Disgrace in Mercury today

[[2068]]

Scaramoosh and poppydog have come on here attempting to justify themselves but to me that says more than anything. No experienced and competent yachtsman would sink to their level at a time of stress in terms of shouting and swearing at innocent party, especially when that innocent party had come to help. Not only that but this was hardly a life or death situation just a berthing cock up and we've all been there and got the t shirt on that one, in the vast majority of cases without it resulting in a foul mouthed tirade. I would have been a lot more impressed if they'd have joined this thread to admit that they had simply lost it and apologise for their behaviour. Perhaps their attitude goes some way to explaining how they got into that situation in the first place

I think the bit that would have annoyed me is if someone else had tried to take over as skipper. It's more than trying to help: saying you are "in charge" and starting to give contradictory commands to crew is a mini-mutiny from ashore. The correct thing to do would have been for the dockie to ask the skipper what help was required, and if no answer, then see if there was obvious help that could be given anyway, e.g. grab a line.

Having said that, swearing and shouting almost never helps in any situation, other than in close proximity of a recently thrown grenade with no pin.

 

[Deleted User YDKXO]

Steering away (excuse the pun) from the argument of who said and did what for a moment, is it just me that is a bit alarmed that steering failure seems to be a not uncommon phenomenon, on yachts particularly?

It happens on motorboats too. Some years ago, we had spent a day at anchor in a cala on the east coast of Majorca in our Ferretti 46. We left the anchorage and I engaged the autopilot as we motored into the open sea at about 20kts. I saw an object in the water and without thinking to disengage the autopilot, steered hard to port using the wheel. The boat started to respond but then there was a loud bang from the stern of the boat and the steering went very light. The boat continued to turn to port but it wouldn't respond to the wheel even with the pilot turned off. At first I thought we must have snagged a pot or something but I couldn't see anything trailing in the water. Then I tried the lower helm and the steering wouldn't respond to that either. Finally it dawned on me that I'd bust the steering. No problem I thought, I can just motor against the rudders by using the port engine only but then I was in for a shock. Even with the port engine at max rpm the boat still steered to port and there was no way we were going to make the nearest marina, Cal d'Or, which was about 5nm away. Eventually I found a technique to make some forward progress which involved going astern on the s/b engine to point the boat out to sea and then motoring in a semi circle to port for a few metres and then doing it again. It took us a couple of hours using this technique to limp into Cala d'Or. I must say that, unlike Mercury, the marina staff showed no interest in our predicament and refused to help by towing us into the marina with their dory citing 'insurance reasons'. Luckily the fuel berth is just inside the marina and I managed to get a line on to that and moor up. After the marina staff realised that we were going to block their fuel berth for the foreseeable future, they eventually deigned to help push us into another berth with their dory.

When I finally managed to get a look at the steering mechanism, I could see immediately that one of the link arms was badly bent. I don't know to this day how this happened and can only surmise that it was due to my error in trying to steer the boat against the autopilot. Fortunately we managed to find a local engineer who was able to take the link back to his shop and straighten it. Like a complete idiot, I managed to bust the steering again a couple of years later in a similar fashion but this time the rudders were fairly central and it was easy to limp back to the marina using the engines. It was the same link again but this time it had completely snapped into 2 pieces

Btw IMHO steering failure is as good an argument for twin engines as any

 

[[2068]]

<digression>
On a modern VP Sterndrive boat with twins, steering failure still means that you are stuffed, as there is one piston on the outboard side of each drive with a whacking great tie bar in between. If it failed stuck in the straight ahead position, you might be ok just using one engine at a time, but hard over to one side, and you will be going around in circles.
</digression>

 

[Elessar]

Scaramoosh and poppydog have come on here attempting to justify themselves but to me that says more than anything. No experienced and competent yachtsman would sink to their level at a time of stress in terms of shouting and swearing at innocent party, especially when that innocent party had come to help. Not only that but this was hardly a life or death situation just a berthing cock up and we've all been there and got the t shirt on that one, in the vast majority of cases without it resulting in a foul mouthed tirade. I would have been a lot more impressed if they'd have joined this thread to admit that they had simply lost it and apologise for their behaviour. Perhaps their attitude goes some way to explaining how they got into that situation in the first place

you have summed it up completely correctly, I agree 100%

 

[Elessar]

I think the bit that would have annoyed me is if someone else had tried to take over as skipper. It's more than trying to help: saying you are "in charge" and starting to give contradictory commands to crew is a mini-mutiny from ashore. The correct thing to do would have been for the dockie to ask the skipper what help was required, and if no answer, then see if there was obvious help that could be given anyway, e.g. grab a line.

