A windy day in Ramsgate

Basty arrived around 1330, just in time to witness another round of stowage rationalisation on board the good ship Bonny, because, sure enough and as forecast it was very windy and we weren't going anywhere. 

Well that's not strictly true. We did move backwards, sideways and forwards over the course of about half an hour in the area between the long pontoon we were moored to and other pontoons opposite which created a fairway about 60 metres long and 15 metres wide. 

We had decided we would move further into the marina in an attempt to get out of the swell. The trouble was the strong wind was pinning us so hard  against the pontoon that the usual tactic of "springing off" (reversing with a line from the stern running forward to the pontoon in order to pull the stern in and therefore the bow out) was completely ineffective. Thankfully I gave up trying just in time to avoid running full tilt into the boat in front. Next I tried to reverse off the pontoon. That worked but there was just not enough room to get up enough speed to turn the boat across the wind and all I managed to do was to hold her more or less stationary across the fairway with the wind blowing from behind.

It quickly became apparent that we had little choice but to go back from whence we came. I did so by driving the bow slowly against the pontoon enabling Mick to somehow get 'ashore' and prevent serious damage as the bow then scraped alongside the pontoon. With our downeind progress halted the rest of the boat was then blown slongside the pontoon!

A couple of hours later this boat 

came charging in to moor up opposite us. One mistake would have spelt disaster for them and us! However, the young woman skipper with a sail training crew of four men handled the situation perfectly. She stopped the boat on a sixpence parallel to the pontoon and two crew immediately jumped 'ashore' to attach lines to the pontoon fore and aft. Within seconds the lines were secured and just as well, because they were immediately bar tight as the  wind did it's best to blow what was probably 7 tons of boat directly on to us.  It probably took the crew 15 minutes to manouvre their boat back the 2 or so metres the boat had been blown off whilst the crew attached the lines.

All in all a very impressive performance. I just hope no one was watching my earlier shinanigins!