The 89th Shellback year includes these presentations:
October 12th: We will watch TVO’s Tripping the Rideau, the short 55-minute version of this program. There is an immersive four-hour real-time journey along a 27-km portion of the historic Rideau Canal. You may wish to watch it on YouTube.
October 19th: Melodie Schaffer joins us again, this time to share her experiences in the race Transat Jacques Vabre 2021 on her yacht Whiskey Jack 128. The race started in LeHavre, France to Forte de France in Martinique and back again. The route was not direct.
October 26th: Time Team: The Lost Submarine of WWI. Today's submarines are vast, billion-pound, high-tech monsters with a nuclear payload that can level cities. But the story of Britain's first submarines began over a century ago, with inventors risking life and limb in a range of bizarre contraptions.
November 2nd: This week's presentation is two videos about the HMS Victory, the Napoleonic Warship. Part 1 looks at the physical ship, its dimensions, sails, and materials used to build it. Part 2 is an overview of how the ship runs/ran, the crew, the ammunition, etc. HMS Victory was Lord Nelson’s flagship in his victory at the Battle of Trafalgar on October 21st, 1805..
November 9th: Today, with its blogs, web sites, and YouTube, the Internet takes "virtual sailors" around the world at the helms of our keyboards. Actual travel to distant locations is also made easier with radio and GPS, not to mention aircraft. 100 years ago however, most people left their shores for distant locations by reading books. This week Ron Jenkins looks at the library of one such "traveller" -- Irwin Hickson Forster -- through the books he gathered in his personal library in the early 1900s. Nautical fiction, seamanship, histories, adventure, autobiographies, guides, and references all made parts of book collections such as his..
November 16th: Judith Alltree, our Chaplain, returns as a speaker. She will share an update on how the Mission to Seafarers has managed during Covid and now that in person events are occurring again.
November 23rd: Time Team: The Boats that Made Britain. Tony Robinson joins a team of experts as they strive to reconstruct the Dover Boat and so unlock the secrets of this mysterious time in our past.
November 30th: Gord Laco returns with another fine presentation, this time Henry Bayfield & Charting the Upper Great Lakes, Henry Wolsey Bayfield was an officer of the Royal Navy who following the War of 1812, Charted Georgian Bay, Lake Superior and the North Channel. Bayfield lived to see Canada become a nation and died a Canadian citizen in 1867 in Charlottetown.
December 7th: Ray Peacock will talk about the construction of his detailed model of the Oakville schooner, ANITRA. The original has been in the Macrea family since her design and construction almost a century ago. The actual Anitra is 40'9" x 9'6" x 5'6" and designed by A. Montye Macrea, Oakville, Ontario. Ray's model is built to a scale of 1:24, ½" to 1 ft, as she appears in 2016.
December 14th: Moosemilk returns after two year of absence during Covid. Our annual holiday celebration and fundraiser (Naval Officers’ Association of Canada Scholarship Fund) will be held at Mimico Cruising Club with a cap of 68 double-vaccinated enthusiasts! Yea!!. Click here for details.
January 11: Jesse Martin narrates his story. YouTube video: LIONHEART, THE JESSE MARTIN STORY. As a 17-year-old teenager, Jesse Martin set out on a journey to fulfill a dream few thought possible. By circumnavigating the world in his 34-foot yacht, Lionheart, Jesse would become the youngest person in history to sail around the world solo, nonstop and unassisted.
January 18: Aubrey and Judith Millard and Aaron Fenton - A 4200 NM Go Home Passage. This presentation will document their 4200 NM Go Home Passage north from El Salvador to Lake Huron. It was complicated by heavy weather, engine breakdowns, a 2 1/2 year delay due to Covid, and a problem-plagued land delivery from northern Mexico to Chicago. However, their 1978 Ontario 32 is now on the hard at our home North Channel Yacht Club on the north shore of Lake Huron above Manitoulin Island, marking an end to their retirement odyssey starting in 1998, and ending this fall of 2022.
January 25: Time Team video with Tony Robinson "In Search of Henry V’s Flagship, Grace Dieu". No bigger boat was built for 200 years. And in those Medieval times of the 15th Century, she only had one voyage.
February 1: TVO Documentary Series Black Pearl Sailing. Not only has the $200m Black Pearl recently entered the record books as the largest sailing yacht on the planet, but it's also been built to sail faster than any ship of its size. With exclusive access, we join Captain Chris Gartner and his team in Tarragona, Spain as they embark on the crucial sea trials for this ground-breaking yacht. (47 minutes) https://www.tvo.org/video/documentaries/black-pearl-sailing
February 8: GORDON LACO will update the story of HMCS Oriole, the sail training vessel of the Royal Canadian Navy based at CFB Halifax in Halifax, Nova Scotia. She is a sailing ketch, currently the oldest commissioned vessel in the Royal Canadian Navy, and also the longest serving commissioned ship. Originally the yacht Oriole IV, the vessel was acquired by the Royal Canadian Navy during the Second World War, then returned to private ownership at the end. Oriole IV was reacquired during the Cold War for use on the East Coast of Canada before switching to the West Coast of Canada in 1956. In 2018, the training vessel returned to the East Coast.
February 15: BRUCE MACDONALD will draw stories from his book, Never Say P*G: The Book of Sailors’ Superstitions, sharing the best of sailors’ superstitions. Bruce collected them while he was sailing on the Great Lakes and more than 100,000 nautical miles in many places all over the world. He will tell us all about this ‘original marine insurance’ and some of the history behind why sailors are so superstitious.
February 22: RON JENKINS will speak about the Polson Iron Works, a large and productive shipbuilding enterprise in the late 18th and early 19th century, operating near what is today the foot of Parliament Street. While most of its output no longer exists, some is still in use today.
March 1: ANNA SAGULENKO, 2019 IFCA Foil World Champion is currently training out of Mimico Cruising Club with a plan to enter the 2024 Olympics. She will speak of her past experience with the Foil and of her training practise.
March 8: ZOOM ONLY
March 15:
March 22: JOHN RAKOS will share his adventures sailing in Australia and Bermuda
March 29:
April 5: Jamie Hunter speaks on the History of the S.S. Waubuno, Legend and Lore, 1865-1879. The sidewheel steamer the S.S. Waubuno plied mainly Georgian Bay for most of her 14-year history. The vessel and all her crew and passengers disappeared on November 22nd, 1879 near the Haystack Reefs near Sans Souci Ontario. This presentation delves into all aspects of the wreck often referred to as the most mysterious wreck of the 19th Century on the Great Lakes waters because no one survived to tell the story of this ill-fated steamer and her last trip of the season from Collingwood Ontario to Parry Sound Ontario.
Jamie Hunter and Eric McIntyre have produced a 170 page book on all aspects of the S.S. Waubuno. Copies will be available for sale and answers to the wreck will be available after the presentation.
April 12: ZOOM ONLY Larry Rennie & Phil Dawson speak on "Behind the Scenes on Cruise Ships".
October 12th: We will watch TVO’s Tripping the Rideau, the short 55-minute version of this program. There is an immersive four-hour real-time journey along a 27-km portion of the historic Rideau Canal. You may wish to watch it on YouTube.
October 19th: Melodie Schaffer joins us again, this time to share her experiences in the race Transat Jacques Vabre 2021 on her yacht Whiskey Jack 128. The race started in LeHavre, France to Forte de France in Martinique and back again. The route was not direct.
October 26th: Time Team: The Lost Submarine of WWI. Today's submarines are vast, billion-pound, high-tech monsters with a nuclear payload that can level cities. But the story of Britain's first submarines began over a century ago, with inventors risking life and limb in a range of bizarre contraptions.
November 2nd: This week's presentation is two videos about the HMS Victory, the Napoleonic Warship. Part 1 looks at the physical ship, its dimensions, sails, and materials used to build it. Part 2 is an overview of how the ship runs/ran, the crew, the ammunition, etc. HMS Victory was Lord Nelson’s flagship in his victory at the Battle of Trafalgar on October 21st, 1805..
November 9th: Today, with its blogs, web sites, and YouTube, the Internet takes "virtual sailors" around the world at the helms of our keyboards. Actual travel to distant locations is also made easier with radio and GPS, not to mention aircraft. 100 years ago however, most people left their shores for distant locations by reading books. This week Ron Jenkins looks at the library of one such "traveller" -- Irwin Hickson Forster -- through the books he gathered in his personal library in the early 1900s. Nautical fiction, seamanship, histories, adventure, autobiographies, guides, and references all made parts of book collections such as his..
November 16th: Judith Alltree, our Chaplain, returns as a speaker. She will share an update on how the Mission to Seafarers has managed during Covid and now that in person events are occurring again.
November 23rd: Time Team: The Boats that Made Britain. Tony Robinson joins a team of experts as they strive to reconstruct the Dover Boat and so unlock the secrets of this mysterious time in our past.
November 30th: Gord Laco returns with another fine presentation, this time Henry Bayfield & Charting the Upper Great Lakes, Henry Wolsey Bayfield was an officer of the Royal Navy who following the War of 1812, Charted Georgian Bay, Lake Superior and the North Channel. Bayfield lived to see Canada become a nation and died a Canadian citizen in 1867 in Charlottetown.
December 7th: Ray Peacock will talk about the construction of his detailed model of the Oakville schooner, ANITRA. The original has been in the Macrea family since her design and construction almost a century ago. The actual Anitra is 40'9" x 9'6" x 5'6" and designed by A. Montye Macrea, Oakville, Ontario. Ray's model is built to a scale of 1:24, ½" to 1 ft, as she appears in 2016.
December 14th: Moosemilk returns after two year of absence during Covid. Our annual holiday celebration and fundraiser (Naval Officers’ Association of Canada Scholarship Fund) will be held at Mimico Cruising Club with a cap of 68 double-vaccinated enthusiasts! Yea!!. Click here for details.
January 11: Jesse Martin narrates his story. YouTube video: LIONHEART, THE JESSE MARTIN STORY. As a 17-year-old teenager, Jesse Martin set out on a journey to fulfill a dream few thought possible. By circumnavigating the world in his 34-foot yacht, Lionheart, Jesse would become the youngest person in history to sail around the world solo, nonstop and unassisted.
January 18: Aubrey and Judith Millard and Aaron Fenton - A 4200 NM Go Home Passage. This presentation will document their 4200 NM Go Home Passage north from El Salvador to Lake Huron. It was complicated by heavy weather, engine breakdowns, a 2 1/2 year delay due to Covid, and a problem-plagued land delivery from northern Mexico to Chicago. However, their 1978 Ontario 32 is now on the hard at our home North Channel Yacht Club on the north shore of Lake Huron above Manitoulin Island, marking an end to their retirement odyssey starting in 1998, and ending this fall of 2022.
January 25: Time Team video with Tony Robinson "In Search of Henry V’s Flagship, Grace Dieu". No bigger boat was built for 200 years. And in those Medieval times of the 15th Century, she only had one voyage.
February 1: TVO Documentary Series Black Pearl Sailing. Not only has the $200m Black Pearl recently entered the record books as the largest sailing yacht on the planet, but it's also been built to sail faster than any ship of its size. With exclusive access, we join Captain Chris Gartner and his team in Tarragona, Spain as they embark on the crucial sea trials for this ground-breaking yacht. (47 minutes) https://www.tvo.org/video/documentaries/black-pearl-sailing
February 8: GORDON LACO will update the story of HMCS Oriole, the sail training vessel of the Royal Canadian Navy based at CFB Halifax in Halifax, Nova Scotia. She is a sailing ketch, currently the oldest commissioned vessel in the Royal Canadian Navy, and also the longest serving commissioned ship. Originally the yacht Oriole IV, the vessel was acquired by the Royal Canadian Navy during the Second World War, then returned to private ownership at the end. Oriole IV was reacquired during the Cold War for use on the East Coast of Canada before switching to the West Coast of Canada in 1956. In 2018, the training vessel returned to the East Coast.
February 15: BRUCE MACDONALD will draw stories from his book, Never Say P*G: The Book of Sailors’ Superstitions, sharing the best of sailors’ superstitions. Bruce collected them while he was sailing on the Great Lakes and more than 100,000 nautical miles in many places all over the world. He will tell us all about this ‘original marine insurance’ and some of the history behind why sailors are so superstitious.
February 22: RON JENKINS will speak about the Polson Iron Works, a large and productive shipbuilding enterprise in the late 18th and early 19th century, operating near what is today the foot of Parliament Street. While most of its output no longer exists, some is still in use today.
March 1: ANNA SAGULENKO, 2019 IFCA Foil World Champion is currently training out of Mimico Cruising Club with a plan to enter the 2024 Olympics. She will speak of her past experience with the Foil and of her training practise.
March 8: ZOOM ONLY
March 15:
March 22: JOHN RAKOS will share his adventures sailing in Australia and Bermuda
March 29:
April 5: Jamie Hunter speaks on the History of the S.S. Waubuno, Legend and Lore, 1865-1879. The sidewheel steamer the S.S. Waubuno plied mainly Georgian Bay for most of her 14-year history. The vessel and all her crew and passengers disappeared on November 22nd, 1879 near the Haystack Reefs near Sans Souci Ontario. This presentation delves into all aspects of the wreck often referred to as the most mysterious wreck of the 19th Century on the Great Lakes waters because no one survived to tell the story of this ill-fated steamer and her last trip of the season from Collingwood Ontario to Parry Sound Ontario.
Jamie Hunter and Eric McIntyre have produced a 170 page book on all aspects of the S.S. Waubuno. Copies will be available for sale and answers to the wreck will be available after the presentation.
April 12: ZOOM ONLY Larry Rennie & Phil Dawson speak on "Behind the Scenes on Cruise Ships".