An error of judgment and a neat trick when blown on

I promised that there would be mistakes to learn from on this blog. I have kept quite about them so far but here is one that occurred last weekend.

It was already mid afternoon because torrential rain kept us from setting out earlier. That’s the way we planned it so it was OK; no frustration. Having tacked our way south for 3nm at a rate that dropped 1-2 kts in wind that dropped to less less than 2 kts and sometimes nothing as it backed, we decided to put into a visitors’ berth for one of the cafes that blossom in Finland at this time of year.

On arrival we found the two outermost berths on the cafe's floating pontoon were occupied but there were mooring rings on the jetty it extended from. The water was pretty shallow so I nosed in gingerly. The bottom looked to be covered in silt but the jetty seems to be built over what is charted as a submerged rock and there was no telling how much soft stuff there was to cushion the blow if we touched.

We had just come alongside when Tuulia said it felt as if we had “bumped”. When it came again I felt it too. In the last moments before tying up the echo sounder had stopped giving a reading. Its sensitivity range starts at 1m, as per the factory setting, so I guessed the depth was one meter. I quickly retrieved and used the lead line, which is kept with all those other things that may be needed in a hurry. As expected we had 1m of water all round. With a draft of .55m I was wondering, in a positive way, if we would be OK to stay, given that the Baltic is non-tidal and the Alacrity is designed to be able to take to the ground. Wrong!


At that moment the wake of a powerboat  came in. It had recently passed with all the consideration of one of those German cars driven by people who seem to think they own the road and the rules don’t apply to them and it felt like we  bounced off rather than touched the bottom in each of the troughs. Time to leave and move to another small jetty we have tied up to before!

This was the moment some well meaning but rather drunk Swedish speaking Fins decided to engage us in conversation and pass their opinion as to our predicament. They also offered to walk Little Grace back to the outer berth as it was occupied by their boat and they were leaving. However, I did not like to the look of the corners of the jetty and pontoon as these were joined together by a small bridge some 2 meters away from the edge we were attached to and would have to be walked along. So once our helpers finally relinquished their hold of the shrouds and stanchions I got Tuulia to drop the last line onto the deck and made way.

Tuulia stayed on the pontoon as we had agreed that she would walk round and take the lines as I came in at the other jetty. Our helpers had shown that they were not a danger to Tuulia’s safety, in fact it proved quite the reverse because in their fogy state made worse by the language issues they were concerned that I was leaving her behind on a more permanent basis. Anyway, we carried on regardless and they left in high spirits and full song.

Tying up was uneventful but the chips at the cafe were not up to the standard we so fondly remembered from 2010 . Nontheless they were warm and the stop gave the dogs a break and the trip a feeling of arriving at a destination to return from.

Back at the boat we found the wind had picked up and was pinning us onto the jetty. Springing the stern out was the textbook option but I wanted to try something I had read about on my Kindle in The Complete Trailer Sailor by Brian Gilbert. It may not be anything new to people used to using a transom mounted outboard on a small yacht but I am more familiar with bigger boats where the technique isn't an option, so I was keen to give it a try. In truth I tried it a few weeks ago but there was no wind, this would be a true test.

Tuulia sat on the foredeck, she could have come up through the hatch if conditions were poor, and waited by the bow line, which I had changed to a slip through a ring ashore. I added an extra fender to the pulpit and I removed the stern line and the spring. As predicted from the lack of tension on any of these lines Little Grace remained pinned alongside. I motored back until the bow line tightened, angled the rudder and outboard away from the jetty and increased the power. The intention is that the boat swings out from the where the bow line is attached ashore like a pendulum, a feat made possible by the fact that an outboard can be angled in the direction of travel. The stern came away but Tuulia indicated that the bow was still pinned to the jetty, so I increased first the power and then the angle and we came away. Tuulia was then able to slip the bowline as we backed away. It is a neat trick and worth practicing but it took higher revs from the outboard for a longer period of time than springing off.

The sail home was one long tack at 3.5 to 4 kts, according to the GPS log. Yes the wind, now a steady minimum of 2ms, had swung right round. I was able to stay inside the 10m contour all the way by luffing up in the minor gusts.