BLUEMOMENT

Gentlemans sail : 18 -20 kn up the sheugh and the bungalow going like a train through the Ardrossan triangle and up to Farland Head, racing in a sort of concocted cruising class toward Largs for the club closing muster.
Up ahead there's a white ship...isn't moving much, not a ferry, not a posh yot full of golf fans helicoptering to Gleneagles, WTF issit? Anyway, head for a course under it's stern as it's going East -West and we're going South -North. Going well and almost in control, delighted with performance, we could now read the name of the ship - Rene Descartes, and noted curiously they had large russet rectangles with the word 'orange' where a fishery or border protection boat would have its coloured flashes.
As we were just about to wheech under the stern, two safety boats appeared and forced us to go back ahead of the ship - engine on = race rules broken + bouffing into horrible seas round the bow. The ship was not showing any day shapes or lights and appeared to be under way. Our subsequent VHF conversation revealed they were a cable layer but we had no way of knowing.
Shouldn't be allowed - there should be bollox, diamonds, and whatever dangling for all to see and the safety boats should be out there to give timely warning if required.
All was made clear by our resident comms forumist (you know who you are) in a text msg , it's fibre broadband coming to Arran, but there's the unanswered question of who was the VHF operator slagging WAFIs during the dialogue between Sahona and Rene D?
At least they (Les Oranges) started regular broadcasts to warn vessels and request clearance.

ISTR seeing something about Rene Descartes on Navtex last weekend.

She was around a month or so ago working round the Tiree/Coll area iirc. Stornoway had a nav warning for the Rene Dezcartez. Came across a strange vessel in Tobes that works with her. The RD lays the fibre cable and then this other boat follows towing a sort of buggy. The buggy has a couple of nozzles which blasts water either side of the cable to create a mini trench which the cable then falls into. There is no backfilling - time and the current must do that.

All this via a hired hand who seemed enthusiastic about his job.

All day Monday they were calling on Ch16. There were alternating messages. In Franglais warning of their operations, but instead of saying something like "off the east Side of Arran north of Brodick" they just said at Corrie Point.
I had to look that up to find out what it was all about.

And the other announcement was a fisherman's Fraserburgh accent calling to a fishing boat at a location given as lat and long to a decimal of a minute.
As if a fisherman would listen on 16 (don't they all use 77 or summat?)
As if a fishing boat would recognise itself by location given that way?

It all seemed a bit haphazard.

Then I read they'd managed to loose their plough somewhere on the seabed.

Broadband for the islands, good idea.
But I wish that I could get even narrowband here in W Lothian. I'm forced to use mobilephoneband to get any internet at all.