Amazing atmospherics...

Yes, had my first DSC alarm yesterday - a Pan Pan in French from CROSS I think.

Perhaps the same one we received in the Stour, made me jump.

Did you also hear Dover Coastguard giving someone a ticking off for allowing children "playing" with Ch 16?

After a minute or so of silly chatter Dover cut in with, "Vessel transmitting on Ch 16, your position has been plotted using Radio DF bearings and you may be prosecuted" Total silence thereafter.
 
Had a long boring motor back to Harty from St Kats so had little else to do but listen to radio traffic and we too heard stuff from far far away. We marvelled at the patience of Thames CG coping with constant radio-check drivel while quite obviously very busy dealing with incidents as well.
And I never cease to wonder at the proportion of callers who have either never done the radio course or have long forgotten the contents. There was even one long-drawn out exchange where one could only conclude that the caller had no idea that there were channels other than 16, nor any clue as to how to change channels.
 
I heard the french cg doin its thing on 16 this am half way up the orwell...
 
Had a long boring motor back to Harty from St Kats so had little else to do but listen to radio traffic and we too heard stuff from far far away. We marvelled at the patience of Thames CG coping with constant radio-check drivel while quite obviously very busy dealing with incidents as well.
And I never cease to wonder at the proportion of callers who have either never done the radio course or have long forgotten the contents. There was even one long-drawn out exchange where one could only conclude that the caller had no idea that there were channels other than 16, nor any clue as to how to change channels.

What amazes me is you often hear the same boat names asking for radio checks as you heard the previous weekend. Surely if it worked last week it is more than likely going to work this. Also the manners of many people wind me up, so many just give the boat name and "Radio check" without any please or thank you at the end.

Talking of boring, I set off at 0600 yesterday morning from Lower Halstow to race round Sheppey with 3 other boat from our club. After the first 45mins of virtually drifting along Halstow creek a bit of breeze picked up and my echo sounder let me down and I parked the boat on the spit at the end of Millford Hope creek and Twinney creek (bottom of Stangate) on a falling tide. No amount of reverse power and an attempted pull from one of the other boats would budge it, so I spent the day sitting there listening to vhf traffic until I refloated at 1600. The Kingsferry Bridge operator seemed to be quite helpful yesterday after the comments the other day.
 
Aha, if you came through the bridge westwards yesterday at 1300 in a Fulmar, you passed me before you got to Queenborough, I was pottering gently eastwards under main only, idling away the time before the 1400 lift. Your boat was a fine sight.
It was indeed Mr. Helpful/cheerful/obliging on yesterday. It's Mr. Grumpy who ruins everything.
 
Aha, if you came through the bridge westwards yesterday at 1300 in a Fulmar, you passed me before you got to Queenborough, I was pottering gently eastwards under main only, idling away the time before the 1400 lift. Your boat was a fine sight.
It was indeed Mr. Helpful/cheerful/obliging on yesterday. It's Mr. Grumpy who ruins everything.

No it wasn't me, I was firmly stuck on the mud all day and covered no more that about 1 1/2 miles all day. I spent the day bored stiff trying not to get sun burnt. I did hear you calling the bridge from Queenborough, I think. It may have been Marie Louise the other Fulmar at Lower Halstow that you saw, who I should have been racing against.
 
Marie Louise it was. Sorry, thought you meant you were aground on Saturday, didn't read the post properly.
Well, you had a nice day for it!:rolleyes: Chance to catch up with the maintenance!
 
Top