A confession

I have just received a copy of this years Darwin awards. Nothing marine related at all.

My favourite this year in the special mention category:

After stopping for drinks at an illegal bar, a Zimbabwean bus driver found that the 20 mental patients he was supposed to be transporting from Harare to Bulawayo had escaped. Not wanting to admit his incompetence, the driver went to a nearby bus stop and offered everyone waiting there a free ride. He then delivered the passengers to the mental hospital, telling the staff that the patients were very excitable and prone to bizarre fantasies.. The deception wasn't discovered for 3 days.
 
Gargleblaster said:
I have just received a copy of this years Darwin awards. Nothing marine related at all.

My favourite this year in the special mention category:

After stopping for drinks at an illegal bar, a Zimbabwean bus driver found that the 20 mental patients he was supposed to be transporting from Harare to Bulawayo had escaped. Not wanting to admit his incompetence, the driver went to a nearby bus stop and offered everyone waiting there a free ride. He then delivered the passengers to the mental hospital, telling the staff that the patients were very excitable and prone to bizarre fantasies.. The deception wasn't discovered for 3 days.
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If he took the first 20 from here, I think it might take longer than 3 days to realize the error! After all, we all spend vast amounts of money to spend days being thrown around like the washing in the washing machine, and getting just as wet! We're all delusional - we convince ourselves we're having fun!
 
I think it was this one that entered Felixstowe during our last boat repairs visit , we saw her from Felixstowe promenade , early October after sunset if my memory serves me well . I intend giving her and her sisters a very wide birth when around the area , ?. Either , the CCTV camera on the Felixstowe sea fort or the everything Felixstowe forum may be useful for a viewing of her departure .
 
OK, the story about the Zimbabwe bus will put me off free bus rides for life. But: I'm interested that there are no marine Darwins. Sailing feels nearly safe to me; clearly it has dangers but usually a somewhat sensible person can keep the odds of them very small. However it would really surprise me if it turns out that nobody dies an embarrassingly stupid death doing this. Perhaps the ways one can mess up are just not quite obvious enough to the uninvolved? Or people think it's more dangerous than it really is so the very rare really sad outcomes don't attract much notice?

Hmm, if the most likely consequence of my screwing up is that everyone ignores it, that's oddly freeing! Now I only need to make sure my kids get out okay and it's all good.

As for Antarcticpilot's suggestion... I'd rather be thrown about soggily like washing in a drum, than at work. Roll on the days getting long enough to start getting spray-soaked again...
 
seivadnehpets said:
I find an unpowered craft hired from Hunter's yard on the broads is great for learning. Most of the other hirelings are mobos and as solid as rock. We had to bring ours back upwind through a narrow twisty dyke a few years ago in a blow and the yard made no fuss at all, they just sent a lad out in a stem dinghy with a pot of varnish to touch up all the boats, we'd all done the same!
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They are fitting an electric motor in a pod just forward of most rudders to most of the Hunter craft fleet, you can cheat with a little throttle and no one will know!!!
This means I won't have to rescue any of them any more, when some get presented by the Horning sailing club fleet charging down the river, they try to get out of the way, instead of just sailing to the rules, that puts them on the mud or in the reeds..

Me, I did try to leap onto the bow of a white boat ... Unfortunately it swung towards me and I ended up in the river the other side of the boat....
 
3 Rivers Race some years ago, we are approaching the club house close to the left hand bank...
What I'd forgotten is there normally a line of Mobos moored there...

We ran aground in full sight of everyone..

So we had to get off the mud in a legal fashion..
The maximum time for any competitor is 24hours....
We finished in 23 hours 57 minutes 7 seconds...
 
Just when you thought you have cocked up in just about every possible combination of bad judgement / not paying attention / incompedence , a completely new foul up will leave you you wondering , how on earth did you allow "that" to happen.
It would help if some of us actually managed to learn from our mistakes. Sigh !
 
oldgit said:
Just when you thought you have cocked up in just about every possible combination of bad judgement / not paying attention / incompedence , a completely new foul up will leave you you wondering , how on earth did you allow "that" to happen.
It would help if some of us actually managed to learn from our mistakes. Sigh !
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I hope that is not from personal experience :(
 
PeterWright said:
Just occasionally, we do learn from our own mistakes, especially when the mistake results in a large rush if adrenalin. However, there is a fundamental deficiency built into the human race - an absolute inability to learn from the mistakes of others.

Peter.
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Indeed. I am fortunate; I made my first encounter with an East Coast sandbank outside Lowestoft on my first voyage down the coast! I am sure @MoodySabre allowed it so I would learn from the experience. Perhaps if that hadn't happened I might have remained more blasé about the East Coast shallows, but as it is, I stick religiously to known channels!
 
AntarcticPilot said:
Indeed. I am fortunate; I made my first encounter with an East Coast sandbank outside Lowestoft on my first voyage down the coast! I am sure @MoodySabre allowed it so I would learn from the experience. Perhaps if that hadn't happened I might have remained more blasé about the East Coast shallows, but as it is, I stick religiously to known channels!
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What an outrageous suggestion! Teehee. Tbh a chart plotter down below is of little use in our waters (If you believe the charts!)
 
It seems to me that it doesn't really matter where the chart plotter is - that's just for passage planning. Thereafter it's down to the echo sounder and Mk. 1 eyeballs.

Of course, none of this is comment on my fellow Moody Owner's educational methods?

Peter.
 
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