marina incidents

Phoenix of Hamble

Phoenix of Hamble

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mishapsandmemories.blogspot.com
Given the threads about marina activity, thought it might be interesting to hear what stories you have about strange marina maneuverings...

Heres mine....

3 weeks ago, I was motoring through the centre of the Ipswich Wet Docks, and watched a big AWB (think it was a Bav of circa 42 feet) motor backwards out of his berth, on absolutely full throttle, round in a big U shaped turn, obviously with the steering over on full lock, straight into the end of a finger pontoon..... he hit it sufficiently hard, right on the transom, that he took the end off the pontoon and 2 planks out.... I have no idea what he was doing.... look like he was completely out of control.......he didn't even throttle back before he hit the pontoon... must have hit it at 5 or 6 knots..... no damage visible to the boat from a distance, but I'd wager that a closer inspection would reveal some hull damage.... only feasible explanation I can think off is complete failure of both steering and throttle at the same time......
 
loc: brighton 19 pontoon
wind about 3 . gusty & rain
2 salties on a big sigma
pulled up next to myself and neighbour,
I jokingly quipped - I used to have one of those, got rid of it, I could'nt park it anywhere - pointing at my little 19 footer, all laughed.
five mins or so later neighbour and myself were leaving,sigma was still back and forth etc. getting pretty close to others boats.
''need a hand mate, ere throw us your line'' - 'no thanks we'll manage''.
neighbs' commented with regard to mateys ego and determination and we left. I took a detour to the blokes room and a few mins later went thru the gate and up the ramp where I was surprised to see my neighbour and his mrs. looking out toward the pontoons, there they were in exactly the same situation, doing the same thing in the exact same position - back forth, back forth, we watched for another few mins but it started to rain heavy. all matey had to do was pin down a stern line from our jetty ,where we were standing, offering. why do people do this?- say no - without thinking.
 
I was coming out of Brighton a couple of weeks ago in small fin keeler, about an hour before low tide and a bit hung over, when we churned into some soft mud in the outer harbour - just about in the channel.

My wife walked up to the stays, leant out as if it was a dinghy while I reversed and waggled the rudder - it's happened before but not for a year or two. The two huge MOBOS who'd been following us a couple of yards behind ploughed gently up the beach and and started an impromptu dredging operation with their bowthrusters.

We came off within a few embarrassing seconds and they still hadn't come out of the harbour when we lost sight of the entrance about half an hour later. I still haven't worked out how their draft was as deep as ours.
 
Re: A couple or three

I'm moored near the work berth at Shamrock Quay. A large'ish MoBo backed out into the river, one guy visable on the flybridge. He pointed it down river got it up to speed and discovered he couldn't steer with the wheel. Without cutting the revs he heads for the inside steering position. I'd guess that would be when he wished he'd taken the windscreen covers off earlier. He skimmed of one boats fenders and smacked a pretty big mooring buoy square on.

Why I never give anyone ashore a line is.... I'd got a sixty odd foot boat set up for berthing outside of Cowes yacht haven. The boat having no cleats my crew took up the mooring line slack on the pontoon cleats. The wind is blowing a good F7 of the town and I've explained to my line handlers that we need a bit of sharp work.
The stern guy went really well but unfortunately the bow man gave his line to a passing punter. The guy put a quick bowline in it and dropped the loop over a cleat. Thats how we ended up with the bows pointing at Gosport. It was a very long line and we took more than a little bit of stick from passers by. Of course the tide was flooding. It took us about twenty minutes to get the thing alongside.

Another time in West Cowes they'd crammed a load of Sunsail boats into the north basin. Time to leave and the first boat tries to turn around to go out forwards. Bang crash wallop. With a lot of crew strength and grp scarring and he's away. I still don't know why the next five boats emulated him. More, m uch more crash bang wallop. A lady skipper then fired up the engine and sedately back all of the way out of the marina. Guess what the remainder did... Yeah! Really. They tried to turn around.
 
[ QUOTE ]
a big AWB (think it was a Bav of circa 42 feet)

[/ QUOTE ]
Of course it was, the anecdote would loose all its literary impact if it was anything other than a Bavaria.
 
Re: A couple or three

[ QUOTE ]
unfortunately the bow man gave his line to a passing punter. The guy put a quick bowline in it and dropped the loop over a cleat. Thats how we ended up with the bows pointing at Gosport.

[/ QUOTE ]

A perennial problem. You're all set up to do it your way and a helpful soul comes along and does what he thinks is right, totally screwing up your planned manoever. If you say 'no thanks' you get stick for it (see previous posts above), if you let them do their own thing it goes pear-shaped and if you tell them how you want it done they take offence.
 
Jonjo.... I hear yer...

But in this case it actually was probably a Bav...... although I did say 'think'... it might have been a Legend or a BenJen.... but it did have a blue coach line......

