I was leaving the dock in my old Mac25 headed for my haul-out point when I flubbed the extra-long bow line's flip-off of the dock cleat from the cockpit.
As the boat went forward I thought that the best thing to do was to just drop the line, so I did.
When the line came free of the cleat, I had about 30 feet to turn my boat to port and avoid the big 'ol shrimping boat dead ahead. Breeze was pretty good from portside.
It was then that I realized that the extra-long bow line would quite likely foul my propeller if I turned to port, so rather than turn to starboard (more shrimping boats), I cut off the outboard motor and drifted forward, scurrying on deck to retrieve the bow line from the skene chock.
After yanking it aboard and dropping it on the foredeck, there was the shrimper big as life. My forestay had just gone past the shrimper's anchor as I fended off, trying to keep our hulls from banging together.
The breeze wouldn't let me shove off in the desired direction, and my stern had started to head downwind towards the next victim, promising to connect with the small solar panel I kept on the stern pulpit. Head back to the cockpit to fend off there.
No shit, there I was with my forestay caught on a shrimper's anchor 20 feet in the air, and my starboard quarter wanting to mingle with another boat.
Thankfully, someone aboard the first shrimper saw my mast, windex and anchor light looking rather close to the prow of his shrimper and showed up, looking down at some guy helplessly pushing away from his neighbor's boat.
He untangled my headstay from his anchor, probably not wondering at all how it had happened.
I fired up my outboard, yelled "muchos gracias, senor!"and proceeded upwind to my haul-out.
Very unflattering.
