Why don't you like Mobo's?

Coaster said:
Thank you for your reply. It sounds a terrible place to be. I don't think I could put up with a location like that.
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NO! Don't let me give the wrong impression. The town motto is 'Poole is a wonderful place' and it truly is with some of the best scenery in the world. Poole is a huge harbour, second I believe only to Sydney. As a result there are many boats kept here (I think over 5,000) and many others arrive as visitors or as trailered boats. I have sailed out of Poole since 1970 and lived here for the last 24 years and wouldn't want to be anywhere else in the UK, even though we are now moving to live aboard in the USA (another story).

What I referred to is something that happens, but does so infrequently and for a short duration. It needs a number of factors to occur, like a hot summer day when everyone wants to go out for the day. Large numbers of boats (and especially mobos) reside in the marinas inside Holes Bay and therefore can only get access into the harbour proper when the road bridge is lifted, I think once every two hours. They are then held to a 10kt (daft) speed limit from there out to the open waters outside of the harbour. Imagine these all on a Sunday morn all converging on the harbour exit channel with many others from the main harbour marinas and moorings, more or less at the same time. Now if the tide is ebbing fast, nobody much is going to be coming the other way inbound, but if the tide is slack or flooding then there will be inbound boats now faced with the wall of fast moving boats going out.....eeeeeek! It is all over in 15-20 minutes and peace returns. Most will not see it, but we caught it once after arriving from abroad rather earlier than planned, with the tide still going out but not enough to stop us going in and it just happened to be about 20-30 minutes after the bridge had lifted and everybody poured out.

Poole truly is wonderful but it has a few nutters that maybe once or twice year seem to come together coincidentally to form the stampede I described.
 
Robin said:
Poole truly is wonderful but it has a few nutters that maybe once or twice year seem to come together coincidentally to form the stampede I described.
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I like your enthusiasm and have now deleted Poole from my list of places to avoid at all costs.

A few years ago we had a trailable boat and on a few occasions took it to the south coast of England, visiting Poole twice. Whilst there we overnighted at anchor in the eastern part of Poole Harbour. Fortunately the rampaging mob was absent and the place seemed quite peaceful.

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>What a lovely person you are

You might remember I said: Don't know much about the UK but in the seventeen countries we visited...

I never came across a Mobo in the UK because we sailed very little here. To be precise: Hamble (bought boat), Eastbourne, Ramsgate, Burnham on Crouch. Then: Burnham on Crouch, Ramsgate, Portsmouth, Plymouth; Falmouth, across Biscay. When we returned to England we ran down the Channel straight to Lymington.

We mainly sailed at night and saw only two yachts on all those trips (except in the Solent) and no motorboats at all. Hence my description of Mobos abroad. Take your boat to the Olhau lagoons at a weekend or a week in Spanish Waters in Curacao and you will see what I described. Believe me you would come to hate them out there.

From the the thread it does seem that some UK mobos like to create a large wake near yachts but not in such numbers that they are despised.

Therefore, with that evidence, M'lud, I claim to be a nice person ;-)
 
KellysEye said:
You might remember I said: Don't know much about the UK but in the seventeen countries we visited...
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no, but I DO remember you said you'd leave a fellow boater on the rocks.

KellysEye said:
Believe me you would come to hate them out there.
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Hate is a self destructive emotion.

KellysEye said:
Therefore, with that evidence, M'lud, I claim to be a nice person ;-)
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I'm sure you are a nice person that wouldn't actually pass me by if I was in trouble. If you would, then I reject your claim.
 
I sail on the Orwell and we get more than our fair share of the Romford Navy on tour. To be honest the majority of them are careful of their wash, give way to sail, even dinghies, and are generally decent human beings. However, that leaves a very significant minority who career down river leaving flooded dinghies, spilt drinks and flogging sails in their wake.

On one occasion I was beating upriver, pinching to lay the next bend, when a large gin palace appeared on a reciprocal course. He refused to give way by an inch and we eventually passed with a clearance of about 2 feet. As he went by he peered down and told me I should learn the rules of the road and sail up the right hand side of the channel.

He could have avoided me most easily by a small change of course the wrong side of a navigation buoy. However, I have yet to see any mobo travel outside the big ship channel even when, as in this case, there was 4 metres of tide on top of chart datum.

As for jetskiers they are completely beyond the pall and should be condemned, without right of appeal, to an eternity in purgatory. They seem to treat moored yachts as part of a slalom course where the object is to fill your cockpit with spray.
 
there seems to be an assumption that only yachts are affected by wash. I have a s/d mobo and spend most of my life at 7knots or below and also hate excessive wash, especially at anchor. Without a huge keel it actually affects me more than adjacent moored yachts so I understand the issue fully. Having said that my observation is that 95% of mobos behave with complete respect for others, as I do myself. I also note however that yachties consistently over react to each and every ripple. A minimal wash which moves my anchored boat more than theirs will be often be met with fist waving and angry retorts. Its as if some folk actually want to have something to rant about. Having formed their long held prejudice against mobos, it seems that some yachties then enjoy each and every chance to have a go, and are almost disappointed if they don't get their drinks spilt.
 
TQA said:
Coz mobos often run their generators 24/7 just like the one that has parked itself just upwind of me. A steady drone and some luvverly whiffs of diesel all night.

Ah well time to move.
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I have often shared anchorages with yachts doing exactly the same.
What's worse is the ones that haven't got a genny so run their auxiliary for hours on end.

Why not just take issue with inconsiderate boaters who run gennies and engines in an antisocial way rather than isolate mobos.

Inconsiderate people are inconsiderate. their choice of boat doesn't come into it.
 
>no, but I DO remember you said you'd leave a fellow boater on the rocks.

Yes I would in the countries mentioned but not a sailing yacht.

>Hate is a self destructive emotion.

No it isn't I hate sprouts and haven't self destructed.

Having read the read the thread I would help a Mobo in the UK provided it had not done done the things I described. The place I would definitely help is one I forgot to mention - Puerto Rico. At weekends you can get 100 Mobos entering the sheltered bays every hour for up to four hours in the morning. Every single one slows right down coming in and going out. Cruisers call the Mobos the Puerto Rican navy and they are an awesome sight.
 
Elessar said:
hope you reported him?

there was a d1ckhead in the Itchen last week going way too fast, I contacted soton VTS unsure if they had authority in the itchen. They do, swapped me to another channel for more details, they looked at their camera on the Itchen bridge and intercepted him at the soton water intersection. Result:)

You're right the mobos shouldn't use the big ship channel but I do wonder why you need to either - you wouldn't in soton water for example but I don't know the orwell.

I teach motorboaters (and theory to sailors too) and spend a lot of time on wash education. But as I said, remember who is affected by it most and it isn't you, unless you're in your rubber mobo.

And your complaint here was a colregs issue, and I have to say ignorance of colregs is, in my experience, fairly well distributed across boaters of all propulsion types.........
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Sorry, I seem to have posted the same thing twice - computer crashed and I did not realise the first post went off. The Orwell is not like the Soton water. If you are beating in a boat with 1.9m draft staying outside the channnel at all times is not practical, and at low water, not possible in places. Therefore, there is usually a mass of yachts beating across the channel and for a mobo to deconflict the easiest way in much of the river would be for them to stay just outside the channel. They never, ever do. Even the considerate ones will slow to a standstill in the channel and wait for a yacht to pass rather than venture outside the channel. On the other hand most yachts running against the tide will get as far out of the channel as they can.
 
PeterR said:
Sorry, I seem to have posted the same thing twice - computer crashed and I did not realise the first post went off. The Orwell is not like the Soton water. If you are beating in a boat with 1.9m draft staying outside the channnel at all times is not practical, and at low water, not possible in places. Therefore, there is usually a mass of yachts beating across the channel and for a mobo to deconflict the easiest way in much of the river would be for them to stay just outside the channel. They never, ever do. Even the considerate ones will slow to a standstill in the channel and wait for a yacht to pass rather than venture outside the channel. On the other hand most yachts running against the tide will get as far out of the channel as they can.
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How odd. Still hope you reported him.

Had a case of fairly inconsiderate wash on Saturday. People on the foredeck doing lassoo/ mooring practice on the mid stream Hamble pontoons at warsash. A boat came up the non preferred channel at just the wrong speed, less than a boat length from us and kicking up what was i reckon the biggest possible wash for the boat the way he was digging his stern. We all saw it and held on, but we were whacked quite heavily agaisnt the pontoon. He slowed when I yelled at him obviously knowing he was wrong. The boat was bringing back the race marks for the royal southern yacht club and proudly displayed their name. Shame on them. Have to say the RAF club launch is often rather "wakey" too. So it's alright for sailors to make wash when they're in a mobo?
 
[QUOTE=Elessar:
"So it's alright for sailors to make wash when they're in a mobo?"

Am not convinced they're 'sailors' at all! But the thing to do is to complain to the Club(s).

Only the other week there were over 250 dinghies racing in Hayling Bay accompanied by 20, yes twenty, RIB's, most of which behaved like morons, ignoring speed limits when coming to and from the Club or refuelling in the marina. Yuk!
 
>So as long as a mobo hasn't given you too much wake you will not watch them die?

I'm not sure I understand that but no I wouldn't watch somebody die, I'd be long gone.

What bugs me is wake while at anchor,how would the to**ers like their home rocked 20 degrees or more every ten minutes, which we've had months of. Or wake on a ponton and associated damage, which fortunately we haven't had but boats nearby have.
 
KellysEye said:
>So as long as a mobo hasn't given you too much wake you will not watch them die?

I'm not sure I understand that but no I wouldn't watch somebody die, I'd be long gone.

What bugs me is wake while at anchor,how would the to**ers like their home rocked 20 degrees or more every ten minutes, which we've had months of. Or wake on a ponton and associated damage, which fortunately we haven't had but boats nearby have.
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fortunately, I think most decent sailors know that not all moboers are wash making morons, and most decent moboers know that not all (in fact I'd say not many) sailors are bigoted idiots.
So despite your best efforts I think sailors' reputations remain in tact.
Best not dig that hole any deeper though.......
 
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