Zen or The Art of Coarse Boating II

With a motor boat they still can't hear you scream.

After sail comes motor. Motor boats are similar in that you can get
into all kinds of scrapes with them, the difference is that it all goes
wrong a lot faster and into any point of the wind.

The added factor of MECHANICAL THINGS that can also go wrong at random
add to the spice of motor boating.

When somebody spots some thing going wrong with your sailing craft they
can bellow a warning and you can usually hear it.

In a motor boat with a wheelhouse and an inboard diesel engine you can
see the panicked look and see the lips moving but all you can hear is
the steady hammer of the engine. Distracted by their silent cinema type
gesticulations you take your eye off the plot and run into what ever it
was they were warning you about.

The same provisos about jamming your fingers between the boat and the
jetty or another boat still apply, the only difference will be in the
level of injury sustained.

Poole Harbour may be the Northern Hemisphere's largest natural harbour
(beaten in size only by Sidney Harbour down under) but it isn't the
deepest. Much of it, at high tide, has only a light covering or water
to make it look nice. Out of the dredged navigation channels there is a
particularly good line in mud, some of the heaviest and stickiest I've
ever encountered.

As such the risk of running aground is always at the front of one's
mind, at least it should be.
In a previous piece on the subject I mentioned my friend Tom. Tom has a
lovely fast motor boat and, being an ex chief engineer from the
merchant navy, does all his own maintenance.

I encountered him one day, his boat standing high and dry on the mud
with him covered in mud scuttling about under the stern of his
vessel.
He was waving and gesturing wildly so I slowed down and turned to
approach him. His waving and gesturing increased to fever pitch. I
though there must be something wrong so I went in as for as I could and
stooped the engine so that I could talk to him.
"What's up Tom?" I bellowed
"Eh?" comes the reply, blown like thistledown upon the wind.
"What's up? - Oh Bollocks!"
I reach for my mobile phone, yes the same one that ruined my last
boating experience.
"Hi Tom, are you OK?"
"Yes Jeff, what I was going to say was don't stop the engine on that,
the starter is playing up."
"Oh Shit, why didn't you put it in the log?"
"It's in the maintenance log, the one that no-one reads"
"OK I'll give it a try."
The engine wheezed a bit when I pressed the starter but nothing
happened. I rushed onto the desk and used the pole to push the boat
into deeper water. Once clear of the mud I lowered the anchor.
Tom arrived in his inflatable dinghy.
"You bloody fool, I was saying keep away, there's a mud bar here that's
shifted, you were right on top of it and the tide's falling, you could
be stuck here for hours."

Sure enough I felt the boat start to settle. I raced up on to the deck
and let out more anchor chain. Using the pole again I felt around for
some deeper water and shoved the boat into it. Feeling pretty smug I
joined Tom in the dinghy and went to see what help I could be. With Tom
it's usually a mater of passing the right spanner and hanging onto his
braces so that he doesn't fall in. after a while a looked back. I had
found a patch of deep water and the boat was floating freely in it. The
trouble was that it was a hole surrounded by mud so there the boat had
to stay for a few hours. Tom finished his work on his outdrive and was
waiting for the tide to free him. We sat in his cabin nursing our
sandwiches and a bottle or two. Many hours later and with a good deal
of harbour mud on our clothes we arrived back at our respective
moorings. A good day out on the water, totally unspoiled by any threat
of shopping.