TripSailor.com® Sailing Blogs

Round the point and its a beat down the Eastern coast of the Isle of Man towards Douglas.

Wind is getting up, in goes another reef, and over the bow comes another wave. Its getting wet up here!

About  8 tacks later and we can see the entrance to Douglas harbour into to shelter we go ready to round up and put the main away and its ferry time again. Let her go first, then drop the main and moor alongside one of the boats on the "waiting pontoon".

The marina at Douglas has a sill to keep the water in and once the tide is high enough they lift the bridge, drop the sill, and you can take your boat in.

Well Prime Evil has a deep draft, and if we go in we wont get out until almost midday so we decide to stay on the pontoon for the night. Untie and hold off until the other boats have left to catch the bridge and snuggle her down for the night. Not too tight, there is a bit of a swell coming in and making the pontoon sections groan, and there will be ferries moving as well.

Off to the pub, and we get a call from two of the crew, "We can’t get back on the boat the pontoon is 15 feet off the wall…"

Back we go and they are right… The pontoon is not on piles it is simply anchored and has to have enough slack to allow for the tidal range. Come low water and an offshore wind and all that slack lets the wind blow it off. Luckily two of the crew have stayed aboard so its yell loud enogh to wake them up and they can start the engine and push the pontoon back to the steps.

I’m sure that the pilot book didn’t mention this little "feature", it said the pontoon was untenable in an Easterly but nothing about it going walkabout at  low water in a Southerly…