Martin and his best pal Ste have owned a few boats between them. The latest being a Jouet 35. Purchased in Holland and sailed back by themselves across the North Sea. Not without incident. May I add. They can write about that themselves. The story would teach that it would be a good idea to have quite a few test sails before embarking on a voyage of any distance.
I digress.
We were invited to go out for the day aboard her. We met at Hartlepool Marina for breakfast, then over to the Fish key where she was berthed. Ste was joining us later.
He showed us around the very nicely fitted out yacht and we prepared for the day. Donning life jackets, familiarising ourselves with the winches, changing sails etc.
When Steve showed up we waisted no time heading out. Martin and I had searched the Internet on our phones for weather forecasts earlier that morning and although deteriorating nothing bad showed up.
Heading out into Tees Bay the increasing waves were giving us a rocky ride. Steve was getting agitated because of the conditions. Martin on the other hand was relishing the challenge.
A while back Martin, Steve and other pal Andy had delivered a race boat to Whitby in rough conditions. Sounded pretty tough when I was told the tale. Both Steve and Andy were sea sick so Martin did all the helming.
On another occasion they had a job getting back to port when the winds were unfavourable and they couldn't use the outboard motor as the swell was coming over the stern of the boat.
Steve didn't like the look of the weather and through previous experience new how quickly conditions can deteriorate on this coast. Although we were enjoying the ride Steve took command and we headed back to port.
I new he was right. But if he hadn't been on board what would our trip have been like?
Another lesson learned I think. Our weather forecasts were too general, not good enough and not pertaining to the sea. There was Navtex on board but the screen just showed a jumbled mess of characters. Also we hadn't heard a VHF shipping forecast.
Getting Back into the berth was tricky due to the stiff breeze so Martin gave it some revs. We were all on deck ready with fenders to stop the boat getting knocked. The time came to engage reverse. Didn't work. We kept on going. The boat hit the mooring and rode up skyward. I thought we were going to go over the pontoon and onto the boat in front. The sturdy ( thank god ) wooden fishing boat next to us got a scathing. The owners were on board painting it! OMG.
We came back down to rest. The fishing boat was amazingly undamaged due to a chunky rubbing strake at deck height.
Our yacht was also ok as there is a metal plate wrapped around the bow that took the impact. The metal Armco on the mooring however was badly bent.
We were all shook up and poor Martin very embarrassed.
A couple of other yachties came over to see if we were ok and offer comforting words.
The verdict was that the gearbox had slipped itself into neutral so reverse didn't engage. Martin and Steve said they would strip it down another day to find out what was up.
As for the Armco, Steve is an expert welder so fixing the damage would be no problem.
After a mug of tea we said our fare wells and came home.
I have bookmarked the Met Office shipping forecast page on my iPhone for future reference but not sure if it is detailed enough.
We wouldn't sail in future without a good forecast - very important.
So: VHF shipping forecast, Navtex working properly, Met office web site, ask the Harbour Master.
That very first day we went sailing on 'Black Diamond'. We didn't know how good we got it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
No comments:
Post a Comment