Weekend of the 20th won't be forgotten too quickly by my crew !
Having spent odd day's out so far over the summer, they arrive by taxi, with a third person, whom I've not seen before. Usual processes my skipper sort things out above deck, whilst Alex, works below. The wind was blowing me on to the pontoon and the issue of whether my batteries survived the total discharging from the fridge the previous weekend was dubious, Needles to say, the bow thrusters draw on the available resources was too much and would take out my other systems when deployed.
So not sure if it was this that took my skippers attention away from the fact that the tide had turned and was ebbing quite quickly, but having reversed against the tide my bow didn't come out quite as far as he would like. Worse than that, as my stern spring line was released and I moved off the pontoon the rudder was now travelling at the same speed as the current and therefore was rendered useless, for anything other than waving at fish !
I drifted at speed into an old wooden gaff rigged boat Polly Agatha, however her anchor happened to be on my side and was caught in the guard rail. There was no way out. The push pit was bent, as was my Marlec wind generator's frame. Both steel rails snapped and the gate post & stanchion bent, fortunately, if there is such a thing the gate wasn't closed, so everything in front to the bow remained un-touched.
Once back on my berth, my skipper and his new crew mate set too removing as many bent parts they could to make me safe. He also went over to Polly Agatha to see what had been done and apart from a 2 foot section of 1 inch rope nothing seemed to have happened.
The following weekend however the owner had a good look over Polly and spotted that the two huge bolts that hold the anchor on had been pulled. So a professional inspection will be required.
