River Crouch Tuesday morning

Triassic

Triassic

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This is not a complete rant but if the two motor boat skippers who came down the Crouch yesterday morning around 7.30am happen to be on here I'd just like them to know how much I appreciated them diverting all the way across the river to the north side so that they could pass close either side of me before returning back across the river. When sailing in light conditions like that it's always nice to get rocked back and forth to stop us falling asleep and turning up to reattach the flow helps keep us entertained.

I have only one question, WHY?
 
We were heading down the Crouch at about that time, probably nearer to 08:00 though.
We passed a catamaran on the South side, waved and got a friendly wave back. Or at least I thought that's what it was!
We did pass wide and slow though. Was that you? (we were in a mobo with a fairly large dog on the flybridge)
 
I know why they do it, because they are clueless arseholes.

Same as the idiot in a little Bayliner heading up the Hamble river yesterday at about 12knots, just off the plane, to cause maximum wash to all other river users.
 
Firefly625 said:
I know why they do it, because they are clueless arseholes.

Same as the idiot in a little Bayliner heading up the Hamble river yesterday at about 12knots, just off the plane, to cause maximum wash to all other river users.
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A bit harsh. No one on here knows why they did it. There may have a been a reason that the OP wasn't aware of. There is much activity in the Crouch this week p, and there will be dinghies and yachts all over the place. Yes, they could have been aholes, but even aholes wouldn't normally go out of their way to give someone wash. If the OPs account is correct, I would love to hear the other side to the story, cos I am sure there will be one.
 
CLB said:
A bit harsh. No one on here knows why they did it. There may have a been a reason that the OP wasn't aware of. There is much activity in the Crouch this week p, and there will be dinghies and yachts all over the place. Yes, they could have been aholes, but even aholes wouldn't normally go out of their way to give someone wash. If the OPs account is correct, I would love to hear the other side to the story, cos I am sure there will be one.
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+1
 
Murv said:
We were heading down the Crouch at about that time, probably nearer to 08:00 though.
We passed a catamaran on the South side, waved and got a friendly wave back. Or at least I thought that's what it was!
We did pass wide and slow though. Was that you? (we were in a mobo with a fairly large dog on the flybridge)
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We're a trimaran (three hulls) white with black sails. There was one other trimaran heading down river that time, but he was motoring. We saw these two motor boats travelling fairly close together line astern close to the south bank and from about half a mile away they turned to port and headed across the river straight towards us, and no, they didn't need to follow a channel. I don't subscribe to Firefly625's view about fellow boaters, but I do wonder sometimes if motor boat skippers understand how sailing boats work. My crew and I did wonder if it was the same two mobo's we had a small encounter with in almost the same spot whilst tacking up the river the previous Thursday afternoon.......
 
Apologies, I meant to say trimaran, and it was the chap who was motoring that we waved to.

There were a lot of mobo's from the club headed back down the crouch that morning. Of the only two that left earlier than the main group, one is an ex-sailor who only had to give up sailing due to ill health so I really can't see it being them.
Quite possible, of course, it wasn't our boats. Did you get any names at all? (pm if you'd prefer)

I think there is definitely a lack of understanding at times though, it can be difficult to anticipate what a boat under sail is going to do next. No problem at sea, we just keep well clear but in the confines of a river it can be a bit challenging. It's something I'm getting far better at, especially after spending some time on a friends ketch but as a relative newcomer to boating it does take a bit of time to learn the best course of actionto take to keep clear, especially when there's a race going on.

There's certainly nobody at the club who would set out to deliberately upset a sailing boat, which does sound as if that's what happened to you.
 
I have only one question, WHY?
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Triassic said:
My crew and I did wonder if it was the same two mobo's we had a small encounter with in almost the same spot whilst tacking up the river the previous Thursday afternoon.......
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I think you may have the answer to your question there...
What was the encounter if you don't mind me asking?
 
Firefly625 said:
Same as the idiot in a little Bayliner heading up the Hamble river yesterday at about 12knots, just off the plane, to cause maximum wash to all other river users.
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Yes, that's it just off the plane.

The other ones are fishing boats which are wound up to do 1/2 knot more than their displacement speed, pulling a stern wave you could surf on. Many of these are working for a living, why they want to throw fuel away, only God knows.
 
Murv said:
...
I think there is definitely a lack of understanding at times though, it can be difficult to anticipate what a boat under sail is going to do next. No problem at sea, we just keep well clear but in the confines of a river it can be a bit challenging. It's something I'm getting far better at, especially after spending some time on a friends ketch but as a relative newcomer to boating it does take a bit of time to learn the best course of actionto take to keep clear, especially when there's a race going on.

