Travel Reference
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away behind the stern as it skipped about in the strong wind. As we now cut across the
back of this cruiser, the dinghy came drifting back on the confines of its rather long painter.
I was intent on staring at the dock and where we would have to round up in the wind. Sud-
denly I saw the dinghy as it came across our path. We were sailing at around five knots, and
we connected with it with an ugly banging noise. “Jesus Christ, we hit the guy's dinghy!”
yelled Penny, who was on the port side, and saw the whole incident.
Just then the owner came quickly above decks and started yelling obscenities in French as
we sailed smartly passed his stern. I looked back and smiled apologetically with my hands
held open. What could I do? We were closing in on the dock quickly. It seemed that all my
sailings in Déjà vu in confined places were bound to be epics of high speed drama, thrills
and spills. Today was no different from the times on the Vaal Dam in South Africa or in
False Bay in the Cape.
Somehow I had to slow the boat down and drift onto the dock before the wind pushed us
off back into the middle of the harbor. We would then have lost our forward motion and
would be blown down onto some unsuspecting boat, unless we tied off immediately onto
the jetty. I noticed with delight that a few bodies were now appearing on the dock, some to
watch, and some hopefully to help.
It was now or never. Déjà vu was angling up to the dock at around five knots heading
northwest on the port tack. We were a hundred yards from the dock. I counted down the
yards and said to Gavin and Penny, “Get ready, here we go.” When Déjà vu was about ten
yards off the dock, I suddenly put the helm up, and brought her nose around and into the
southerly wind. The sails flogged wildly, and the momentum of the boat visibly started to
diminish. I leaned over to the Genoa sheet and quickly flipped it loose and repeated the
procedure to the main sheet while yelling at Penny, who was standing by at the base of the
mast, watching me intently for the signal to drop the two sails. When the bow was almost
on top of the first splintery wooden plank of the old wooden dock, I put the helm up again
quickly and she turned smartly around and bumped her starboard hull alongside.
“Throw me your mooring lines!” yelled a smiling man standing alongside the boat. Gavin
hurried over and threw him the after line, jumping off the boat and running over to the rusty
old bollard ahead of the bowsprit. She was already being blown away from the dock, and
he just managed to tie us off before running out of line. The stranger managed to secure our
stern, and I slumped forward in relief.
I thanked the stranger for his help, explaining the situation with the engine. He was very
understanding. “Bet you gave some of those boat owners something to think aboot,” he said
in his broad English accent, his weathered face creased in a friendly smile. He introduced
himself and his wife. Dave and Sue would prove to be very helpful in finding us spares for
