…Even one spectator, and you\'re in trouble ;-)….
Now that’s the truth Peter! Though on just the one occasion: -
Soon after we bought Spring Fever we visited Aberystwith Marina in Wales, where a very pleasant evening in the Yacht Club bar was slightly tainted by one knob-head who kept harping-on about how bad Albin Vegas were to reverse. To be fair he probably didn’t say anything that wasn’t ‘fair comment’, but this was my new boat that he was slagging-off; besides which, he sailed a Westerly Centaur so clearly wasn’t qualified to talk about yachts!
When I got up the following morning and went into the cockpit for a fag, two things became immediately apparent: -
1. The wind was blowing a brisk NE F4, rather than from the W/SW we’d been expecting; this would put it close on the nose for the passage back to Porthmadog, but on the up side it was currently on the port beam, so blowing us off the pontoon and as the harbour entrance lay SSW our departure would be ‘downwind’ too.
2. The idiot from the previous evening was moored just across from us, he was about 100 feet away and almost dead astern – well perhaps 3 or 4 berths ‘upwind’; he’d spotted me too and called across a cheery ‘Good Morning’ along with another offer of assistance for when we wanted to leave as ‘he knew what those Vegas were like’. Pillock! There was no way I was accepting any help from him!
We waited another hour before the tides were right to leave, by which time I’d planned our departure and went back topside to carry it out; first I fired up the engine, whilst calling down to Lesley that she needn’t rush as I was just warming it up and we wouldn’t be going for at least another ten or fifteen minutes – she would not have approved/allowed my actions; when we cast of five minutes later she was still below decks putting on her waterproofs.
Having removed the sail cover, fitted the halyard, etc. I removed all the mooring lines other than a short tight breast line. Whilst doing all this my ‘friend’ across the fairway was shouting across to enquire if I was ready to leave/needed his help yet, whilst I was pointedly not hearing him; as a result he actually disembarked and began walking around the harbour – I didn’t yet realise that this was to make the whole thing even more fun! He was about half way around when I leaned over into the cockpit and banged the gearshift hard into reverse
As usual, there was lots of noise, even more smoke and eventually a pathetic dreg of power was produced at the prop and SF began to edge backwards. I walked beside her along the pontoon, slowly slipping the mid-ship line whilst ensuring that the bow didn’t blow down onto the boat beside us then as we reached the pontoon’s end I stepped up onto the bow and walked back down the side-deck, casually coiling the mooring line as I went. At this point I glanced over and noticed my ‘friend’ for the first time, who was hopping from foot to foot with indecision, I gave him a cheery wave, before taking time out to lean into the companionway and reassure Lesley that there was no hurry, everything was under control and I was quite capable of getting us out single-handed.
I’m sure that from the quayside, what with all the noise and smoke, we probably looked to be reversing toward my ‘friends’ Centaur much more quickly than we actually were, so when I’d given him another wave and reached for my cigarette packet rather than the helm, which was still lashed to the mainsheet, my ‘friend’ made his decision and frantically sprinted back toward his own boat. He moved surprisingly quickly for a man of his age/weight, so that by the time I’d gotten my cigarette alight, had another swig of coffee and released the tiller, he was already diving across his own cockpit, with a balloon fender in hand; his coffee cup got knocked over as he passed and his hat fell overboard when he collided with the pushpit rail – it was all very frantic.
We by this time, whilst still a good 30 feet away from his stern, were finally going quite quickly toward it, but with the engine revving I really couldn’t hear what my ‘friend’ was saying to me; but with his bright red face and frantically waving arms, I got the impression that he was quite agitated. I pushed the throttle lever back into neutral, which made things much quieter and enabled me to hear a garbled scream; he was saying something about a ‘...ucking maniac, going to hit...!’ I didn’t catch the rest as I’d released the tiller once again and stuck my head into the cockpit locker to find a boat hook.
A handy side effect of my throttling back to hear what he was shouting was that SF rapidly slowed down, which coupled with the brisk wind blowing off the bows slewed our stern around to port and left me perfectly placed to pick up his lost hat with the boat hook and also just close enough (with the hook fully extended and a bit of a stretch) to reach my ‘friends’ stern and pass it back to him; along with an assurance that all those stories he’d heard about Vegas not reversing were bollocks. Another smile a final wave and we were on our way; I don’t know why I bothered though, we’ve subsequently seen him twice more when visiting Aberystwith and he doesn’t even speak to me.
I expected to be in trouble from Lesley, but when I looked around she was standing in the companionway grinning and had apparently seen the whole thing. Apparently she’d ‘known you we’re taking the p*** from the moment you stopped-off to light the cigarette’. And our windward beat to Porthmadog? It didn’t happen; over the next hour the wind swung around through E to SE, before finally settling in the South, we’d just about become absolutely convinced that this was going to be our lucky day when the wind rapidly picked up to F7 gusting F8/9; but that’s another story...
Bob Carlisle. Spring Fever 1776.
(Hey, whatever turns your crank). Didn’t seem to slow the boat much with the tunnel in the bow.