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November 2004

The Newsletter of Spinnaker Club, Ringwood

www.spinnakerclub.co.uk

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A tender tale

For some 20 years we have shared a yacht with friends, and we have worn out one Avon rubberdub.

Our second Avon is ten years old and due for replacement as it is now covered in patches.

We spent 14 days on board in Croatia this year, where a hazard is the Bora, a strong wind that builds up from nothing in about 15 minutes, sometimes reported to gust to 160 kts.

We are back in UK now, but we have just heard the following news from the yacht.

We had a bit of a blow on Saturday, 23 August. There had been forecasts through the day that the wind would pick up to 20 kts from the SE and that after that we would see squally thunder­storms possibly bringing the wind up to 30-40kts. As we had already seen wind of 25kts from this direction in the anchorage we were not concerned too much.

As the day went on the wind did not build up. By 8pm I felt that the air was getting muggy (though no darker) so we decided to take the awning down. By the time we had shoved the awning down the focsle hatch, the sky had gone pitch black. In an instant we were hit on the beam by a 60 knot squall, which pulled our anchor (we had 50 metres out in 8m of water), we were already letting warp out but this didn't help.

We got the engine on and managed to crawl forward to pick the anchor up (avoiding other dragging yachts, with very scared guests looking like they were in the painting 'the scream'). By now the dinghy was upside down and we had 1m waves in a sheltered anchorage. As we clawed forwards, we kept getting hit by side gusts that caused us to 'broach' and we had to go full circle to head back up into the wind.

I then became concerned that we may get the dinghy line wrapped around the propeller, so Sian tried to move the dinghy to midships. As she did this a gust came, lifted the dinghy clean out of the water and it was lost. We then went to recover the swim ladder, but this had been pulled off the boat (even though it was tied on).

We endured 50-60 knot gusts for 25 minutes. The spray was horizontal and was more like hailstones. This was followed by 30-40 knot gusts for a further 40 minutes. I think that all boats in the anchorage dragged. Later we found one had been run aground and others had come very close to the rocks. By 21:30 it had calmed down enough for us to re-anchor. We asked the water taxi driver who had arrived to search around the adjacent islands but he could not find the dinghy. I had already put out an all stations radio call but had not heard anything back.

At 06:00 on Sunday we were woken by shouting and horns blaring. Looking out of the focsle we saw a 30m x 15m barge that had been tied up at the shipyard (carrying the stern section of a 70m ship) that had been directly upwind nestled on the rocks behind us. This had dragged an anchor through all the anchored yachts, had not hit any yacht, nor picked up anybody's anchor - nobody could believe that no damage had resulted from this.

At 08:30 I put out an all stations again and Radio Dubrovnik came back to say that a dinghy matching our description had been sighted at 42 degrees 51' N and 17 degrees 14.3' E (5Nm SE of Korcula island). By 09:30 they confirmed that it had not been picked up. A Bora was blowing, so I waited until 10:30, when it had eased to go out in a water taxi to search for it.

There was a 1m swell from the West and heavy chop from the North so neither I nor the water taxi driver (Lugo had been in merchant service on bulk carriers for 25 years, rising to Captain) believed we had any hope of finding the dinghy.

I predicted that the dinghy would have drifted a further 2Nm in the 4 hours since the 08:00 reported sighting (6Nm in 12 previous hours) and based on the wind that morning expected it to have gone somewhere between S and SSW of the reported position. We got out to the 08:00 sighting position and motored South for exactly 2Nm, and Lugo spotted a tender 0.3Nm to starboard. Lo and behold it was our dinghy, floating upright with the outboard still attached. It was now 7Nm south of Korcula Island.

The upshot is that we towed it back, I got the outboard checked and she is working fine. The yellow seats and the fuel tank have gone (as well as 2 pairs of shoes).

After this incident I think the dinghy is saying that she doesn't want to be parted from us. Paul Mathews

Swimming

The new Suggestions Box offered a plea for a dedicated bathing area. Most members are aware of the frustrations caused on those uncomfortably hot days when a dip in the Lake is so tempting!

Yet Club rules and bylaws expressly ban bathing. This is also one of the Club’s tenancy obligations towards its water company landlord. Spinnaker Lake is after all a drinking water reservoir.