Quandary
Well-Known Member
I keep my boat on a pontoon in the basin just inside the sea lock at the SE end of the Crinan Canal, it is an annual berth allocated by B.W. Because most of the other boats on the pontoon are motor cruisers, yachts transiting the canal tend to raft up alongside us and when our boat is there I often have two three or more boats rafted outside me. I live about 100 yards away on the canal bank.
A week or two back it was quite stormy with strong S winds and I went down to the sea lock to take lines from a couple of yachts that were having difficulty with the crosswind at the lock entrance. On the way past I noticed that there was one large rather tatty yacht outside mine, it was flying two Cornish flags but at the time I had no prejudice against Cornwall persons.( I don't know the collective word for people from Cornwall) One of the yachts coming in wanted to berth outside him. The single hander on the Cornish boat had a bow and stern line ashore and a very short line from our spring cleat to a cleat on his deck directly opposite about a metre long. this line was jerking and taking the windage of both boats. I asked him if he would lengthen it and rig it forward as a spring. He explained to me that though he was younger than me (and bigger than me) he knew more about boats than I ever would and if my cleat could not take the strain I should have bought a different boat. I explained that I was happy with his shore lines but I thought that if he rigged either springs or bow and stern lines to my boat ( his was about 10' longer) it would be more comfortable and reduce the movement between the hulls. I offered to use a couple of my own stretchy nylon lines. He flew into a rage which I am now advised is a Cornish person characteristic and with many expletives, most of which I recognized, took off the one line he had to my boat and eased his shore lines. His boat was now running up and down alongside mine even more. The third skipper was embarrassed and asked me to help him to rig shore lines which was not really possible because of the relatively long boat alongside. The Cornwall flagged boat lay along side for about a week but the wind dropped so the lateral movement along my topsides was much less. I wanted to put over our fender skirt but did not dare go near again while he was there because another local skipper who talked to him warned me that apparently you don't reason or tangle with people from down there, he said it was a temprament thing, something to do with inbreeding over centuries.
Did I have any rights in this situation, anyone got any suggestions what I could have done?
Is it regarded as unreasonable in the extreme SW to use ropes as springs and attach boats berthed side by side to each other.
Until this happened I was always happy with the Scottish system of bow and stern lines and springs each way to the next boat, supplemented with shore lines if it is windy and practical. I would have regarded the use of springs fore and aft when alongside as essential, bow and stern lines to the next boat are probably adequate if there is a big length differential but I would still rig springs to avoid any risk of straining fender lines or marking hulls. When we go away we use a set of new clean fenders and warps for going alongside other boats as our day to day canal pontoon ones get a bit grubby.
A week or two back it was quite stormy with strong S winds and I went down to the sea lock to take lines from a couple of yachts that were having difficulty with the crosswind at the lock entrance. On the way past I noticed that there was one large rather tatty yacht outside mine, it was flying two Cornish flags but at the time I had no prejudice against Cornwall persons.( I don't know the collective word for people from Cornwall) One of the yachts coming in wanted to berth outside him. The single hander on the Cornish boat had a bow and stern line ashore and a very short line from our spring cleat to a cleat on his deck directly opposite about a metre long. this line was jerking and taking the windage of both boats. I asked him if he would lengthen it and rig it forward as a spring. He explained to me that though he was younger than me (and bigger than me) he knew more about boats than I ever would and if my cleat could not take the strain I should have bought a different boat. I explained that I was happy with his shore lines but I thought that if he rigged either springs or bow and stern lines to my boat ( his was about 10' longer) it would be more comfortable and reduce the movement between the hulls. I offered to use a couple of my own stretchy nylon lines. He flew into a rage which I am now advised is a Cornish person characteristic and with many expletives, most of which I recognized, took off the one line he had to my boat and eased his shore lines. His boat was now running up and down alongside mine even more. The third skipper was embarrassed and asked me to help him to rig shore lines which was not really possible because of the relatively long boat alongside. The Cornwall flagged boat lay along side for about a week but the wind dropped so the lateral movement along my topsides was much less. I wanted to put over our fender skirt but did not dare go near again while he was there because another local skipper who talked to him warned me that apparently you don't reason or tangle with people from down there, he said it was a temprament thing, something to do with inbreeding over centuries.
Did I have any rights in this situation, anyone got any suggestions what I could have done?
Is it regarded as unreasonable in the extreme SW to use ropes as springs and attach boats berthed side by side to each other.
Until this happened I was always happy with the Scottish system of bow and stern lines and springs each way to the next boat, supplemented with shore lines if it is windy and practical. I would have regarded the use of springs fore and aft when alongside as essential, bow and stern lines to the next boat are probably adequate if there is a big length differential but I would still rig springs to avoid any risk of straining fender lines or marking hulls. When we go away we use a set of new clean fenders and warps for going alongside other boats as our day to day canal pontoon ones get a bit grubby.
