SPANISH LADIES - A TRIP ALONG THE SOUTH COAST OF ENGLAND

South Foreland

When I was an engineer with the BP Tanker Company, if the ship I was working on had been abroad for some time there was palpable excitement – a condition known as the ‘Channels’ - when she was homeward bound and reached the Western Approaches of the English Channel. 

A BP Tanker, the British Fulmar

This excitement, the feeling that the trip, with all its events and interest, is coming to an end is reflected in the old sea song, 'Spanish Ladies':

We’ll rant and we’ll roar like true British sailors,

We’ll rant and we’ll roar across the salt seas;

Until we strike soundings in the channel of old England,

From Ushant to Scilly is thirty five leagues.

'Sea Songs and Shanties' by W B Whall, Master Mariner

Some time ago, I think during a visit to Cecil Sharp House, I came across Spanish Ladies in Captain Whall's songbook ‘Sea Songs and Shanties’* (he calls it  Farewell and Adieu). The song is redolent of the geography and history of the English Channel.  The verses describe the passage of a square-rigged sailing ship, a man o’war, eastward along the Channel coast.  When the ship is hove to and soundings taken, the depth, 45 fathoms - 270 feet - suggests that the vessel is well into the Channel, ‘in soundings’ and is east of Ushant and the Scillies.  Some versions of the song specify that the lead, which would have been armed with tallow, had picked up white sand, further confirming her position.

The second verse of the song lists the headlands that the ship passes on her way up Channel:

Now the first land we made it is called the Deadman,

Then Ram Head off Plymouth, Start, Portland and Wight;

We sailed by Beachy,

By Fairlee and Dungeness,

Until we came abreast of the South Foreland Light.

Departing Keyhaven

I thought about Spanish Ladies during a trip earlier in the month from Keyhaven in Hampshire to Levington in Suffolk abord my brother Martin’s 36 foot sailboat, Wakii.  Keyhaven is at the western end of the Solent, so we missed the song’s first few waypoints – The Dodman, Rame Head, Start Point and Portland Bill, but we did see Wight, pretty closely at one point as we went as close inshore as we could at Cowes, to get out of the tide, giving a good view of the esplanade and the Royal Yacht Squadron’s famous lawn. 

Cowes

We passed one of ‘Palmerston’s Follies’, Horse Sand Fort, designed to protect Portsmouth from a French naval attack, and then set out eastward.  I’m sure that the song would have listed the wind farm off Worthing if it had been there in the days of sail, it is huge and at night visible for miles.

Beachy Head was abeam in the early hours, its chalk cliff illuminated by the moon and the flashing lighthouse at its base.  As dawn broke we were off the village of Fairlight – ‘Fairlee’ in the song and made our way along the low coast, with Romney Marshes just behind the beach.  Since Roman times, the coast here has been recognised as a favourable location for seaborne invasion, and it is protected by Martello towers and the Military Canal running parallel to the coast.  A coaster was anchored, awaiting the tide for Rye, and as the sun rose we were off Dungeness, a low shingle headland dominated by huge nuclear power station buildings, making emergency repairs to the headsail furlers.

Dungeness

The weather was warm and sunny, though the lack of wind meant that the ‘iron topsail’ was used more than we liked, and the coast beautiful.  A glance at the chart showed that it had not always been peaceful there, with hundreds of wrecks, each one representing a small part of history, as well as disaster for the people involved - the loss of a valuable ship and her cargo, quite possibly the death of crew members, financial ruin and the end of careers.

Wrecks in the Channel - Hundreds of Them!

Past Folkestone, where BP Tankers would embark a pilot, and soon Wakii was passing Dover, idling until one ferry shot out of the entrance, and then nipping past as another headed in. 

Dover

We were close in to the coast, and at the now disused but seemingly well maintained South Foreland light headed north into the Downs, an anchorage protected from the west by the Kent coast, and from the east by the fearsome Goodwin Sands. 

Unlike the ship in Spanish Ladies  we did not anchor, but in the days of sail the Downs would have been crowded with ships, awaiting a fair wind to take them down Channel, orders for their next destination, or embarking and disembarking passengers who wished to use road transport to get to London.

Brother Martin takes Wakii Down the Solent

In a flat calm, Wakii motored along the Kent coast until we got to the North Foreland, which I always think is too nondescript a headland to mark the entrance to the estuary which leads to perhaps the greatest city in the world.  Even in these days of GPS and echo sounders, and on a calm clear day, the passage across the Thames Estuary is slightly daunting as it is encumbered with numerous evocatively named sandbanks. 

Route Across the Thames Estuary

We left another huge windfarm to starboard, before turning to port though Fishermans Gat and then along Black Deep, ominous ripples showing the position of the sandbanks as the tide flowed over them.

From there, the course to the River Orwell entrance is fairly straightforward.  Although there are numerous shoals along the way, they are safe in good weather for a small yacht with shallow draft.  The approaches to the Orwell, with the huge container port of Felixstowe at its entrance and Harwich slightly further up, are extremely busy. 

Felixstowe

We avoided one merchant ship manoeuvring to anchor, and stayed out of the big ship channel as we made our way past the brightly lit and noisy container port, to emerge into a different dark world as the Orwell wended its way inland up to Ipswich.

The tide was low as we felt our way into Levington Marina, but we tied up without incident with the assistance of my other brother John, who lives there, and repaired to his house, rather more comfortable than even the excellent Wakii.

Wakii at Levington Marina

*Whall WB, Master Mariner.  Sea Songs and Shanties 4^th Edition, James Brown and Son, Glasgow 1920

SPANISH LADIES or FAREWELL AND ADIEU

Farewell and adieu unto you Spanish ladies,

Farewell and adieu, ladies of Spain;

For we’ve received orders for to sail for old England,

But we hope very soon we shall see you again.

Chorus

We’ll rant and we’ll roar like true British sailors,

We’ll rant and we’ll roar across the salt seas;

Until we strike soundings in the channel of old England,

From Ushant to Scilly is thirty five leagues.

Then we hove our ship to with the wind at sou’ -west, my boys

We hove our ship to our soundings for to see;

So we rounded and sounded,

And got forty-five fathoms,

We squared our main yard, up channel steered we.

Alt:

Then we hove our ship to with the wind at sou’ -west, my boys

We hove our ship to, deep soundings to take;

We got forty-five fathoms with a white sandy bottom,

So we squared our main yard, and up cannel did make.

Now the first land we made it is called the Deadman,

Then Ram Head off Plymouth, Start, Portland and Wight;

We sailed by Beachy,

By Fairlee and Dungeness,

Until we came abreast of the South Foreland Light.

Then the signal was made for the grand fleet to anchor,

And all in the Downs that night for to meet;

Then it’s stand by your stoppers,

Let go your shank painters,

Haul all your clew garnets, stick out tacks and sheets.

Now let every man toss off a full bumper,

And let every man toss off a full glass;

And we’ll drink and be merry,

And drown melancholy,

Singing, here’s a good health of each true hearted lass.