The rescue
tugs seem to have had a time of it, too, what with the tow line breaking and
all. One begins to wonder what has happened to the art of seamanship in these
days when cruise ships are shaped like gigantic apartment blocks and the
air-conditioned bridge stands a hundred feet up in the air, remote and isolated
from that nasty old sea.
It all
reminded me of the only time so far I have needed a tow into port. I was singlehanding back from Canada on a
dead calm day when the Westerbeke’s water pump quit and I had to shut it down. It took me six hours to sail the four miles to
the nearest marina at Chemainus, on Vancouver Island.
I dropped
the sails about a quarter mile outside the harbor entrance, hopped into my
10-foot fiberglass dinghy, and attached a tow line to the thwart. I sculled with one oar over the stern, and
noted how little power it took to move the boat, a Cape Dory 27-footer
displacing between 7,500 and 9,000 pounds, depending on which marina crane
driver you believed. I waggled the oar
back and forth, keeping a nice steady pressure on the tow line, and the boat
followed obediently at perhaps a knot or so in the calm water. I didn’t even
raise a sweat.
A couple of
kind Canadians came running when I entered the marina on a shortened tow line,
probably more concerned about the damage I could do to their boats, but I
managed to nudge the Cape Dory sideways into a vacant berth and they helped me
make fast.
A kind
skipper of a 50-footer from the Royal Vancouver Yacht Club invited me to supper
aboard his boat with friends, and also gave me a 10-mile tow to Maple Bay next
day, after I discovered there was no marine mechanic available in Chemainus.
I found one
in Maple Bay all right, but he discovered that the water pump was beyond
repair, so I had to order a new one from Seattle, which meant a wait of four
days. I couldn’t complain, though. Maple
Bay was a good place for an enforced stay.
It had a pub and restaurant just a few steps away from my berth. It wasn’t a totally luxurious holiday, but it
was heaven compared with what the thousands of passengers on that cruise ship
have had to put up with. At least I didn’t have to eat raw onion sandwiches or
dodge streams of sewage coursing through my cabin.
Today’s Thought
What evil luck soever
For me remains in store,’Tis sure much finer felows
Have fared much worse before.
— A. E. Houseman, Last Poems
Tailpiece
“Did you see
the doctor?”“Yeah, he said I had water on the knee.”
“Did he fix it?”
“Yeah, he gave me a tap on the leg.”
(Drop by
every Monday, Wednesday, Friday for a new Mainly about Boats column.)
3 comments:
Interesting. I discovered how easy it is to tow a boat from a dinghy last summer when my engine died a few hundred yards from my mooring. I anchored, tried to get the engine running again without success, wondered if I could get a tow to my mooring from someone, but then had the crazy idea of trying the dinghy. But it worked, and there was even a bit of wind and current to deal with.
Its amazing what you can do yourself if you try.
All's well that ends well--- but what would happen to these obviously ill prepared cruise ships if the same thing happened in bad weather
We use a 6hp outboard on our CD27 and it pushes it along pretty well, surprisingly enough. We were shocked, even in moderate currents, it keeps her pushing along with less than 25% throttle.
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