Jib-booms and bobstays! Secret Water galoots

The alarm went off at 4:30 as set. I wasn't as rested as I'd hoped. The water around us was much more crowded than when we had anchored - most of the boats who had gone to Stone Point had moved over to escape the difficult Walton Channel.

I got the anchor up and ended up with my hands covered in mud. Alison motored us round towards the outbound channel and offered me a bucket to wash my hands. She lifted the cockpit hatch to get the bucket out and the folding seat she had been using flew overboard.

It floated and she did a 360° turn to catch it. I said “you are miles away from it” and she said “the tide will take it down”, which of course, it didn’t as the tide was taking us down equally quickly. Something we should have taken more note of at the time.

Alison went round again and missed it again.

The third time, I gave explicit instructions and Alison followed them to the letter and we brought up with the seat by the cockpit and I lifted it in.

And we heard a clunk and a scratching sound.

The tide had taken us down onto Transcur’s bow, and we had both been so intent watching the seat that we hadn’t been looking to port at all. The sound we had heard was her bowsprit running gently along the cabin roof and the hatch.

The bobstay was fending us off her bow.

Pete was up in a moment, followed by Claire. Inanda was rafted on Transcur’s starboard beam and Pete got Claire to drop her back out of the way while he reefed the bowsprit, freeing us up and letting us drop round to where Inanda had been where we could motor off again.

It was all over in about 2 minutes and no real damage done to either boat, but we both felt really stupid. I was the day’s skipper and Alison was helm, so we shared the blame for not keeping lookout pretty equally. As Nancy would have said, galoots, both of us.

We headed out of the channel and I washed my hands in the bucket and we got the sails up. We turned the motor off as we passed the No 2 buoy and were officially racing.