Sunsail dumb?

[Twister_Ken]

Was anybody else astonished (on Sunday) to see a Sunsail regatta set a start line in the vicinity of Hill Head, with the windward mark apparently Hamble Point buoy, and a leeward mark which required the boats to run South under kites in the main Southampton Water shipping channel?

Not only did the competitors have to navigate their way through the Hamble Power Squadron Convoy conducting Operation 'Lunchtime at the Folly" but they were then faced with extricating themselves from becoming the meat in the sandwich of two converging merchant ships.

It was the only time I've ever heard a merchant skipper sound one extremely long blast (40 second?) followed by three consecutive 5 blast signals. One could sense how blue the language on the bridge had suddenly become.

 

[Rob_Webb]

I suppose this makes my cursing at watching a fleet of boats short-tacking through the anchored boats at Osborne Bay on Sunday a.m. seem trivial!

BTW, perhaps we should invent a new set of meanings for 20, 30 & 40 second fog-horn blasts!

 

[snooks]

Unfortunatly we have already gained a nickname from ships captains it's WAFI's Wind Assisted F**king Idiots, and unfortunatly when I was on the bridge I didn't see any evidence to disagree with this, it's the few bad sailiors who give the name to us all, one guy was going along about 30 metres off our bow completly oblivious to the 300,000 tonnes contaner ship behind him...WHEN he saw us his wake changed 90 degrees!

Even when yachts do go close the the atmostphere is calm, the abuse comes out in a calm, gentle manner, there is nothing the big ships can do, even when they want to.

It's like going down a line of parked cars without brakes, if someone gets in your way, tough!

I think we all know what the fog-horn blasts are for...it's self censorship, like the bleeping out of words on TV!!