MBY sept08 - terrible WNS solution

[jfm]

This stuff just gets worse. In the new MBY (september 2008) they print (page 126) the solution to the last What Now Skipper problem. The one where you have to park a mobo in a tight finger pontoon berth when there is a too-large classic sailing yacht berthed right opposite, sticking out into the fairway.

I've never read such rubbish. They recommend a pantomime, taking 40mins in an "increasing" wind, whereby you hang your boat off another's stbd quarter cleat, then lay out a very long line and spin your boat 180deg using lines. Eventually, after all that effort, you end up in the hammerhead position in picture 3. Hard to describe here, you'd need to read the mag.

Well, FFS, if you believe (which I don't, but never mind) the solution to this problem is to get yourself into that hammer head berth position in picture 3 then you could have just spun the boat before entering the fairway, reversed it straight down the fairway just past the finger pontoon, then eased her forward (even ferrygliging into the wind) into that hammerhead position and tied her up. Job done. You didn't need to do any of the fecking about (spinning the boat 180deg using lines, which takes time, manual strength, allows the wind to build, and risks damage to other boats) in pictures 1 and 2.

I despair. Virtually every WNS has been complete garbage, written by folks who clearly don't know how to handle a boat. Hugo, can't you do a bit better?

 

[Nick_H]

couldn't agree more, I was in disbelief reading it. After all that bolloxing around, you end up on the end of the pontoon facing the wind, where you could quite easily have put yourself without touching a rope! In figure 1, you've even put a fender on the back of the other yacht!

Why not just turn upwind of the yacht, reverse back past the space, then go in forwards. You'd be on your second pint before the guy who writes this stuff had sorted his ropes out.

 

[miket]

I have yet to obtain my MB&Y so not seen this.
In "slight" defence of the editorial team (with whom I have no link) it may be the readership that they are pandering to that necessitates political correctness in following some oddball method of boat handling, possibly RYA.
I fear many of their readers are either pretty useless at boat handling or use the boat as a caravan only.
Possibly also written ignoring the fact that bow and stern thrusters are becoming quite common (despite HLB), IPS joystick control, similarly, etc.

 

[PCUK]

More likely poor fiction writing!

 

[MapisM]

Didn't see the mag, but your description made me wonder if the writer was possibly helming the following ferry, a couple of weeks ago... /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

 

[jfm]

Hmmm. You are being very forgiving to them .

Take a look at the solution, scanned below. Point is, you could have got to picture 3 by just driving there, head to wind.

The complex pantomime in pictures 1 and 2 is absurd. It takes time (yet the question says the wind is building), risks going wrong (you have limited, tired crew), and involves boarding another boat and tying a fender and line to it (which is discourteous, when not needed).

And quite apart from all that this solution only works if the top left boat (your neighbour t'other side of your finger pontoon) doesn't stick out beyond the finger - a fact not stated in the question and in practice an unlikely circumstance.

 

[masaccio]

I think it might be time for TCM to generate a "What Now, Editor?"

Something along the lines of:

You're the Editor of a boating magazine during the worst down-turn in global economic fortunes since 1929, with cheap fuel for your readers about to disappear for ever. The Publisher is on your case about budgets and circulation figures, you have been lumbered with a superyacht spin-off that only the corporate bean-counters are interested in, and your BMW is in dire need of a service. After a long lunch you've just settled down for a post-prandial snooze when the Ad Manager comes in to inform you that they've missed their target and you can have five pages back, which need to be filled with cheap editorial by 5pm this evening...what now, Editor?

The solution, for those of you who can't be arsed to wait for the next issue, is:

a) Apply for the News Editor's job on Cage & Aviary Birds

b) Go freelance

c) Extend Cumbo's piece on cruising The Raze de Seine article from nine pages to 14 pages, and use the pics BIG

d) Get the work-experience kid to conjure up a WNS from an account in the February 1907 issue of MBY, in which Sir Tristan Twistleton-Whyttam-Smythe got his butler to park the steam-launch next to a particularly large tea-clipper in Bombay docks by employing the classic Indian Rope Trick mooring method.

Then again, is TCM still with us?

 

[jfm]

Brilliant! TCM is right now having a boozy lunch, in Puerto Banus, having parked his boat there just by driving into a space and putting the handbrake on, with no Indian Rope Tricks. Spoke to him 5mins ago. He was quite pisssed, so perfect time for him to write something

 

[MapisM]

[ QUOTE ]
You are being very forgiving to them

[/ QUOTE ]Absolutely.
In fact, if "readers are either pretty useless at boat handling or use the boat as a caravan only" (as miket said), I can't see how the suggested maneuver could ease their life.
Now, aside from the fact that judging by the proportions in the pics also a normal stern to approach to "your berth" seems feasible, even a plain vanilla hammerhead on stb side would do, wouldn't it?
Why are both you and Nick assuming to spin the boat before entering the fairway, was that a constrain in the WNS initial question?

 

[oceanfroggie]

Agree JFM, it's easy by just passing the yacht, turning 180 deg into wind and mooring as per normal - what's the fuss about. Desk jockies v's mariners methinks!!! /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif

 

[Nick_H]

That's easy, just re-print the new boat buyers guide in every issue ....

 

[Wiggo]

Have you thought about a career in journalism?

 

[mjf]

Priceless.


As others have said what a performance!

At one stage I thought tugs might have been called.

 

[oceanfroggie]

Or a SAR heli
/forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif

How to fill column inches in 101 difficult and unintelligeable steps /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif

 

[Major Catastrophe]

[ QUOTE ]

And quite apart from all that this solution only works if the top left boat (your neighbour t'other side of your finger pontoon) doesn't stick out beyond the finger

[/ QUOTE ]

I am so glad you brought this to my notice as I was starting to have a panic attack.

My boat is only just over 21 feet long and I have a finger berth the same length as every other one in the marina. My boat, when moored, is three feet longer than the finger, so the illustrated manoeuvre would be impossible.

Not only that, but some time during the process I would have run out of fenders, crew and patience.

 

[masaccio]

You must be joking...and have all those whiny-arsed cry-baby readers moan about every minor factual inaccuracy and mis-captioned photo? Nah...it's a mug's game. I'll stick with running residential courses in flint-knapping at the University of Stoke Newington.

 

[Richard Shead]

No comment

 

[PCUK]

Is no comment the same as " You may think that , But I couldn't possibly comment"! /forums/images/graemlins/ooo.gif

 

[jfm]

Ouch!

 

[Kipper]

Didnt print my response, Its a yatch bounch of it into your berth, thats what the wxxkers doto me.