Send us your solution to the following boating conundrum
“What Now Skipper?” is a new series of interactive seamanship features being published in the Boatmaster section of Motor Boat and Yachting magazine. Every month we set a typical motorboating problem and invite readers to suggest their own solutions. The most helpful, creative and downright entertaining answers will be published alongside our resident expert’s advice.
What Now Skipper Scenario 2
You’ve waited years for a berth at Bucklers Hard and now that it’s available you’re eager to put your recently purchased 32ft semi-displacement motor cruiser in her new home. You and your wife leave Chichester bound through the Solent for the Beaulieu River. It is misty as you set out and the forecast is for moderate to poor visibility. What you didn’t expect that May morning was fog to descend like a wet blanket. As it does, you wish that your newly purchased integrated radar/plotter hadn’t chosen that moment to start playing up. You ask your wife to pass the portable GPS unit borrowed from a friend, but as she does so she trips, the unit falls to the deck with a thump, the back falls off, and two of the four batteries dislodge and fall over the side. The fog thickens and you can see very little and realise it’s 20 minutes since you last plotted the position on the chart. Opening the wheelhouse door you discover a cacophony of sound, including engine noise, bells, gongs and mournful whistles. Somewhere seemingly close to port is the sound of a large ship sounding her fog signal of one blast, and even closer to starboard another is sounding two long blasts. A buoy can be seen very close to port but when you approach it you realise it’s one you thought you’d passed a little while earlier. It dawns on you that you may be lost and just as you come to this conclusion your wife asks: “What now, skipper?”
Send your answer to paul_ashton@ipcmedia.com with ‘What Now Skipper?’ in the subject line
