bilbobaggins
N/A
Some time ago, my would-be lady 'n I took shelter in Salcombe, in a borrowed trimaran, in the night, in a late-autumn howling storm.
We raced up the reach, bare poles, to just past the town and turned to struggle upwind, old Seagull 100 screaming, towards one of the unused moorings pickup buoys we'd spotted as we fizzed past.
I briefed her that she had to pick it up 'right first time', and we crawled slowly up towards one that seemed a bit bigger than the rest. As it vanished under our bow overhang, she made a determined lunge with the boathook.
The 'pickup buoy' gave an incensed squawk, surging away into the air with a clatter of dark wings, while Eli recoiled back off the bow in shock, thankfully into the safety netting.
Off to port aways, I could just make out the shaking glow of a lit pipe in a dark cockpit where - we found out later - the owner, watching our antics, had spilled his coffee all over his trousers in barely-suppressed mirth.
We raced up the reach, bare poles, to just past the town and turned to struggle upwind, old Seagull 100 screaming, towards one of the unused moorings pickup buoys we'd spotted as we fizzed past.
I briefed her that she had to pick it up 'right first time', and we crawled slowly up towards one that seemed a bit bigger than the rest. As it vanished under our bow overhang, she made a determined lunge with the boathook.
The 'pickup buoy' gave an incensed squawk, surging away into the air with a clatter of dark wings, while Eli recoiled back off the bow in shock, thankfully into the safety netting.
Off to port aways, I could just make out the shaking glow of a lit pipe in a dark cockpit where - we found out later - the owner, watching our antics, had spilled his coffee all over his trousers in barely-suppressed mirth.
