About the Author
Peter Stone started sailing dinghies
in his teens, but really developed
his interest when he ‘volunteered’
to crew Service yachts while
serving in the Royal Navy. He now
spends most summers sailing his
Degero DS33 between Scotland and
Brittany, depending on the weather
and availability of crew.learning from experience
Head
over
heels
Peter Stone recalls
falling from grace
due to a loose rope
H
aving always considered one
of the riskier parts of sailing
getting to and from my yacht,
the idea was reinforced a
couple of years ago when
I helped rescue four middle-aged
gentlemen whose dinghy had capsized
returning from a pub in south Devon.
One man was trapped between two
yachts, slowly being pushed under the
water by the increasing tide. Thankfully,
the incident had a happy outcome and
was covered in a yachting magazine letter
from the crew of a nearby yacht, which
had been unable to offer any effective
assistance from their elevated position
on the deck of their boat.
Consequently, when paddling back
and forth to my own boat, I consider
the conditions and risks, aiming to
make best use of the weather and
tide for each journey and allow for
any potential dangers that might arise.
On one particularly memorable
occasion, anchored in Strangford Lough
in County Down, I had to get Bob – my
departing crew – ashore to catch a bus
to the airport. He had to return back to
normality after a week sailing from Wales
to Northern Ireland. I then had a week
of single-handed sailing before my next
crew joined me in Scotland.
Having said goodbye to Bob, I did
some shopping for perishable foods that
I needed for the following week. Heading
back to the dinghy pontoon, I took a few
photographs before climbing down the
wall ladder which started just below
the level of the quay. Luckily, there
was a rope tied around two bollards on
the quay, which had proved useful as
a handhold during the earlier ascent.
However, as I grabbed the rope, the
quay started to fall away from me and
I realised the rope was no longer secured
to the bollards. Time seemed to slow asI realised that the ladder was out of my
reach, and I looked down to assess where
I was going to hit the pontoon, 10ft below.
There was an 18in space between the
pontoon and the quay supports, which
I decided was a better option to fall into.
I twisted my body, turning so my right leg
would impact the pontoon rather than my
infirm left one, which tends to break when
I fall on it. I reached up towards the fixed
end of the rope with my left hand, trying
to pull myself as high as possible, keeping
the shopping aloft while trying to angle
towards the gap and make a water entry.
Tom Daley would not have been
impressed with the way I hit the water,