The Tale of The Luxury Motor Yacht Crewed by Professionals
The First in a mini-series of 4 tales of madness.
“Oooh. Look at that one, it’s a beauty”, declared one member of the crew, not really knowing that Raggies NEVER admit that any kind of Stinkpot is a beauty.
It was certainly a big one, I’ll grant that. Even as it came around the corner of the bay I could see that. About 72.654 feet of big shininess and obviously too big for any kind of gap left on the quay’s leeward side.
“Nah, they’ll go and drop anchor right over by the beach where there’s no fetch”, said the skipper confidently.
Wrong. The professional crew were obviously anxious to be connected to something solid. Maybe they needed the quayside electricity, maybe they were collecting the owners or guests, we’ll never know, but connected they became…
“Nah, I’m wrong, they seem to be headed to our side of the quay”, admitted the skipper. “This’ll be interesting…”
So, in they came. Bow thrusters deployed they lined themselves up to come astern. Two anchors were dropped. Surprisingly only a few metres apart, and then they reversed gently back towards the quay in a rare lull in the wind. We got a hint of what was to become when a crewgirl was given the big lines to throw. I say lines, they were really big knots and soon the inevitable splash as they hit the drink and not the group of groupies on the quayside. A rethrow (well a couple of rethrows) and they soon had a crowd of pullers in to get the ropes over the quay bollards. There was much bow thrusting.
The Prophet of Doom made his appearance and declared his disapproval by shaking his head as he walked back to his boat. Now, knowing that the the PoD had previously proved himself an excellent Doom Meister, I looked over and realised where the doom was going to come from. On Gamecock we call it the Yerakas Theory. We invented it. In Yerakas. In an Experiment. It’s windy in Yerakas.
The laws of geometry demand that unless a boat’s anchor is lying perpendicular to the quay the boat is tied to you get something called sheer. Sheer will drive you mad.
Here’s Captain Crack having our Yerakas moment. In Yerakas. For hours. He was pretty mad…
Anyway, the motor yacht wasn’t lying perpendicular. Not by a long chalk. Fancying my chances to outdo the PoD…
“Now, watch what happens when the wind picks up. You see the crew are all having beers. Well not for long…”, the all new Prophet of Doom spoke forth.
There’s a lot of doom mongering in this blog piece. Sorry about that. Can’t help it. It’s the wind.
Beers were broken out on Gamecock. We had ringside seats but no popcorn. The wind increased. The back end of the stinkpot started swinging. Slow at first and then with increased gusto, and hey! presto! with the sound of tearing, shiny glassfibre the swimming / boat toy platform connected with the quay and rode up on the slight swell over a bollard. More crunchiness was followed a split second later by a mini-fireworks show as the crew’s lit fags were jettisoned in favour of A Lot of Engine and Shouting.
They pushed themselves off quick. Spent the rest of the night motoring around and around in circles in the big bay. I couldn’t see if the crewgirl had been deployed over the back of the boat with an industrial sized cannister of Plastic Padding or whether the stinkpot’s Professsional Captain was having a new one reamed for hours and hours over the phone remotely from Athens by the Greek Shipping Magnate.
Anyway, they were gone next morning, leaving a beautiful, tempting gap…
Part 2 of Four Tales of the Madness TBA…
