I Nearly Killed Someone The Other Day...
A friend in one of the local sailing clubs sent us this article today; it's very much related to the earlier article here about Signal Flags, and tells the story of a nasty situation that could happen to anyone...
I nearly killed someone the other day...
We were returning from our spring cruise to Cornwall taking advantage of easterly winds all the way down channel to Fowey and westerly winds all the way home. We had started motoring early morning across Lyme Bay on the leg from Brixham to Weymouth but by the time we were two thirds across it was blowing a stiff westerly F5, blasting us across the Portland Race 2½ miles south of the Bill then swinging us north east to avoid the Shambles, aiming to leave Portland breakwater to port. With the sun out, and the wind on our quarter, it was “champagne sailing” making around 8 knots through the water plus a knot or two of fair tide, giving a SOG of well over 10 knots.
We had passed numerous lobster pots throughout the morning and especially on the east side of the Isle of Portland. They were generally brightly coloured red or pink, easy to spot and avoid, despite the choppy conditions.
We first noticed an orange coloured fishing boat apparently picking up its pots about a mile dead downwind of us, moving slowly – as they generally do – from buoy to buoy. The fisherman’s heading was always bows on to us.
As we closed on this particular group of pots, aiming to leave the fishing boat to a cable or so to port we noticed that there appeared to be more buoys than ever. Only they weren’t buoys – they were BOYS, being a scattering of surfaced divers each holding a round red inflatable(?) paddle identical in shape and colour to the surrounding lobster pots.
Too late to avoid the group without broaching or “Chinese gybing” under full sail, we shot through the middle of the divers with some nifty sail trimming, missing all of them by at least a boat’s length, although it felt much closer. It was only at this point, as we came abeam of the fishing boat, that we noticed it wasn’t actually fishing but had been chartered for diving and was flying just a single small flag “A” about 9” square above the coachroof.
The prospect of the impact on a human being from a 5 ton boat travelling at speed does not bear thinking about.
We duly exchanged shouts with the fishing/diving boat– he gesticulating and pointing to his pathetic little "A" flag, entirely invisible from upwind, and us bellowing about him not issuing a Ch16 vhf “Securité” warning if he was carrying out underwater activity less than a mile from Portland Harbour entrance on a busy summer Sunday afternoon. We suspect, however, that both exchanges were well lost in the breeze!
Lessons learned for both of us? A reminder for us that at sea “if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it ISN’T necessarily a duck” and perhaps for him – please take a leaf out of those responsible Solent and Poole Bay diving charterers and display “A Boards” which are clearly visible for 360 degrees.
