Here’s something I learned while visiting the Isle of Man – John Galpin showed me this method of tying up to a slip without fenders – so as to save the look of the gel coat… Trust me, John’s blue gel coat on his Whale and Dolphin survey boat looks immaculate!
Line A holds the rear of the boat away from the starboard dock and prevents the boat from moving forward.
Line C prevents the boat from moving back into the rear dock
Line B prevents the bow from moving towards the starboard dock
Line D prevents the bow from moving away from the starboard dock.
It takes some practice to set up – but it’s a neat way of holding the boat stationary and away from the dock. When leaving our boat for a while however, we lay out a few precautionary fenders… 🙂 (we also add a few lines for good measure!)
Hi Bill and Lauire,
It has been some time since I looked at your blog to see how you and Toodle-oo are doing. Having seen your little piece on John’s tying up method, I do just have to make contact.
I seem to remember that your 2014 cruise started with a major problem, with a Scottish rock but that all went well in the end. Sadly for us, 2014 turned out to be a totally unexpected nightmare.
We set off in Grampus on 16 June. Plan to sail south along Wales to Cardiff and meet up with our very best friends (since the 1960s) both of whom were very unwell, before returning north via home and then heading up to Skye for the rest of the summer.
We made it to Cardiff and met up with Hazel and Les but John was feeling unwell. What had started as feeling like a pulled muscle by his rib cage, got very much worse so on the return leg we arranged for a GP appointment in Peel. Blood tests and scans over the next two days revealed totally unexpectedly that John’s abdominal area was full of secondary cancers. That was about 29th July and from then on he went rapidly downhill. The primary was thought to be in his pancreas, but actually was never diagnosed as the NHS could not keep up with his failing.
John was absolutely phlegmatic about the whole thing. Once he knew it was terminal, he just prepared himself (and me) for the best end possible. His first priority was to arrange the sale of Grampus, which he did from his bed at the end of August. He knew that all the paperwork and technical details would prove difficut for me to handle alone. His parting gift to me was a robot vacuum cleaner – a godsend in a house this size!
We spent the final 10 days at the hospice where he died on 7th October.
I am still living at Ballaquane, but the house is now up for sale. I am hoping to find a new home in Peel. My current plans are to continue developing my painting skills and to regain my love of gardening in a smaller plot.
I have not seen a green flash yet this year, but I did photo a good sun pillar at sunset last month.
Have a great Summer sailing and make sure to make the most of every day that you can, we never can be sure of tomorrow.
Love to you both,
Val