Calling the Coastguard...

[pauls_SPT]

Hello,

I was just wondering what people thought about this?

I was sailing through Falmouth Harbour last week and there were a load (twenty or thirty, but well spread out) of lengths of 2x1 batton in the water, each about 6 to 9 inches long. At the speed I was doing (2.5 knots - that .5 was hard fought for, so I'm claiming it with pride), they just bumped off the hull, but I'd have thought a motorboat pounding through them would have had all sorts of interesting prop issues as they chewed them up...

Should I have notified the costguard? I thought about it, but then I thought I might just be wasting their time...after all, it's not like they could have come out and tidied them up or anything... I know if you meet a big obstruction (log, container, etc) then it's the done thing, but a whole bunch of bits of wood? I wasn't sure...

Just so as I get it right next time, what would anybody else do?

Thanks and all that,

Paul

 

[EdWingfield]

In harbour a mobo should not be 'pounding through' them as its against the law.

So why should you bother the CG? /forums/images/graemlins/confused.gif

 

[Malish]

When in harbour call the Harbour Master

 

[pauls_SPT]

Well...pounding through them is a relative term in my case...even 8 knots is the sort of speed I can only marvel at /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

Calling the harbour master is a good idea, though...

Paul

 

[Anonymous]

Would have made darned fine firewood if not useful as spare timber in the shed /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

 

[pauls_SPT]

It was soggy as anything...I think it had been washed up from the bottom by a cruise-liner which did some sort of 3 point turn in front of the harbour as it arrived...I fished a bit out and it weighed double what I was expecting...

 

[Kawasaki]

Ah! but was it Flotsam or Jetsam?

 

[philip_stevens]

You've not seen them hammering up Falmouth harbour and causing all sorts of waves and wash.

They even go well over the speed limit further up the Fal beyond Turnaware - when the HM launch is nowhere to be seen.

Last Sunday, one nearly swamped a 16" o/b skiff with four elderly people in it near the Smugglers Cottage/Tolverne, coming through between me and another slow mobo with the skiff in the middle. When asked to slow down, they did - for about 10 yards, then back up to their transit speed.

 

[pauls_SPT]

'tis true - I was at anchor near Turnaware Point when two of these 40' plastic things came tearing up the river, one weaving left and right, jumping the others' wake! In a 40' boat! I thought I was going to end up in a field, the wake that came off them both!

...and I heard an appeal on the VHF for a boat to slow down as they tore through a group of dinghies during Falmouth week!

It may well all be against the law, but I've never even heard one warned on VHF, let alone chased down by HM launches or the like... The thing is, they all merrily wave as they motor by, leaving me to contend with their three high foot wake...

Paul

 

[jonathankent]

I've seen Modplod in Plymouth Sound pull one of them up a couple of weeks back.... serves them right!! /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

 

[Malcb]

Not like the Cornish to leave something like that floating around for long /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif



And before anyone shouts racist, my Great grandmother was Cornish /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

 

[roly_voya]

It probably was the hHabour master fed up with chasing speeding mb & jest skis, no danger if you follow the speed limit, disabling if you don't!!

 

[pelicanpete]

[ QUOTE ]
Ah! but was it Flotsam or Jetsam?

[/ QUOTE ]

If it was jetisoned; Jetsam. Otherwise Flotsam. (Now wait for the dissenters...) /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif