Adrian Morgan
W
hen the prop shaft’s jammed, and it’s blowing
hard from the south west, picking up a
mooring under sail in the little bay we call
Loggie was never going to be easy. And with a hard bit
of the Highland shoreline sticking up ahead, a sheer
rock face to the left and about a dozen moored yachts
downwind it needed precision – and luck.
Don’t let us be too hard on ourselves, us weekend
and holiday sailors. For all the laptop yacht mastering
in the winter months, it’s practice that makes perfect,
and you can’t expect us to handle our boats like
professionals every other weekend.
If my little Yanmar had been able to turn Sally’s
prop I would most certainly have kept it in reserve that
day. When she was moored on the Hamble opposite
Mercury, I would make a point of picking up my
mooring under sail, which invariably meant heading
downwind, followed by a handbrake turn into wind.
It did not always go to plan, so there was the engine,
prudently ticking away.
One time it was set to go badly wrong. As I rounded
up it was clear Sally wouldn’t make it at which point,from the deck of the large white motor yacht tied up on
the hammerhead opposite came roars of laughter and
clapping from a bunch of people I might have hitherto
called friends. But let’s face it, we all love watching
other people make a mess of things. Isn’t that part of
the delicious schadenfreude that goes with this pastime?
The thing is not to be too harsh on ourselves or more
to the point, others. How I loathe those yachting-capped,
red-trousered, blue-ensigned ex Admirals and their
headscarfed wives who appear to disdain the honest
knockabout sailor, with his sloppy accident-prone ways.
I’d like to think that I would rather rush to the pontoon
with a spare fender in hand than see a collision. There
but for the grace of god...
This year to date (early July), after a few months
when Sally was ashore having a much needed fettling,
there’s been very little yachting done. If I were an airline
pilot then a refresher course would be in order. We
are fortunate in being lightly regulated, and thus prone
to get a little rusty over the winter, until a yachting
simulator that matches the experience of beating into
a head sea and a Force 6 (or picking up a mooring
under sail) is devised.
We hit the sea running in May and foolishly expect
ourselves to be as competent as the day we slid her into
the berth the previous November after the last sail of
the season.
This time, with Sally’s prop shaft spinning freely, her
undersides as smooth as a dolphin’s back, we confidently
headed shorewards, towards the
orange pick-up buoy under mainsail
alone. The little Yanmar chuntered
down below, gear lever in neutral.
A broad swoop to leeward, a sharp
rounding up and a gentle nudging
into the buoy, whereupon, boat hook in hand ready on
the foredeck I would stroll forward (never run, besides
if you look nonchalant the successful outcome of the
manoeuvre will be doubly impressive to onlookers),
hook the line, and make fast, as Sally drops back in
the wind.
Except, of course she didn’t. The stroll was
nonchalant enough, and the boathook did indeed come
to hand, it was simply that Sally, well, refused to stop,
nudged the buoy gently – enough for me to grab the
pick up – and just as gently continued on her way,
all five tonnes of her – and that was probably the crux
of the matter. Sally was far cleaner than when I last
sailed her onto her mooring in November 2018.
I hung doggedly to the line, while Sally performed a
pirouette downwind, gybed and once more headed into
wind in a gentle, non-threatening display of benevolent
bloody mindedness, as if to remind me who was boss,
who had been around for 87 years and who, like a wise
old horse, would only tolerate poor horsemanship so
far. Eventually she settled; we made our peace. The
engine meanwhile ticked away, unused and useless.Adrian is reminded who’s boss – his 87-year-old yacht
‘I hung
doggedly
to the line,
while Sally
performed
a pirouette
downwind’CHARLOTT
E^ WATTERSMooring for an audience