FullCircle
Well-known member
All\'s well that ends well.
We took off on Thursday, and decided due to the crap weather to head up the Crouch to Fambridge pontoon.
It was blowing 20-22 knots alsmost straight downriver, so we thought it would give Lynn a bit of practice bringing us into land.
We got all the lines prepared, 5 fenders out, slipped into a reasonable length spot with a couple of onlookers.
Got it bumped onto pontoon, just needed to get the last 2 knots of way off, perfect.
I asked Lynn to just give it a burst of reverse, and thats when it started to go wrong........
I stepped off with the mid cleat spring in hand,
Lynn gave it a full wide open throttle in reverse, the port prop walk took hold, the boat first stopped, then shot back and out into the river, and i did not have the boat cleated off.
With the boat rapidly gathering speed in reverse at 3800RPM, and Lynn in full panic mode, I had to let go the spring, and throw it onbaord to stop it trailing in the water with those possible consequences for wrapping the prop.
Now the wind fully had a hold of the boat beam on, and the 2 knot tide was doing its work.
The onlookers joined us to help now,
Lynn was operating the throttle backwards and forwards without giving it a chance to do much, and for a minute or two she struggled to get the boat round into the wind, but we talked her into pointing the boat at the pontoon bows first, and managed to grab the bow line and secure it, then kept it going forward until we managed to grab the mid cleat spring and pull it in, so boat secured.
We didnt have a ball fender up by the bow, so scraped that a bit, but otherwise no damage.
So:
I should have given Lynn a lot more practice without actually landing, allowing her to balance the boat on wind tide and motor.
I definitely should not have stepped off without being immediately ready to jump back on board.
Also I should have not stepped off until I was sure we had stopped.
I recognised that the conditions were challenging, as our boat is difficult to land, having no propwash over the rudder and a high freeboard to get pushed around, so I knew it would not be easy.
But....all's well that ends well, and we did have a good debriefing to take onboard the lessons learned, and we both felt better for that.
We sat there getting trounced by a full gale for 24 hours, but it was really nice cosy party for my birthday.
We took off on Thursday, and decided due to the crap weather to head up the Crouch to Fambridge pontoon.
It was blowing 20-22 knots alsmost straight downriver, so we thought it would give Lynn a bit of practice bringing us into land.
We got all the lines prepared, 5 fenders out, slipped into a reasonable length spot with a couple of onlookers.
Got it bumped onto pontoon, just needed to get the last 2 knots of way off, perfect.
I asked Lynn to just give it a burst of reverse, and thats when it started to go wrong........
I stepped off with the mid cleat spring in hand,
Lynn gave it a full wide open throttle in reverse, the port prop walk took hold, the boat first stopped, then shot back and out into the river, and i did not have the boat cleated off.
With the boat rapidly gathering speed in reverse at 3800RPM, and Lynn in full panic mode, I had to let go the spring, and throw it onbaord to stop it trailing in the water with those possible consequences for wrapping the prop.
Now the wind fully had a hold of the boat beam on, and the 2 knot tide was doing its work.
The onlookers joined us to help now,
Lynn was operating the throttle backwards and forwards without giving it a chance to do much, and for a minute or two she struggled to get the boat round into the wind, but we talked her into pointing the boat at the pontoon bows first, and managed to grab the bow line and secure it, then kept it going forward until we managed to grab the mid cleat spring and pull it in, so boat secured.
We didnt have a ball fender up by the bow, so scraped that a bit, but otherwise no damage.
So:
I should have given Lynn a lot more practice without actually landing, allowing her to balance the boat on wind tide and motor.
I definitely should not have stepped off without being immediately ready to jump back on board.
Also I should have not stepped off until I was sure we had stopped.
I recognised that the conditions were challenging, as our boat is difficult to land, having no propwash over the rudder and a high freeboard to get pushed around, so I knew it would not be easy.
But....all's well that ends well, and we did have a good debriefing to take onboard the lessons learned, and we both felt better for that.
We sat there getting trounced by a full gale for 24 hours, but it was really nice cosy party for my birthday.
