Hi all

We had around 30 knots in Port Huon at lunchtime and i was driving along the waterfront and saw that one of the older local yachts had broken its mooring and was getting blown along the river bank towards the wharf

Went to the local slip operators house to ask if he knew who owned it and he tried to call them

We decided to see if we could catch it and jumped in my dinghy and went out to a 30 footer but by this time it was aground on the rocks but still upright in a falling tide

We went as close as we could in the 30 footer but were getting a bit short on depth and the wind was still trying to blow us ashore and hopped in the dinghy and went over to it to see if we could get a line on it and drag it off with the 30 footer but unfortunately the only rope we had was about 10 meters long and the hatch on the one aground was locked so we could not see if there was anything aboard we could extend it with

We the length of rope we had we decided we would be risking running the tow boat aground trying to get it off and it was not going to hit anything else so we gave up

When i got back onshore i drove to where it was and there were 2 blokes on it (i assume 1 was the owner) and 1 in about a 14 foot dinghy trying to tow it off for a couple of hours but the didn't have any success

It went aground on a 1.4 meter tide and it is a .3 at the moment and a 1.1 at 1 am tomorrow morning so i am not sure if they are going to give it another go then

Went for a walk down there this afternoon and the remainder of the mooring was still attached and it looks like the top chain has worn through

Bit sad we could not get it off but we didn't thing it was worth the risk of having 2 boats aground

Regards Don

Good on you Don. Unfortunately I do this fairly often. Usually just row out the anchor as far as possible. In this case a weight off the halyard to keep her leaning when the tide comes in might be the go. People have too much faith in chain. The silt is just like grinding paste.

Getting dragged in a dinghy reminds me of a Navy story. I was Commanding Officer of the submarine base in Neutral Bay, Sydney in its last years. The powers to be were taking assets away without much thought.

We needed to put oil booms around the subs after they berthed, about 200 metres of heavy floating boom. We had a couple of 40ft workboats to do it. The powers decided we could do it with a 5 metre tinny with a 30hp outboard. Despite my arguments they took my workboats.

The following week I rang the said officer who did this and asked him if he would mind sending a boat to the middle of the harbour where a tinny with two troops and 200 metres of boom were blocking the shipping channel, stopping all the ferries and a car carrier going to White Bay. The tinny with two sailors aboard were abeam Fort Denison when rescued, in a 35kt noreaster.

I got my workboats back that day.

And I learnt a lesson about towing big things with little boats in strong winds.

MorningBird said..
Getting dragged in a dinghy reminds me of a Navy story. I was Commanding Officer of the submarine base in Neutral Bay, Sydney in its last years. The powers to be were taking assets away without much thought.

We needed to put oil booms around the subs after they berthed, about 200 metres of heavy floating boom. We had a couple of 40ft workboats to do it. The powers decided we could do it with a 5 metre tinny with a 30hp outboard. Despite my arguments they took my workboats.

The following week I rang the said officer who did this and asked him if he would mind sending a boat to the middle of the harbour where a tinny with two troops and 200 metres of boom were blocking the shipping channel, stopping all the ferries and a car carrier going to White Bay. The tinny with two sailors aboard were abeam Fort Denison when rescued, in a 35kt noreaster.

I got my workboats back that day.

And I learnt a lesson about towing big things with little boats in strong winds.

I was the workboat coxswain there in 1969 for 3 months, only had one workboat then. One Friday afternoon I was doing a cold move of two patrol boats during a fresh Westerly and snapped the steering cable. I had to get rescued by the dive boat!

There are so many boats on moorings in Australia which are never used. The NSW Central Coast Brisbane Waters [where I currently sail] are full of them. Tragic really when they could better go to a good home and be used by ppl who would have respect for them.

That storm caused havoc on the Brisbane Waters. Lots of damage to the GSC moorings.