T
hings had been going too
smoothly, so when the boat
slowed and I could hear a
strange noise coming from the
rudder...
It was late June when I sailed Kerrin II, my
Westerly Griffon, out of Bradwell Marina for
a week of cruising the north French coast.
The plan was that a friend would join me
for the trip back to the UK from Calais.
This would be his first Channel crossing
under sail and he was keen for the trip to
go ahead. Our attempt last year had been
abandoned when a Force 9 blew across
on our departure day.Channel hop
The trip to Ramsgate was bumpy due to
Force 4-5 head winds against the tide, but
otherwise uneventful. The next day it was
just a short trip to Dover which, having
decided to enter via the western entrance,
meant crossing very busy ferry routes.
The crossing to France would be fromDover to Boulogne and, apart from having
to change course a few times to avoid
vessels in the very busy north-east-going
shipping lane, the passage was pretty
straightforward. AIS helped a lot to figure
out which ships I could ignore and for
which ship I needed to change course to
avoid getting too close.
Two nights in Boulogne marina was very
nice and I even managed to find a bar to
see England beat Columbia on penalties.
Originally, I was also planning to head for
Dieppe – getting there in the north-easterlyABOUT THE AUTHOR
Ron Olivier is an IT
manager with more
than 18 years sailing
experience, 12 of
which are on the East
Coast. He sails his
Westerly Griffon Kerrin II out Bradwell
Marina on the River Blackwater.Ron Olivier faces being swept towards the
shore or a busy shipping lane when his rudder
gets entangled with a floating lobster pot
winds predicted for the foreseeable future
would not be a problem, but coming back
to Calais to pick up my friend would be
another matter. The next leg of the trip
would be to depart Boulogne for
Gravelines, or Calais if I could not make
much progress. Having left Boulogne,
Calais looked like the obvious choice as I
had to beat and tack back and forth
against the continuing Force 4-5 north or
north-east wind. I had just cleared Cap
Gris Nez, and tacked to head inland, when
the boat suddenly slowed and a strange
rattling noise was heard from the rudder.
A quick look over the stern showed the
nature of the problem. I had two dark blue
plastic jerry cans hanging off the rudder.Entanglement
The cans were tied together by a rope,
which had wrapped itself around the
rudder. I could get hold of one end of the
rope using the boat hook, only to find a
large slimy weight attached to the other
end. I had obviously just run over the
remains of a lobster pot, which had been
floating around for a while.
I did keep a lookout for shipping through
the sprayhood, but with the accumulation
of sea salt from the waves, this did not
give the best of visibility, which is why I
didn’t spot the lobster pot. Angry withLEARNING FROM EXPERIENCE
Continental drift...