Aegina heavy weather this evening

Mistroma

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Something to watch out for in quite a few places. I think it was on Gozo many years ago and heavy rain started. We we in a shop with the car just outside and my wife wanted to wait there. I insisted we leave and the side road turned into a river as we left. We drove uphill and then off to a side road which had a 3 inch deep torrent initially and about 5 inches by the time we reached the long drive to our villa. One upstairs bedroom already had an inch of water on the floor because leaves were blocking the balcony drain.

I've also had sewage and large branches appear when at anchor in torrential rain. It is useful to have experience of these places in heavy rain as it teaches you to react early.
 

chris-s

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Currently bouncing around at anchor in merikhas, Kythnos after leaving the harbour wall earlier. Big swell making the quayside untenable. Wind 15-20knots from the south. Only the charter yachts left today, everyone else stayed put. Fantastic holding in the harbour on the anchor, thick mud when we moved off the wall we thought the anchor was jammed under something took some effort to unset.
 

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capnsensible

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I was wondering how long this practice of anchoring stern to a stone wall has been going on. Only a few years I think. I do recall when the term Med Moor arrived. Some cruisers actually asked on this forum what the term meant. It is not a world wide practice. Alongside, yes but not stern too. Actually probably started and confined to Greece.when the weather patterns were reliable. Nowadays, the weather patterns are changing so Med Mooring may be on the way out as the Med falls into line with the rest of the world.
Ive done it in Bermuda. ?
 

Mistroma

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Ive done it in Bermuda. ?
Makes sense as one of the main requirements is limited tidal range. I think Bermuda would be around 0.5 - 1.2m or thereabouts.

You can get away without adjusting the anchor chain with a decent amount out. On the river forth I'd alternate between rowing ashore or swinging side on to the pier (>6m tidal range). :D

The other factor is number of boats vs. available space. We have often tied up alongside in Greece early or late in the season. However, it is a med. moor the rest of the time and sometimes 2-3 deep at that. :D
 

BobnLesley

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...med. moor the rest of the time and sometimes 2-3 deep at that. :D

That was Hydra when we sailed out there, are there other spots nowadays?
We enjoyed visiting Hydra once we found a solution to the clusterhook on that seaward side of the harbour and/or shades of the Aegina debacle once boats over-spilt onto the outside of it: The Harbour-master invariably saved all spaces on the quayside for the big 55'+ boats, but with our twenty seven footer we'd come in fully fendered, scope-out a gap between a couple of them - it only needed to be 3-4' wide - and motor into it, dropping a stern anchor perhaps 15-20' before we reached their sterns - so nothing ever tagged that either - and the big yachts would push apart, as we squeezed through the narrow gap and afterwards spring closed again behind us. By the evening it would invariably be closed-up tight behind us, but we would sit contentedly in the triangular space created by the inward curve of their hulls abaft the beam. We must've done that 6 or 8 times at least and though the Harbour-master got testy about it a couple of times, but we just argued that whilst we had got in without damaging anyone, we couldn't get back out again until they'd left in the morning. The super-yacht crews/guests invariably thought it hilarious - we even got invited aboard a couple to discuss how the other half lived over a nice drop of wine - and on our one 'rough' night in there - it was carnage on that outer wall! - we looped a line up to the big-boy's mid-ship cleats on either side, made those off on our stern cleats and enjoyed a very comfortable night.
 

Mistroma

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That was Hydra when we sailed out there, are there other spots nowadays?
We enjoyed visiting Hydra once we found a solution to the clusterhook on that seaward side of the harbour and/or shades of the Aegina debacle once boats over-spilt onto the outside of it: The Harbour-master invariably saved all spaces on the quayside for the big 55'+ boats, but with our twenty seven footer we'd come in fully fendered, scope-out a gap between a couple of them - it only needed to be 3-4' wide - and motor into it, dropping a stern anchor perhaps 15-20' before we reached their sterns - so nothing ever tagged that either - and the big yachts would push apart, as we squeezed through the narrow gap and afterwards spring closed again behind us. By the evening it would invariably be closed-up tight behind us, but we would sit contentedly in the triangular space created by the inward curve of their hulls abaft the beam. We must've done that 6 or 8 times at least and though the Harbour-master got testy about it a couple of times, but we just argued that whilst we had got in without damaging anyone, we couldn't get back out again until they'd left in the morning. The super-yacht crews/guests invariably thought it hilarious - we even got invited aboard a couple to discuss how the other half lived over a nice drop of wine - and on our one 'rough' night in there - it was carnage on that outer wall! - we looped a line up to the big-boy's mid-ship cleats on either side, made those off on our stern cleats and enjoyed a very comfortable night.
Yes, Hydra came to mind but we haven't visited for decades. Nice but not worth any hassle after a few stays. I remember watching a couple of yachts trying to leave and failing to recover their anchors. The harbour boat spent ages getting a large ball of knitting on his deck and unravelling it as a few boats motored against their lines. It took a lot of loosening, untwisting and free floating boats moving around. Entertaining to watch as long as you weren't involved.
 

newtothis

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God know why anyone want to use Hydra OK nice little island but the harbour as always been a night mare even in March and Oct unless your into stress and punishment.
Just a little further down there a nice bay which you can easily walk to the town.
That nearby bay does, however, have a lot of fouling. Be careful where you put the hook.
 

