Quite a lot actually!!
Went out for a play on the Solent today but left the rib at home, myself on my ski ( RXT 300hp ) and my mate in his fletcher speed boat. Around mid afternoon on a whim we decided to pop into colwell bay and have a brew. 5 minutes after anchoring the fletcher we watched a large yacht raise its anchor and the drift back towards a substantial Motor boat, the yachts stern got quite (very) close to the MB and then went ahead to clear the boat, all well and good except all the yacht managed to do was wrap the MBs anchor chain around its prop and winch the two boats together! Doh!!
Lots of panicked shouting and the two immobilised boats now started drifting with the tide towards other anchored craft.
I said to my mate shall we go and see if they need a hand, we both hopped on the ski and went out to the craft, when we got there the yachts crew were flapping, they were 30 seconds away from crashing into another large anchored motor boat ( the yacht had no means of making headway and the MB that was attached to them had no crew - I'm guessing at this stage they were in 'the hut' restaurant having a beer! ).
Not good!
We shouted for a line and one the the yachts crew fixed a bow line and threw us the end, we quickly tied on and and took up the stain, fortunately we just managed to drag the two boats clear of next anchored MB, it was bloody close!
We then held the yacht/MB at station against the tide and wind for about 15mins, then the tide started picking up and we knew we would soon struggle to continue to hold the two craft - immediately behind us Colwell is shallow, too shallow for the larger boats. I then spotted a large fairline leaving the bay and managed to raise him on 16 to help with the tow - which he kindly did ( thank you
).
To cut a long story short, 1 and a half hours, lost/cut anchors, snapped tow lines ( don't they go with a bang! lol ), a poorly yacht and two lifeboats ( one inshore and a Severn class ).
Other than that a quiet afternoon
FX SHO