There's certainly nobody at the club who would set out to deliberately upset a sailing boat, which does sound as if that's what happened to you.
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And to answer the Luptonj as well on Thursday afternoon we were tacking up the Crouch on the way to Burnham when we crossed the bows of two motor boats also making their way up stream. We were a comfortable distance ahead of them but I quickly realised that when we tacked back, which we would have to as the river is only so wide, we were likely to come into conflict with the lead one. Sure enough as soon as we tacked back onto port it was pretty clear one or both of us was going to have to do something and I saw him trying to increase speed to clear our bows. Unfortunately we were going pretty well and it just wasn't going to happen so I luffed slightly to slow the boat and waved him past. I know the purists are going to say it's his responsibility to keep clear and I should stand on but I felt partly responsible for the situation because if I'd anticipated the situation properly I wouldn't have crossed their bows in the first place. As soon as he was clear I bore away to dip his stern only to find the second mobo trying to follow him through up my starboard side, and because I had turned down and accelerated I was going every bit as quick as him..... This time I stood on because in my mind all he had needed to do earlier was turn a few degrees to port to clear my stern instead of trying to race around me. Either way the skipper eventually gave up, shut down and went behind me to follow his mate up the river.

I don't want to make this a mobo v sailor thing, we all enjoy the water and I certainly don't go out of my way to make things difficult for others, but I do think it's important to try and understand why things happen. I got both the boat names but I'm certainly not going to disclose them until hearing their side of the story, if indeed there is one. Perhaps they were just being friendly and didn't appreciate the consequence.
 
Triassic said:
And to answer the Luptonj as well on Thursday afternoon we were tacking up the Crouch on the way to Burnham when we crossed the bows of two motor boats also making their way up stream. We were a comfortable distance ahead of them but I quickly realised that when we tacked back, which we would have to as the river is only so wide, we were likely to come into conflict with the lead one. Sure enough as soon as we tacked back onto port it was pretty clear one or both of us was going to have to do something and I saw him trying to increase speed to clear our bows. Unfortunately we were going pretty well and it just wasn't going to happen so I luffed slightly to slow the boat and waved him past. I know the purists are going to say it's his responsibility to keep clear and I should stand on but I felt partly responsible for the situation because if I'd anticipated the situation properly I wouldn't have crossed their bows in the first place. As soon as he was clear I bore away to dip his stern only to find the second mobo trying to follow him through up my starboard side, and because I had turned down and accelerated I was going every bit as quick as him..... This time I stood on because in my mind all he had needed to do earlier was turn a few degrees to port to clear my stern instead of trying to race around me. Either way the skipper eventually gave up, shut down and went behind me to follow his mate up the river.

I don't want to make this a mobo v sailor thing, we all enjoy the water and I certainly don't go out of my way to make things difficult for others, but I do think it's important to try and understand why things happen. I got both the boat names but I'm certainly not going to disclose them until hearing their side of the story, if indeed there is one. Perhaps they were just being friendly and didn't appreciate the consequence.
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why would you tack a tri up a river ,i dont get it
 
seastoke said:
explain
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When sailing light winds the balance of the boat is crucial. If goosewinging (genoa out one side and the main out the other) it means the wind must be dead behind. The wake of a mobo will cause the boat to rock and the mast and therefore the sails will change from this balanced position and often the genoa will collapse as the wind is blanked by the main.

If you have skied then you will know that skiers and snowboarders move very differently down a slope. A skier will 'tack' down but a snowboarder runs much straighter and faster.
 
Sneds said:
Forgive me for asking but why not just motor up the river?

Not looking for an argument, just asking
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Actually, in our case, because we almost can't. Multihulls are very light, but they have a significant amount of windage so require quite a bit of effort to move directly into wind. We only have a small (and light) 8hp outboard which is quite capable of propelling us in and out of moorings, and indeed at around 5 knots in a flat calm, but we would only make two or three knots in the conditions encountered on the Crouch that afternoon. When you compare that to the 12-13 knots we were making when we encountered the two motor boats you can understand why we were sailing instead.
 
Triassic said:
Actually, in our case, because we almost can't. Multihulls are very light, but they have a significant amount of windage so require quite a bit of effort to move directly into wind. We only have a small (and light) 8hp outboard which is quite capable of propelling us in and out of moorings, and indeed at around 5 knots in a flat calm, but we would only make two or three knots in the conditions encountered on the Crouch that afternoon. When you compare that to the 12-13 knots we were making when we encountered the two motor boats you can understand why we were sailing instead.
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1) Perhaps you need to buy a larger engine so you can be considerate to others
2) at 12 - 13 knots were you speeding in that part of the river . Sailing craft often think the speed limit does not apply to them
 
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