Clancy Moped

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God know why anyone want to use Hydra OK nice little island but the harbour as always been a night mare even in March and Oct unless your into stress and punishment.
Just a little further down there a nice bay which you can easily walk to the town.
We left the boat in Porto Heli, and took a trip boat Hydra, noooo stress! And a nice day out, drinking a cold beer harbourside whilst the chaos unfolds?
 

grumpygit

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I have seen so much storm damage done to yachts in Aigina port along with a lot of other ports in the Saronic and Argolic Gulfs and it is so devastating and so sad to see or watch helplessly.
I don't think you can put too much blame to the charterers, they are mostly very inexperienced and are on the boats for the simple reason that primarily they can afford to pay!
The question I would ask, what the hell was the Port Police doing to let them tie up on the Ferry Quay in a dangerous corner especially with such a poor forecast. The ferries invariably Turkish moor and it drives their wash into that corner on a calm day.
My theory is that concrete and granite hurts, slip the lines and get out the way, either ride it out or go and find a quieter lee side.
 

BobnLesley

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Not directly relevant to the Aegina damage, but we once had an interesting conversation with the lead crew of a flotilla after a really savage night at big Vathi on Ithaca:
With very heavy weather forecast we'd managed to find a spot tucked-up in the NE corner of the bay and then walked down to the town quay where we watched three flotilla crews, all working together to anchor and secure their fleets on the town-quay; they put someone from a lead-crew on every boat, laid out two anchors for each yacht, tied them all together and secured the yachts 2m off the quay, then had a rib with a long/wide plank to make a mobile pasarelle to get people on/off their yachts. They appeared to make a very good job of it, but we were left thinking: Why? it'd be much easier/safer to just anchor them all off in the bay. It was the following day - after a dreadful northerly had blown through - when we got chatting to one of those lead crews and they had this answer: "If we tie-back to the quay and the flotilla gets battered/damaged as a result, that might generate a few column inches and a couple of letters to the yachting magazines blaming us, which everybody'll forget all about by next month. But if we anchor them off, no matter what we tell them, some boat crew will be daft enough to try going ashore to the taverna during the blow and if just one of those drowns, that will generate a two-page article in the magazines which will also blame us and which everyone will remember for years; it's all about the marketing.
 

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I remember watching a charterer in Big Vathi,with a blow forecast, jamming his passerelle between the quay and the stern of the boat to hold it off as his anchor was not set properly.
Inevitably he ended up with an extra stern hatch.
 

Mistroma

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I have seen so much storm damage done to yachts in Aigina port along with a lot of other ports in the Saronic and Argolic Gulfs and it is so devastating and so sad to see or watch helplessly.
I don't think you can put too much blame to the charterers, they are mostly very inexperienced and are on the boats for the simple reason that primarily they can afford to pay!
The question I would ask, what the hell was the Port Police doing to let them tie up on the Ferry Quay in a dangerous corner especially with such a poor forecast. The ferries invariably Turkish moor and it drives their wash into that corner on a calm day.
My theory is that concrete and granite hurts, slip the lines and get out the way, either ride it out or go and find a quieter lee side.

We were in Porto Helli a few years ago and prepping for the approaching medicane. I assumed that charter companies would have contacted all their bare boats and given warning and instructions about where to go and what to do.

Not a chance and I spoke to someone a few days later who told me a local TV crew had interviewed some charterers on the quay. None had any idea at all that there was "bad weather coming", let alone a medicane.

I can see why the company might worry about giving advice in case it was bad advice. Easy enough with an unpredictable medicane. Surely a warning would be a sensible minimum response.
 

grumpygit

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We were in Porto Helli a few years ago and prepping for the approaching medicane. I assumed that charter companies would have contacted all their bare boats and given warning and instructions about where to go and what to do.

Not a chance and I spoke to someone a few days later who told me a local TV crew had interviewed some charterers on the quay. None had any idea at all that there was "bad weather coming", let alone a medicane.

I can see why the company might worry about giving advice in case it was bad advice. Easy enough with an unpredictable medicane. Surely a warning would be a sensible minimum response.

I was here in Palaia Epidavros for that medicane (2018) that put a full blow of easterly into the port, Sunsail skippers didn't extend their mooring lines and just left the engines of fast forward, resulting in getting fatal stern damage and sank, many other yachts got extensive damage too but still afloat, and about a dozen of smaller boats sank. Very sad to see the yachts with just their masts above the waterline.
I knew from forecasts a week before it was probably going to happen and I was on my mooring buoy so I also put out the boats anchor with a long scope and I was fine as there was nothing to hit.
IMHO boats are designed to stay afloat apart from some form of stupidity they normally do, it's only holes that cause them to sink, stay away from the hard stuff and it should be just fine.
 
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