Was I right to apologise profusely to a rib driver

[colhel]

I'll try and set the scene ... I'm reversing out the fairway of J&K pontoons in Shamrock Quay (these are the pontoons furthest up river within the marina). Just outside the fairway there is a rather large steel port marker that had my concentration as well as the other boats within the marina. The wind though not too strong was trying to push me towards the channel marker and I decided pass it on my Starboard side, the wind and the prop walk was trying drag me into it but with the rudder hard to Port I was confident of making the turn as the rudder was gradually starting to bite and I had enough way to ease the throttle and reduce prop walk. Once in the main Itchen Channel I decided to make my way up stream to Drivers, so, going in to forward gear and rudder hard to Starboard a good blast of throttle to bring the bow round (away from the big steel channel marker and posh boats) the bow swung round nicely but me with hardly any forward movement and me feeling rather pleased with myself.
But. just as I'm congratulating myself and look at all the other boats still shining and undamaged, the big steel channel marker still looking big and threatening, a rib appears with 3 gents aboard. The one driving had to steer to Port to avoid nearly hitting me which seemed to displease one of his crew members who gave me the sort of look that showed he was an authority on rib-sailing boat not so near misses and I in turn gave him a look of someone who wasn't. This provoked him to shouting "Your on the wrong side!!". I apologised (profusely) pointing at the undamaged shining posh boats and tried to explain that I had just come from there and smiled. He just shook his head and muttered to his colleagues , making all my efforts at not hitting stuff seem rather insignificant.

 

[Searush]

I'll try and set the scene ... I'm reversing out the fairway of J&K pontoons in Shamrock Quay (these are the pontoons furthest up river within the marina). Just outside the fairway there is a rather large steel port marker that had my concentration as well as the other boats within the marina. The wind though not too strong was trying to push me towards the channel marker and I decided pass it on my Starboard side, the wind and the prop walk was trying drag me into it but with the rudder hard to Port I was confident of making the turn as the rudder was gradually starting to bite and I had enough way to ease the throttle and reduce prop walk. Once in the main Itchen Channel I decided to make my way up stream to Drivers, so, going in to forward gear and rudder hard to Starboard a good blast of throttle to bring the bow round (away from the big steel channel marker and posh boats) the bow swung round nicely but me with hardly any forward movement and me feeling rather pleased with myself.
But. just as I'm congratulating myself and look at all the other boats still shining and undamaged, the big steel channel marker still looking big and threatening, a rib appears with 3 gents aboard. The one driving had to steer to Port to avoid nearly hitting me which seemed to displease one of his crew members who gave me the sort of look that showed he was an authority on rib-sailing boat not so near misses and I in turn gave him a look of someone who wasn't. This provoked him to shouting "Your on the wrong side!!". I apologised (profusely) pointing at the undamaged shining posh boats and tried to explain that I had just come from there and smiled. He just shook his head and muttered to his colleagues , making all my efforts at not hitting stuff seem rather insignificant.

You didn't hit anything did you? So that's a win. passengers don't often know zilch & can usually be safely ignored. When are you going to post your pics from the beer & natter?

 

[mlines]

There are times when you just cannot win.

We came down past Henley last week. The fairway was blocked with a parallel line of children in sculls with an instructor on a little boat. He was shouting instructions to them with a loud hailer and by what he was saying this was their very first time on the water.

Therefore we cut down the other side of the small islands by Mill Meadows to leave them in peace in the main fairway. As we emerged at the far end the kids had come around the island and were coming up the same side of the river as us.

The instructor shouted across that we were on the wrong side and going in the wrong direction. I shouted back that he had completely blocked the main fairway and we had come down here to keep out of their way, he throttled up and went off in a huff.