I'd thought to offer it to Nick to join t'other half-dozen tales I'd donated to Blue Moment in years past, but Peter Nielsen - 'Sail' Editor - pays better....
Good one. We're getting Santa to supply new lifejackets that we will actually wear for a change.
Hopefully these new fangled ones will be as second-nature as seatbelts and crash helmets have become (however reluctantly...)
http://trooncruisingclub.org/ 20' - 30' Berths available, Clyde.
Cruising, racing, maintenance facilities. Go take a look, you know you want to.
I admit I'm not often in the habit of bothering with the LJ for doing little trips ashore (e.g. taking the dogs a hundred yards from the anchored boat to a scrap of rock to do their business).
Last cruise we were on, I'd done the usual go ashore the evening we arrived, quick scout around, and in the morning take SWMBO and baby ashore, having identified a safe landing spot. On this occasion, she says to me "You mean over by that yellow thing?" Yes, I reply, a little puzzled as I hadn't noticed anything on the shore there the night before. As we pulled up, she says "Oh look, it's a life jacket that's gone off". Thoughts immediately turned to the macabre. Funny, that's the same model as my LJ, was my next thought. I looked down at my chest to confirm, and of course no LJ to be seen there.
For some reason I had decided to wear my LJ the night before, out of habit, and then more typically had not put it back on when I had returned to the dinghy. Well at least I know it works now anyway.
Round Mull Race last July, Bunessan early on the Sunday morning with not a lot of time till the start, the anchor still down and the Avon still floating with the outboard on the stern. So the skipper, barely out his scratcher and still in his bare feet leaps - well, gently lowers himself - into the dinghy, hands the engine up and then attempts to get back up on the boat. Bare feet skid on rubber, dinghy shoots away and for an interesting moment the skipper is suspended horizontally between boat and dinghy. This moment didn't last long and with hardly a splash all that was left was a pair of hands hanging on the boat gunwale. Loch na Lathaich is bloody cold in July!
bilbo wrote:Peeps might care to read this wee tale by YrsTrly. http://flip.it/nl-RVd
I'd thought to offer it to Nick to join t'other half-dozen tales I'd donated to Blue Moment in years past, but Peter Nielsen - 'Sail' Editor - pays better....
Very good.
The Muzz was Coxn of Fleetwood Lifeboat and is absolutely religious about wearing a lifejacket - sadly, I tend to be a bit selective. The grandaughter taught me a lesson by refusing to wear hers unless I wore mine. Checkmate.
My only criticism of the article is with the illustration - Bilbokins, yer no' tha guid lookin'