kimhollamby
Active member
My own \'adventure\'
See <A target="_blank" HREF=http://www.ybw.com/auto/newsdesk/20030714074141mbmnews.html>http://www.ybw.com/auto/newsdesk/20030714074141mbmnews.html</A>
Fortunately I was carrying the right gear, including a dry suit, I have cut a lot of rubbish off props over the years (mostly other peoples', in case you think I have extraordinary bad eyesight) and so knew what to expect, the sea was completely calm and at summer temperatures, we had loads of sea room and the tide was virtually slack (we only moved half-a-mile in two-and-a-half hours). Otherwise this would have been a lifeboat call-out as the boat was totally disabled and the net was too much for the cutters to cope with.
In fact, one of the sets of cutters (Spurs) was damaged by the wrap, as you'll see in the account, and had to be removed, both to clear the remaining polyprop netting and to prevent the bits from causing vibration and any further damage.
Net looked to either be an abandoned chunk, cut out and thrown over the side, or might (being charitable) have been torn out of a trawl on the bottom. We were on night passage at the time but it seemed to have been ensnared in a weed patch and judging from its behaviour when released it would have not necessarily been very visible whatever the light conditions. Fortunately travelling relatively slowly when we hit it otherwise it might have bunched up behind the P-bracket and caused a much more serious incident.
On the run back to the Solent two weeks later we missed one of the Western Solent's infamous 5lt plastic bottles, in poor light conditions, by about 18 inches after spotting it dead ahead. It had been laid inside one of the starboard hand marks on the deep water channel; we had aimed for that as soon as through Selsey to try and avoid the minefield across the shallows but we nearly collected one anyway.
Interestingly spoke with someone from the Hayling Island lifeboat recently and he claims they haven't had a single shout for a prop wrap this year, which seemed amazing given the silly markers that get dropped around that area.
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See <A target="_blank" HREF=http://www.ybw.com/auto/newsdesk/20030714074141mbmnews.html>http://www.ybw.com/auto/newsdesk/20030714074141mbmnews.html</A>
Fortunately I was carrying the right gear, including a dry suit, I have cut a lot of rubbish off props over the years (mostly other peoples', in case you think I have extraordinary bad eyesight) and so knew what to expect, the sea was completely calm and at summer temperatures, we had loads of sea room and the tide was virtually slack (we only moved half-a-mile in two-and-a-half hours). Otherwise this would have been a lifeboat call-out as the boat was totally disabled and the net was too much for the cutters to cope with.
In fact, one of the sets of cutters (Spurs) was damaged by the wrap, as you'll see in the account, and had to be removed, both to clear the remaining polyprop netting and to prevent the bits from causing vibration and any further damage.
Net looked to either be an abandoned chunk, cut out and thrown over the side, or might (being charitable) have been torn out of a trawl on the bottom. We were on night passage at the time but it seemed to have been ensnared in a weed patch and judging from its behaviour when released it would have not necessarily been very visible whatever the light conditions. Fortunately travelling relatively slowly when we hit it otherwise it might have bunched up behind the P-bracket and caused a much more serious incident.
On the run back to the Solent two weeks later we missed one of the Western Solent's infamous 5lt plastic bottles, in poor light conditions, by about 18 inches after spotting it dead ahead. It had been laid inside one of the starboard hand marks on the deep water channel; we had aimed for that as soon as through Selsey to try and avoid the minefield across the shallows but we nearly collected one anyway.
Interestingly spoke with someone from the Hayling Island lifeboat recently and he claims they haven't had a single shout for a prop wrap this year, which seemed amazing given the silly markers that get dropped around that area.
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