Good Samaritans

[billmacfarlane]

Someone on the Selfish Yottie thread someone asked for stories showing the good side of human nature. Quite right. Since I'm in a great mood , looking out the window at beautiful blue skies , about to leave the office at midday to head for my new boat for our first cruise in her , I think we should lighten up Easter Thursday with stories of Good Samaritans. Here's a couple to get started.
1. My daughter in her dinghy sailing days , went off for a couple of days after her GCSE's to chill out and sail her Topper with a mate and live on our boat. She sailed up to Dell Quay one day but she never noticed the increase in the wind strength as it was behind her all the way up the creek. She realise that the wind was by now 30 knots plus and she didn't fancy sailing with an inexperienced crew back down the creek and into Chichester YC. She decided to tie the boat up at the quay and climbed the ladder to ask at the boatyard if she could phone for a taxi. The Dell Quay boatyard asked what the problem was , promptly craned her Topper out , put it on the back of one of their lorries and drove my daughter and her mate back to their yacht club. Nice. The fact that my daughter's mate is 6' tall and both were in wet suits might have helped a bit I'd like to think not.
2. I lost my main halyard up the mast and in St Vaast Marina , asked my wife to winch me up to retreive it. I puffing and panting about half way up when I aware that I was going up a LOT faster , more like the speed of a lift. I got to the top , retreived the halyard and was lowered down to be met by a very large Frenchman , built along similar lines to the prop forwards I watched in the France - England game ( hard lines guys ) . He was watching my wife's efforts from the next boat , came aboard , took over and I've never went up a mast at that speed before or since. I offered him a bottle of red which he insisted we drink with him - I think we had a couple after that. Nice guy. Happy Easter all , and fair winds.

 

[rogerroger]

In Falmouth marina a couple of years back - made a right arse of getting off the berth in a strongish breeze and ended up completely pinned on the boats at the end.

No damage but a bit embarrassing as the owners were on board. There we were trying to work out how to warp our way out when down comes another yacht who threw us a line and pulled our bow round and off we went.

OK, not a massive deal but put in the context of what happened later the same day...

moored briefly on a bouy outside Falmouth to let someone off. As we left (heading for Fowey) the throttle cable snapped just after letting go of the mooring. We dirfted slowly back getting the anchor out and got near a moored power boat. We shouted to him what was wrong and he just stood there with arms folded with the look of "you tough my boat and you'll be hearing from my lawyer" - he said and did nothing.

I don't want to inflame a sail / power debate - but I'm sure had this been a sail yacht the response from those on board would have been "what can we do to help?"



Roger Holden
www.first-magnitude.co.uk

 

[AndrewB]

The Good Samaritan was not a British Yachtsman!

Your post made me try to think of similar examples. And then I realised, never in 40 years of sailing, can I recall being spontaneously helped by another yachtsman in this country, except for personal friends and club members. It's not for want of needing help at times!

All my examples involve foreigners, like your Frenchman.

Makes you think, doesn't it?

PS I've had some good help from members of this forum (thank you, Pugwash, most recently), but that wasn't around boats so doesn't count.

 

[tcm]

some power types do either put up an image of megarich ratbag...and perhaps some yotties give off an air of invariably knowing much much more, which doesn't help when someone who doesn't do that (you) needs help? But anyway...

I nearly can't recount all the times I've been helped. A german couple gave a lift to the supermarket 10 miles away. A brit in guernsey pointed out a blocked generator coolant intake (steam) so I fixed it but ricked my back and then he had some pain relievers for that too! Another guy (also brit) let me borrow his outboard for a whole afternoon to see what it would be like with 15hp instead of 8hp. And I've fixed up loads of people with electric cables/connectors, so not fair andrewB . Perhaops I shoudl wear union jack t-shirt.

 

[brian_neale]

Re: The Good Samaritan was not a British Yachtsman!

Does Scottish count?

I trailed my Drascombe up to Skye many years back, and to avoid having to launch and recover each time (we were staying there for a fortnight) I went into a local shop and asked if they knew anywhere that I could hire a mooring for the period. Someone heard what I was saying, came over, and told me that I was welcome to use their mooring as they had moved their boat for that season, the mooring had been inspected by a diver in the Spring and was quite secure, and no, they did not want to take any money from me for it.

Really put me in a good mood for the rest of my stay, which lasted until I came back to the South coast...

 

[Guest]

I was the one getting depressed about the tales of woe on the selfish yottie thread and I've just posted a tale of woe there myself, so I feel honour bound to dredge up some examples of the milk of human kindness.

* The nice man who got his wife to tumble dry my clothes for me after I'd gone in fully dressed wearing jeans and a heavy sweatshirt

* The boatyard workers in Norfolk who, on seeing how horrible weather was spoiling our holiday and leaving us fretting on our mooring, let us sneak on board a wherry yacht for a look round

* The owners of a huge cruiser on Lake Windermere who beat our hire yacht onto a mooring buoy then, realising that they shouldn't have been on it, moved to let us on! Mind you, they did have my sailing instructor mate bawling at them - in the nicest possible way, of course.

"El manana es nuestro, companero..."<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1>Edited by The_Fruitbat on Thu Mar 28 14:10:16 2002 (server time).</FONT></P>

 

[Mirelle]

Dick Harman

1971. A teenage me was beating down the Wallet into a fresh SW breeze singlehanded in the 18ft half decked boat that I then had, and was just past Clacton pier, when the old cotton mainsail tore right across from luff to leech, so I turned to run back to Harwich. No choice in the matter.

Dick, who was running his tripper boat from Clacton beach, saw me, came alongside, said "Will you get across West Bay like that?" meaning that I probably would not be able to make up into Harwich, gave me a tow inshore, dropped the anchor in the lee of the pier, where the lifeboat house was, took me ashore and the following day he and his son took the boat round to Mersea. No charge. And probably saved my life.

 

[WayneS]

One fine day outside of Christchurch we saw a westerly 22 sail slap bank into a submerged reef. The fact that we were also on a w22 had no bearing on the issue but we promptly upped anchor to give them a tow off as they could not run their engine as the prop was fouling the reef.

Did I cock that up or what, ended up with us on the reef as well, kids panicking, wife shouting et al.....

What came to our rescue, a jet-ski. This chap took a line from us and pulled us clear then went back and pulled the other chap free. It took him a good 20 min in all, all the time holding our bow ropes in his left hand as he gunned the jet-ski. Must have just about pulled his arm out of it’s socket.

I never got to thank the fellow as he disappeared after once we were clear, so, there is at least one decent PWC user out there, somewhere.


On another occasion my outboard totally destroyed itself somewhere of Swanage, on the first day of our annual 2 week cruise. After many hours of calling around, I came across the Johnson dealer in Christchurch, who was not able to help with fixing my engine, but did put one of his demo units in the back of his car, drive all the way to Swanage and all he asked was that we return it at the end of our holiday. What a chap.

 

[andyball]

We've only been boating for 18 months, and in that time have towed one inflatable with u/s engine back to emsworth, a sailing dinghy full of water/rope jammed rudder into hyc and (tried) to pull a 30ft yacht off a mud bank in mill rythe : and yes, all in a 16' motor boat.

One shouldn't profit from others misfortunes, but each incident brightened up our trip greatly .