The rum is gone.

[nanila]

When you hire a 44-foot yacht, and the yacht is named Bertie, it is totally reasonable to be disappointed when you find that it does not automatically come equipped with a dapper, discreet and impeccable butler, y/y? Preferably played by Stephen Fry? Yeah, that's what I thought too.

Despite the lack of butler, we managed to celebrate gin o'clock on a daily basis. We also sailed/motored from Plymouth to Helford River at night. I got up for the early morning shift with Cap'n Rob, pictured above. He suggested that I have a go at helming. I probably should have realised that this was not the best choice to make just after we entered a thick fog bank and visibility was reduced to about 100 metres. Cap'n assured me he was keeping an eye on the radar and that he would let me know if anything came up.

You can guess what's coming, right? Well, I didn't. Instead, I had the sort of experience you expect to see in a naval war film. A red mist began to materialize just off the port bow. As my petrified brain managed to quantify it as a shape, a solid shape, a very big solid shape, I found my voice. "Rob," I called carefully and calmly, "What is that?"

He bounded up the steps from the navigation table, wrenched the tiller out of my frozen hands, swung it hard to starboard, revved the engine and roared, "So that's what's been on the radar for the last ten minutes!"

It was a tanker.

Comments

There's something about Cornwall

[ceb]

When I was sailed round Cornwall on a square-rigger, we had a critical engine failure going round the pointy end and the entire crew had to be woken up in a hurry at 2am to set the sails...

[doccy]

When I was steering (when I was 17, across the North Sea), the red thing that loomed at us was just a buoy. I'm impressed! You almost caught a whole tanker!

[lark_ascends]

OMG.

That picture is beautiful, though.

[ironed_orchid]

OMG!

Re: There's something about Cornwall

[nanila]

A square-rigger! Wow! How many masts?

After the tanker episode, we remembered we'd been hearing chatter on the VHF in Russian. I'd be willing to bet those guys were sitting on the tanker going, "Check out the numpties on that yacht. Bet they don't have AIS."

[nanila]

And after managing to miss all those lobster pots, too!

[nanila]

I don't know whether to be proud that I didn't panic, or worried that I wouldn't have reacted quickly enough had I been on my own.

Thank you! Photos like that make getting up at dawn worthwhile.

[nanila]

One of these days I need to try going on a boring holiday. I haven't managed it yet.

Re: There's something about Cornwall

[ceb]

It was the Earl of Pembroke, a 3-master which lives at St Austell - they take paying passengers when they're sailing about anyway, and it was coming back from the Bristol Harbour Festival:
http://www.square-sail.com/square_rig_ships/earl.html

I'm quite impressed by your calmness and presence of mind! :-)

[foxfinial]

ahhhh omg that's amazing and terrifying.

[nanila]

Oh, that's a beautiful ship. If I can, someday I'll pay to take a short journey on her.

I'm not sure if it was calm. It was more like shock. I don't think we'd have hit the tanker, as I'm sure they saw us and had slowed down already, but I didn't have a chance to react physically before Rob did. I'd like to think I would have done the same, but I'm not sure!

[nanila]

I certainly won't forget this trip. Not just because of that, but it's definitely up there in terms of memorable episodes!