyday of the supertanker,

the mighty bulk cargo-carrier.

The new and bigger ships need deeper water

and the last word in discharging gear.

It all adds up to a radical reassessment of port facilities.

Into the docks with their big ships

and a big deal in cars going out to the world.

Next door, Sunday's joint is coming in.

Out of the pool with its barges and lighters.

The biggest lighterage company on the river owns 600 of these craft.

It's the narrowboats and their people who still cradle

the old traditions of the canals.

Generation after generation has been born and raised within

the few square feet which are at once their living and their home.

But the canal folk are proud of their traditional brasswork,

their paintings and their china -

and such a tradition of work and craftsmanship dies hard.

But although the canals are tideless,

time has turned against them.

Neglect and deliberate financial sabotage

by the old railway companies have taken heavy toll

of what was once a brilliantly engineered communication system.

Yet our overcrowded roads offer only small savings in time

and are frequently more expensive per tonne-mile

for certain types of bulk cargo than the deserted canals.

And this same overcrowding has encouraged a new race of

canal people to take to the waterways purely for the joy of it.

Some keep their cruising craft on a pleasant reach,

a few prefer complete freedom of choice.

The modern outboard engine has undeniable advantages over

the horse, but naturally in any well-conducted crew,

it's still women and children first.

The enjoyment of the canals is not confined to the private boat owner.

When John Nash designed London's Regents Canal in 1810,

he prophesised an annual quarter-million-tonne traffic.

His figures were soon to prove conservative.

Today, the Regent's Canal is a splendid way to go to the zoo.

The River Erwell at Manchester,

a sorry comment on the state of some of Britain's rivers.

But the Agecroft Rowing Club

have been rowing on the Erwell for 100 years.

They say the river is far cleaner now than it was 50 years ago.

There was a time when it was so thick with debris

that rowing was almost abandoned.

Today, about 100,000 amateur oarsmen row on rivers, lakes,

reservoirs, gravel pits, the open sea -

anywhere these is enough water to float a boat.

Even a little boat. Nor is rowing a sport just for men.

One of the best known women's clubs

is the Stuart Ladies at Clapton in London.

They have won many races -

no mean feat, since their members

will keep getting married and leaving.

Nottingham and Union Rowing Club have won a great number of trophies.

But they have never won at Henley Royal Regatta -

the ambition of every oarsman.

Another crew entered for the Wyfold at Henley

is from the Argosies - the National Rowing Club of Dockers -

from ports all over Britain.

Until a few years ago, these men would not have been eligible

to compete in amateur regattas.

An old ruling was that no mechanic,

artisan or labourer could be an amateur.

But now the definition of an amateur in rowing

is in line with that of other sports.

By the beginning of July, the pleasant little riverside town

of Henley is bursting at the seams.

However attractive the distractions,

the serious business of the day is watching the rowing.

In their first race, the Argosies' four meet Crowland,

an artisans club from the River Lee.

The race for the most coveted rowing trophy in the world,

The Grand Challenge Cup, is always the high spot of the day.

The Russians are rowing against Britain's premier club, Leander.

The Russians move ahead soon after the start

and in spite of a strong challenge by Leander, win by a length.

CROWD CHEERS

Months of training and effort have gone into less than seven minutes.

The climax of the day's racing is over.

When there is no more racing to be seen, the crowds throng

the river and the fairground until long into the warm summer night.

It's a scene which has become part of contemporary English history.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd