HAYLE COMMUNITY COLLEGE PRODUCE 2006 WORLD PILOT GIG CHAMPIONSHIPS BROCHURE - SPONSORED BY ISLES OF SCILLY STEAMSHIP COMPANY

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This year the World Pilot Gig Championship Brochure was produced by Year 10 students from Hayle Community College.
Previously the brochure was produced and sponsored by the Isles of Scilly Steamship Company, whilst continuing the sponsorship and providing support the IOSSC were impressed with the professionalism shown by students: Chloe Frost, Sam Gilman, Tamara Trathen, Phoebe Whitehouse and Kerry Williams.

The coursework that the team are completing is their GCSE Citizenship - Participation in Society. They began the coursework 12 months ago by applying for the various jobs within the group for production of the Programme. They had a full application form which also required references. Having successfully completed the application process they then began work on the programme with direction from teacher Anne Curnow-Care.

Their comments having completed the task is that they realised how dependant that they are on people in their team in a work based environment and that also their confidence has been massively boasted as a result of working on the programme, due to the fact that they have had to work with various groups in business and work to tight deadlines.

The finale of the brochure production was, after handing out programmes to the passengers on Scillonian III, a visit to the islands to experience the Championships first hand. They were thanked by the Chairman of the Steamship Company, Andrew May, and presented with official T-shirts from Sports Mode by the chairman of the World Pilot Gig Championships Commitee, Alison Guy.

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Also they were give the unique opportunity to ‘have a go’ at rowing a gig with Olympic Gold Medalist Ed Coode and three junior rowers from the Island School: Helen Parr, Kristina Youngman and Megan Guy. The gig in question was the Slippen, which is the oldest island gig still in use, built in 1830.

The Steamship Company wish the students all the best with their GCSE’s!

NEW LIFE SAVING EQUIPMENT ON SCILLONIAN III

Isles of Scilly Travel have joined forces with TLC Solutions a training company based in the South West. Crew members can now provide passengers on board Scillonian III with the latest life saving equipment.

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Picture of Simon Williams (TLC Solutions) and Marcia Still one of the crew members trained to use the new equipment.

The new defibrillator is one of the few machines in Cornwall outside of health care provision and provides patients withinstant crucial life saving emergency assistance, staff members have been trained to use the machine but hopefully such anoccasion will never arise.

In the event of a cardiac arrest recent evidence has shown that an early electric shock known as defibrillation within the first three to four minutes is essential to patient survival.

LIVE EXERCISE WITH THE GRY MARITHA

On 8th October 2005 The vessel Gry Maritha successfully carried out a joint exercise with the RNLI Lifeboat the Tyne class Norman Salvesen.

With Captain Maurice Goulden in command of the Gry Maritha and Coxswain Terry George in command of the lifeboat, both vessels met off Lands end and the Gry Maritha shut down both engines to simulate total loss of propulsion.

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The Lifeboat then proceeded to put aline aboard the Gryand Terry instructedhis crew in different methods of safely towing the vessel out of danger.

Kevin Ayres (Steamship Co. Marine Superintendent) had the privilege of being invited to go with the lifeboat on this exercise and compliment Terry and his crew on their professionalism, skills and dedication to the RNLI and helping all mariner in distress.

SKYBUS TERMINAL & FLYING SCHOOL BUILDING AT LAND’S END AIRPORT.

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Land’s End Airport has undergone extensive alterations and improvements. The Skybus Terminal has received a new cafe area, check-in and amenities. The new Flying School Building has now been completed with extended facilities for all users.

For more information see the Land’s End Airport Website at: http://www.landsendairport.co.uk

ScillyNews would like to wish all its members and everyone connected with the Isles of Scilly a very merry Christmas!

Apologies for the lack of stories over the last two weeks. This has been due to staff absence. ScillyNews will be back in the new year with up-to-date news and features about the Islands. Thanks for bearing with us.

Merry Christmas!

Representatives of the Islands` Council are meeting with Central Government next week following a speech by MP Andrew George warning that the number of inspections on Scilly is threatening the operation of the Council.

George, Lib-Dem MP for St Ives, told the House of Commons that the local authority inspection regime had reached ?bizarre? heights, with the council?s four senior officers spending a total of 250 days last year dealing with various inspections. The Islands were visited by 31 government teams, despite being by far the smallest unitary authority in the country.

Now Chief Executive Philip Hygate, Modernisation Officer Suzanne Pender and Chairman Christine Savill will meet with all inspection agencies and Government Office for the South West (GOSW) on Monday to agree a more proportional framework of inspection.

?The meeting has a big agenda, but part of it is to do with the fact that inspections are not working over here,? Suzanne told ScillyNews. ?The inspections applied to us are not meaningful and don?t reflect what is happening on the Islands.?

?An example would be that the council has a one-star rating overall and is found to be failing in some areas. One is Road Traffic Safety, where we are the worst performing authority. In reality, there has never been a serious or fatal injury on the Isles of Scilly, so the score is always zero because we are not seen to be improving at all.

It is absolutely ridiculous things like this that we need to get rid of because it is skewing the way the council’s performance is rated.?

A veterinary practice on the Isles of Scilly may not be viable in the future, current vet Rick Barrowman has told The Cornishman newspaper.

Barrowman, 42, who leaves St Mary’s next summer after four years, has described the living as ‘a third of a practice and a gentle workload’ - and says the practice may be vulnerable if he fails to find a replacement.

‘It is impossible for Scilly to be serviced by a mainland-based vet both for practical and cost reasons,’ he warns in a letter to DEFRA Parliamentary Under Secretary Ben Bradshaw. And he asks why Scilly should not enjoy similar financial support to remote practices in the Scottish Highlands and islands.

Barrowman has a clientele of around 350, mostly owners of small animals, although there may be an increase in cattle and ponies if the Wildlife Trust’s new heathland grazing scheme goes ahead.

He said: “My family and I have loved our time in Scilly and we hope we have given back as much as the Islands have given us - but I am just concerned about the future viability of the practice should I leave without having secured a replacement.”

Barrowman hopes to return to Wales with his wife and two daughters.

Woodcock and Mumford opened its doors again today ? and began a new era for the landmark store.

New leasees Button Reseigh and Gareth (Gaz) O?Neill took less than three weeks to refurbish the former butchers, which closed in November after trading on St Mary?s for an estimated 150 years, ready to re-open as a stylish deli and caf?.

?It was absolutely manic,? Button, 29, told ScillyNews. ?We wanted to open as soon as possible in December in time for the Christmas period. It?s been completely redesigned and we were working until midnight every night, then up again at six in the morning, so it?s been quite crazy.?

?There are still some of the specific products from individual manufacturers which are taking a long time to sort out, but we thought we had enough to open the doors.?

It?s a move that Button, originally from Sussex, and partner Gaz, 33, from Falmouth, have been wanting to make for a while. ?We?ve always thought about this,? she said. ?When we went away to different countries, we?d always spend our whole time looking around delis, and we love good food and drink. So to do our own was ideal. We also thought it would be the sort of thing other people on Scilly would enjoy.?

The pair recently finished the third season at their successful Porthcressa caf? Dibble and Grub.

The Government’s chief inspector of social services is to hold crucial talks with the Council of the Isles of Scilly after it was found to be one of the three worst authorities in the country for social services.

The Commission for Social Care Inspection gave the Authority, as well as Plymouth City Council, its lowest rating of zero stars - and now, despite recognising Scilly as a ?unique case,? its chief inspector is to hold talks with both the Council and ministers about “what further action might need to be taken” to improve performance.

A spokesman for the Isles of Scilly Council said it acknowledged problems relating to capacity and modernisation of services, but was “disappointed” by the low rating as a recent survey had shown 70 per cent satisfaction with social services. However, it had established a “clear way forward” to deliver improvements, it said.

None of the Westcountry local authorities accomplished the Commission’s top rating of three stars, achieved by 26 councils elsewhere in England.

Cornish energy charity Community Energy Plus in conjunction with the Isles of Scilly Council and Age Concern are organising a very important home insulation campaign for everyone on the IOS.

Jasmine Reilly of the Cornwall Sustainable Energy Partnership says: “Home energy check forms are on their way to every resident and it is really important that people actually fill them in and return them free post to us.”

There is also going to be three information days between the 5th-7th December on the Islands.

http://www.csep.co.uk/

The wreck of the Association off Scilly in 1707 was among the biggest peacetime maritime disasters in British history and led to the offer of a prize for an instrument to measure longitude. Now the Navy diver who found the wreck gives us the inside story about how it was discovered - and debunks some of the myths and legends about what really happened to its famous Admiral.

Shipwrecks have always been an important part of Scillonian history. Although the Islands cover an area of only ten miles square, they have claimed more than a thousand ships of all kinds and nationalities.

One of the most famous wreck occurred on 22 October 1707. A large proportion of the British Navy fleet was returning from Gibraltar when its longitude was misjudged in poor visibility, and the flagship Association along with other ships in the fleet were wrecked on the western approaches. An estimated 1600 men were lost.

Legend states that Sir Cloudisley Shovell, the fleet?s commander and the most respected officer of the time, was washed up on Porth Hellick beach on St Mary’s, where he survived until a local woman killed him to steal his ring. He was buried in a simple grave at Porth Hellick, but later exhumed and buried in Westminster abbey.

THE INSIDE STORY
Engineer-Lieutenant Roy H Graham, 68, who describes himself as a ‘raconteur, wit and well-known villain,’ was in charge of the Naval expedition which found the wreck in 1967.

Graham began his diving career when he was introduced to pot-holing in Gibraltar whilst an Engineer-Lieutenant on HMS Victorious. Whilst pot-holing in the Mendips, he came across a wet cave with a waterfall of 600ft and realised he would have to dive to make further progress. Eventually, by asking - and being refused permission - to borrow a colleagues’ diving equipment, he was put in charge of diving training on the ship and found himself on a shallow water diving course.

Diving course
“There were 24 of us. It was the coldest, most savage January for many years, and we were in an old torpedo range. Some mornings we had to break through ice to get in. The people conducting the course delighted in making sure our suits leaked. They didn’t want too many of us wimps to pass, as they knew one day they might be relying on us for their lives.

24 men started, three got to the last day. One of the men went down with pneumonia - not surprising considering his suit always leaked. That left two - me and a R.A.F. medical officer. I said, “What kept you going?” “Benzedrine,” he replied, “what about you?” “Pure stubborn pride.” I was now the only shore-based Fleet Air Arm officer with a diving qualification.

Sub-aqua club
At this time a group of Chief Petty Officers had an ambition to form a Naval Air Command Sub-aqua Club and put together annual diving expeditions from all clubs which we were hoping to form and amalgamate. I was asked to be the Club’s first chairman and greatly flattered, I accepted. Within a few years we had the finest amateur sub-aqua club the world had ever seen.

1966 The Association - attempt 1
The annual expedition in 1966 was announced as a search for the wreck of the Association in the Isles of Scilly. The fact that it carried lots of treasure was no dampener on our enthusiasm. Little did we know that we didn’t count as private individuals so couldn’t keep the treasure even if we found it. The British Navy doesn’t take kindly to the use of its time and resources in treasure-seeking.

The weather was so bad, all we achieved was the sight of a blur of seaweed, seals and white water as we were swept through the Gilstone Reef and fortunately out the other side.

1967 The Association - attempt 2
The second attempt duly found the remains of the Association on the Gilstone Ledge. The weather was fine. The Royal Navy Auxiliary Services had an in-shore Minesweeper we could use and it rolled through the water like a pig. We had sent the first pair of divers down onto the main Gilstone Rock and they reported nothing. The second pair, closer to the ledge, reported seeing cannon. The third pair reported gold and silver coins underneath the cannon.

So I called them all together. It was hard not to grasp the implications of this. I said: “For god’s sake keep this under your hat, men, because once the paper gets hold of the navy finding a treasure wreck in the Isles of Scilly, all hell will break loose.” I said the same to the crew of the Minesweeper.

So we carried on and raised a bronze cannon, causing a lot of interest. All the newspapers came to photograph it. But no-one had as yet said anything about the gold coins.

The Prime Minister then awarded us an extra week, but a Lieutenant we had with us went to ITV and blew the whole story, including the fact that we had found gold coins. After that, every unemployed salvage diver in the seven seas invaded the Isles of Scilly and we got the blame for it. But it put the islands on the map as the sports diving mecca without any peer at all. Word went around that he water is crystal clear, visibility good, temperature 55?c all year round.

Aftermath
The Association was then plundered for a year or two. Few had much understanding of Marine Archeology or efficient salvage methods, so when the going got technical and difficult, they didn’t bother, because they weren’t professionals. Some were just in it for the fame and glory. Many stories and legends have built up around the Association and were circulated by people who wanted to keep the story going in the newspapers.

Debunking the myths
One story was that the Admiral, with his secretary, nephew and dog, launched the Admiral’s barge in awful conditions to Porth Hellick where he was wrecked on a bar and his body washed ashore and buried in a shallow grave. The truth is that his body was most likely recovered with many of the others who were washed up on St Agnes. But as he was a very famous Admiral, a well-known embalmer was called upon to embalm his body with a view to entombing it in Westminster Abbey.

The body was buried on Porth Hellick because there was no refrigeration in those days and the best place to keep it cool was between high and low water. They couldn’t have buried it on Town Beach because the dogs would have dug it up.

Another part of this legend is that an old lady found his body and cut off his fingers for the sake of his emerald ring. This is a lie. When the embalmer found the body and entombed it, he reported that it was the body of a comely, portly man in full health without any blemishes - hardly likely if he’d had his finger cut off!

There is another persistent legend that when the fleet was within a few leagues of Scilly, a Scillonian cabin boy informed the Admiral that he knew from some sort of sixth sense that they were running into danger, whereupon the Admiral said, “hang him!” This is ridiculous - firstly, Scillonians went to sea as mates or cooks or captains, not cabin boys. And a cabin boy wouldn’t get within three yards of the Admiral, nor would the Admiral behave in such a way in response. All these legends are recorded and displayed in pubs and fed to tourists as if they are gospel.

The truth, which is much more interesting, is barely even mentioned.”

Roy Graham and his wife Joyce now run Carnwethers Country House Holiday Flats on St Mary’s.

A new book about lighthouses has named Bishop Rock off the Isles of Scilly as one of the greatest in the world.

It is one of four in the Westcountry mentioned in Annamaria Lilla Mariotti’s book World’s Greatest Lighthouses, which looks at the historic legends surrounding the world’s most attractive lighthouses.

The first Bishop Rock lighthouse was begun in 1847, with a metal frame supporting the tower, the idea being that the strong Atlantic swells would simply wash through the structure. The theory was proven flawed even before the light had been lit. One morning, engineers turned up after a particularly violent storm to find the metal supports had sheered off, leaving just the remnants of years of work clutching to the jagged rock.

It became clear that building a lighthouse to survive such ferocious winter storms would be one of the most spectacular architectural undertakings of the time. Trinity House, the body behind lighthouses in England and Wales, were undeterred by the setback and set about building a second structure out of Cornish granite.

The lighthouse is one of the tallest in the world and buffeted by the strongest waves in Britain and some of the highest recorded anywhere.

Also featured in the book are Portland Bill in Dorset, Eddystone lighthouse south of Plymouth, and Longships, off the coast of Land’s End.