PS...for the avoidance of doubt, i've nothing against Bavarias... I personally think they are amazing for the money.... and may well buy one over the next 5 years or so...
 
In a quiet little harbour in Denmark, last year, with the usual box moorings at the end of a pontoon, a large hired German Bav was trying to get into a free box. There was no appreciable wind, and no tide, and plenty of room - we'd just got in with no problem at all, but then, we had prepared our lines first! His wife was on the foredeck, his children (who had seen all this before) were out of sight below. Lots of friendly, patient Danish sailors were on the pontoon, and we were in the next berth. He came in, bouncing against us, onto the boat on the other side, and hit the pontoon. One of the Danes took his bow lines, and patiently explained that he would need to back out to put his two stern lines over the piles. So he backed out, shouting at us to drop the bow lines, and tried again, hitting us and the neighbouring boat again. I asked his wife what he was doing, and she said she had no idea. Eventually the helpful Danes drifted away, and we just stayed armed with fenders to minimise damage. Eventually, after three attempts, he came in backwards. It was so the dog could get ashore, his wife told me.

We saw him next day at another, very, very crowded harbour. He had a berth all to himself, while the rest of us were rafted up 7 deep. We didn't see him arrive, so we didn't find out why no one was willing to go near him!
 
I have been big boat sailing for 7 years now and still get very dry mouthed when berthing and leaving.

I take great pride in doing it neatly as possible (especially as there is often just 2 of us) but every time someone looking down on us makes sure the conditions are totally different so as soon as I get any confidence I manage to mess one up.

How many years does it take not to get a dry mouth when berthing?
 
Looking for C38 at Parkstone Yacht Haven.

In full view of everyone we motored happily to the C berths, then as we bumped along the sea bed looked for C38.

It goes up to C7 then the walkway starts.

Turning a 38 footer around in the narrow berths with 1 cm under the keel is fun.

It later transpired that the chimp on the phone had called Cobbs Quay in error. The fact we could not get to Cobbs because we drew too much and it was LWS only made the event allthe more chuckleable.

After much shennaigans we found a berth, thus proving what pleasant chaps they are at PYH.

My suggestion that we set fire to the Chimp and cast him adrift met with much enthusiasm.
 
One of the downsides of having the boat berthed at the end of the garden is the double jeopardy of having my marina neighbours and also my house neighbours watching when I come in and out. Certainly makes you clench a little when things don't go to plan. I have had some interesting advice as well.
 
Several years ago in Tregiuer marina where there is a particularly viscious tide and all berthing is reccomended on the slack. Saw a French driven Ovni, one of those alluminium boats, head out from the inland end of the row of pontoons, with the ebbin full flow. The tide caught him and swept him onto the first boat. Without stopping, he bounced merily along the entire length of bows and sterns, shouting "merde" as he hit each boat. There must have been twenty. He did not stop, kept the engine full on and eventually made it into the open river It was his port side that was hitting the other boats, mostly local French boats, but his starboard side had many dents as well. Clearly accepted behaviour.
 
Re: It has to be said

[ QUOTE ]
It wasn't a case of couldn't drive it... it was most strange... he just put the throttle wide open, and put the wheel right over, and then seemed to go to sleep.....


[/ QUOTE ]

Quite a common reaction to fear ,commonly known as frozen rabbit syndrome.Complete opposite of the running around like a headless chicken syndrome.
 
if you haven't berthed there you can't get that one!

spent 2 holidays there in small, powerfull and manoeverable power craft and it was as tricky as I have ever found things - and that's from someone who has a 5 knots ebb current pushing him onto his berth at 70 degrees right now!
 
Best one I saw was a Sunsail boat in East Cowes, skipper went for a downtide downwind approach at about 3 knots through water.He shouted at the guy on the bow to get a warp on the cleat as soon as he was on the pontoon to stop the boat.. guy obeyed , guy on the stern was still on baord as the bow was brough up sharp an the stern parabolised leaving the boat wedged wideways acrossthe berths.
 
my favourite is bloke in a 35ish foot benneteau looking for berth in Palma, went under the bowsprit of a 40m+ sailing boat and bent his mast like a straw. The benny owner pretended nothing was wrong and the big boat didn't notice a thing.

Oh, and the 85foot powerboatthat came into antibes at 10 knots and wiped off the forward lines of three boats was interesting.

I particularly liked the newbies on a 40foot powerboat in port solent - i took their stern lines on the windward side and the girlie on the foredeck decided i was a good enuf candidate to chuck her line to as well, so i ended up holding the whole boatt

Oh and er... etc etc
 
Haslar this weekend, 40 foot raggie with no crew had called for marina assistance to catch his lines.
Two boat lengths out, boat goes into full ahead he must have hit the pontoon at 5 knots with a crash that could be heard for miles - put a very big hole in the bow. Poor marina bod standing by to catch his lines could do nothing but pick his jaw up off the ground
 
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