KellysEye
Well-Known Member
I read that there was damage in Scarborough and emailed the new owner of Kelly's Eye to ask what happened. He is a Lifeboat inspector and also works with the local Lifeboat, hence the comments. This is his reply:
You're right, the tidal surge on Thursday was a sight to see and there was flooding all along the seafront and across the harbour. The piers overtopped and a lot of businesses were flooded. We had moved the lifeboat outside of the lifeboat station prior to high water, which was lucky because at the top of the tide there were some serious waves washing right through the boathouse and out the other side. That said, there was no serious damage except for the main span of the pontoons, which is what you read about.
What happened was that the pontoons rode up to the top of the anchoring piles at high water, but then as the tide ebbed one of the collars locked, meaning that a section of the walkway jammed up as the tide dropped. Obviously this meant that some boats were becoming hung up (not ours!), so we passed a strop around the pontoon and gave it a tug with the lifeboat launch tractor to dislodge it and drop it back into the water. That section of walkway is now knackered as the flotation blocks were washed off it, and the shore supply line was severed.
So, all in all a bit of a mess but other places had it much worse than us. Our boat is absolutely fine, except I can only get on board from seaward until the walkway is fixed. Fingers crossed they'll have that sorted in a few days.
You're right, the tidal surge on Thursday was a sight to see and there was flooding all along the seafront and across the harbour. The piers overtopped and a lot of businesses were flooded. We had moved the lifeboat outside of the lifeboat station prior to high water, which was lucky because at the top of the tide there were some serious waves washing right through the boathouse and out the other side. That said, there was no serious damage except for the main span of the pontoons, which is what you read about.
What happened was that the pontoons rode up to the top of the anchoring piles at high water, but then as the tide ebbed one of the collars locked, meaning that a section of the walkway jammed up as the tide dropped. Obviously this meant that some boats were becoming hung up (not ours!), so we passed a strop around the pontoon and gave it a tug with the lifeboat launch tractor to dislodge it and drop it back into the water. That section of walkway is now knackered as the flotation blocks were washed off it, and the shore supply line was severed.
So, all in all a bit of a mess but other places had it much worse than us. Our boat is absolutely fine, except I can only get on board from seaward until the walkway is fixed. Fingers crossed they'll have that sorted in a few days.
