Under full rig, the Thames barge Reminder on which the SHTP trainees are having their group sail. Departing Maldon in Essex not long after 6 in the morning (oww), we make our way out onto the estuary of the Blackwater and head for the River Colne. Why Reminder? Well, when she was built in 1929 her owner – who’d had a good few barges on his books – wanted to “remind” one and all that his barges were the quickest on the water! And big though she is, once she gets the wind in her magnificent great red spritsail, Reminder fairly lives up to her name and cracks along the water, with her crew handling her completely handraulically – not a power winch in sight. Big and solid as she is, she takes wing like a swan of the seas…