Having said that, swearing and shouting almost never helps in any situation, other than in close proximity of a recently thrown grenade with no pin.

There was no mini mutiny from ashore. The experienced dockie offered help and advice. Wise advice, well offered. He received a foul mouthed tirade in response.
Even if the dockie had been wrong, the abuse he received was in excusable. But he wasn't wrong IMO, he was offering the most useful and wise bit of help you can get if you are stressed and in a pickle.

 

[paul salliss]

Scaramoosh and poppydog have come on here attempting to justify themselves but to me that says more than anything. No experienced and competent yachtsman would sink to their level at a time of stress in terms of shouting and swearing at innocent party, especially when that innocent party had come to help. Not only that but this was hardly a life or death situation just a berthing cock up and we've all been there and got the t shirt on that one, in the vast majority of cases without it resulting in a foul mouthed tirade. I would have been a lot more impressed if they'd have joined this thread to admit that they had simply lost it and apologise for their behaviour. Perhaps their attitude goes some way to explaining how they got into that situation in the first place

This is probably the best post on this whole topic, it has never been about judging a crew re the berthing scenario , we have all screwed that up , steering failure or not. I think we should draw a line here, wishing you all a great weekend including the crew of Webcraft, time to move on.

 

[[2068]]

There was no mini mutiny from ashore. The experienced dockie offered help and advice. Wise advice, well offered. He received a foul mouthed tirade in response.
Even if the dockie had been wrong, the abuse he received was in excusable. But he wasn't wrong IMO, he was offering the most useful and wise bit of help you can get if you are stressed and in a pickle.

I'd agree that there was no excuse for the tirade.

 

[poppydog]

Steering away (excuse the pun) from the argument of who said and did what for a moment, is it just me that is a bit alarmed that steering failure seems to be a not uncommon phenomenon, on yachts particularly?

I'm sure I've heard of several incidents involving steering gear failure over the years.

Yet how many times have you heard of the steering failing on cars, trucks or buses? I can't think of any, although vehicle accident causes aren't widely published (after all they can only be caused by excessive speed, right?)

I'm just rather surprised that safety critical functions like steering can fail because a bolt can drop out.
Surely they should be designed to be fail safe, i.e. the nut can drop out but the bolt stays in?
It's not as if the fundamental steering principle has changed much over the years, manufacturers should be able to get it right by now.

Just my twopenneth on boat design and engineering, would be interested to hear what others have to say

 

[freddy the frog]

Its ammazing with the yachties when something goes wrong in close quarters its either the stearing gone or the gearbox has jamed

worked pefectly ok on the run down the hamble

 

[Elessar]

Its ammazing with the yachties when something goes wrong in close quarters its either the stearing gone or the gearbox has jamed

worked pefectly ok on the run down the hamble

I saw them fix it..........

 

[Tomahawk]

...

No-one blamed the Mercury guy for the mechanical problems or berthing of our boat.

I swore at the guy once and had raised voices (as he did) for less than 2 minutes, until my wife persuaded him to walk away as he was not making the situation better by being there.

Our steering had jammed hard to port as we were manoeuvring into our allocated visitor berth. .....

So why the need to start swearing?

I have had people come running down the pontoon the "help" and grab a mooring line, tie it the the nearest cleat at the wrong length and turn a prfectly well planned mooring into a damage situation.
Even though very annoyed by the problems they have caused, I have never started shouting at anyone who tries to assist.

