The Chinese have a saying about living in “interesting times”. Well Capt Steve has been there the last 3 or 4 days.
We were talking on the cell the other day and Steve informed me that he was moving the boat as a Blighwater freighter had anchored within about 40 meters of Iron Lady. Bad enough, but a salvage crew had been raising a sunken fishing vessel near us and then proceeded to bracket Iron Lady between it and the freighter. As a good Captain, Steve picked up and moved, but you have to wonder where the heads of the other “professionals” were?
Good thing our good Captain Steve moved, because the winds came up to 35 knots – fortunately, despite erronius forecasts, he had the dink aboard and was prepared for the worst. The system arrived 24 hours earlier then forecast.
As the heavy winds moved in, Steve reported that the Japanese fishing boats arrived en mass just before the blow and proceeded to anchor just upwind of Iron Lady. Steve put on the radar with a lock on the boats (3 rafted up on one anchor) and predictably – in the middle of our cell conversation and 35 knots of wind they began to drag. We promptly ended the cell conversation and Steve dealt with the issue at hand.
By the time our anchor was up, the Japanese boats were within one boat length of Iron lady – the crew were standing on the back deck of one of the boats – they were still not underway and were not responding to hails on the VHF and their radars were off.
One has to wonder where they got their ticket.
As the evening wore on, there were frantic and vitriolic calls on the VHF as 9 out of 10 Yachties who had moved closer to a lee shore dragged – no disastrous consequences but a nasty evening for all and some scrapes, bumps and bruises.
Here are the lessons learned – get a good Capt like Capt Steve. Stay away form the pack. Never trust the qualifications of another vessel’s Capt.
Finally – get a GREAT BIG anchor that everybody else laughs at. Nine times out of ten they are wrong and the price can be high when things go bump in the night.