 

[Elessar]

Paul Salliss is slightly inaccurate in his post (I guess he felt it should be embellished little for theatrical effect?)

Now shall we get some facts out there rather than the puerile conjecture from 'yachtsmen' with lots to say, with little or no knowledge of the situation.

The facts are

He wasn't the Marina Manager - thats Colin Jefferies.

No-one blamed the Mercury guy for the mechanical problems or berthing of our boat.

I swore at the guy once and had raised voices (as he did) for less than 2 minutes, until my wife persuaded him to walk away as he was not making the situation better by being there.

Our steering had jammed hard to port as we were manoeuvring into our allocated visitor berth. At no time were we "pinned' anywhere and had a stern line in the hand of someone on the pontoon and were guiding the bow with the thruster. We rapidly got a person off the boat to handle a bow line. At this point all was under control but clearly a stressful situation!
We could not engage forward or reverse as due to the helm jammed hard to port, this clearly had an adverse affect of berthing the boat.

Enter left, the 'helpful' Mercury chap. His first line of attack was to tell the guy helping with the stern line to leave it alone as he was now 'in charge', he then told to me put my vessel in neutral. I told him the engine was already in neutral because the boat steering was locked hard to port. Again he told me to put the vessel in neutral. Clearly he had no idea that there was any tide in his marina and had wrongly assumed that we were incompetent sailors, that we had misjudged the tide and wind and had not heard that we had a serious close quarter manoeuvring problem. At this point he told our bow line person (who just so happens to be a senior figure in the commercial yachting industry), "that he was not paid enough to do this sort of thing"
Again the guy told me to put my vessel in neutral at which point I invited anyone in the vicinity to come aboard and handle my boat as clearly I had no idea what I was doing. At this point the Mercury guy called me 'Sonny' and then he got both barrels.

I was furious that in a stressful situation of a mechanical failure at close quarters, someone who has never helmed a yacht (by his own admission), was telling me how to handle my boat (with a mechanical failure) whilst not understanding the mechanical problem that had caused our situation. I did swear at him for calling me "sonny" - what a crime, however looking at some of the faceless spineless trolls on this forum, I can't see that I have said anything worse than what you lot are saying.

As for comments my wife or indeed the other people on my boat said, these are inflammatory spurious remarks and one should be careful of making things up for fear on legal consequence.

Lets hope you all get a life and make sure you get your facts right in future before spouting forth unfounded drivel.

I won't be responding to any 'helpful' posts but lets hope you all can now take a balanced view.

Ok I've been looking at this on the iPhone an not read this post as it is rather long. I've only just realised that you were the skipper. Happy to adress you directly.

I know your steering failed.

You did not swear once. You launched a repeated and disgusting tirade. And then you had another go when you went up to pay. We all swear when a berthing goes wrong. Yours was more than that, it was rage. And ok we all lose our temper somtimes. But a man goes and apologises afterwards, rather than making excuses.

As for what your wife said to me about your crew, I know what I heard. She partially blamed your rage on the attitude of your crew. Thanks for the threat, bring on those consequences.

 

[Firefly625]

Wow, poppydog could have done two things, posted that because of a mechanical failure stress of the situation and being called sonny he lost it and now is a bit mortified of the whole situation and just apologised to all that heard his rant or he could have come out with guns blazing... Shows a man with a backbone and puts us spineless folk in our place.

I rather conduct myself as a gentleman, old fashioned and doubtlessly spineless however the world is full different characters some you choose as friends, others you tend to avoid.

 

[KINGFISHER 9]

Ok I've been looking at this on the iPhone an not read this post as it is rather long. I've only just realised that you were the skipper. Happy to adress you directly.

I know your steering failed.

You did not swear once. You launched a repeated and disgusting tirade. And then you had another go when you went up to pay. We all swear when a berthing goes wrong. Yours was more than that, it was rage. And ok we all lose our temper somtimes. But a man goes and apologises afterwards, rather than making excuses.

As for what your wife said to me about your crew, I know what I heard. She partially blamed your rage on the attitude of your crew. Thanks for the threat, bring on those consequences.

I'm with you!