After describing the situation in part 1, and explaining to harbours the difficulties, you’d have hoped that things might have got better? Ha, not a chance. This is how things currently are.
My boat in yellow, the red block behind being the large’ish cruisers they’ve replaced the enormous yacht that was there previously with (on their own easily manageable without too much wind). Also in red the 30ft visitor yacht they’ve put alongside me so tight we’re touching fenders. I’d pay to see him try and get out without smacking in to the side of me, well I wouldn’t I’ll give him a hand obviously (the same as he had to fend off me around him) but you know what I mean. We should never have been put in that position. This is absolutely nothing against any of the boats or owners, it’s clear where the fault is and the 2 owners that helped me whilst maybe not equally as pissed off with the situation (they’re here to not move, just live on over TT) they could fully understand just how shit the cramming is for a local who wants to use their boat (not acceptable from my German friend). The gap from red to red is about 6.5m give or take, my boat is over 7.1m, 2.4 beam. It takes FOUR FUCKING people to get my boat in, all has to be done by hand out of power. I bought a 25ft boat on the expectation I’d be able to single hand it, not a bloody 4 crew super yacht! If anybody wants to show me how it should be done down Peel be my guest, I’ll chuck you the keys and crack on. £100 to the first person who can get that boat in/out single handed without hitting something, you pay for damages. In the meantime for me it’s not safe to move my boat at all (I’m not relying on other owners being on their boats to help, which is the only way), so no boating/fishing.
Oh and just for illustration the green dots show how large boats would normally be rafted up over TT, well for at least the 7-8 years I’ve had that berth anyway, if there were more then they’d be spun 90 degrees in that space and maybe 1 extra overflow on the short pontoon, far end. Small boat alongside. But since I mentioned to the harbour keeper how difficult it will make life with something large on the short pontoon DIRECTLY behind and a similar sized boat alongside…it’s exactly what’s happened except top trump it with a boat 1-1.5m even longer than mine. Not like I pay a large annual fee for that berth is it…oh hang on. If I was paying a few quid rafted against the wall then you pays your money, take your chances, but I’m not. The truth is that without proper management the berthing top end is not fit for the boat I now own, my fault for having a level of expectation I guess, it’s time to ask very nicely if I can be moved to a bigger berth when one becomes available. Everything crossed and we’ll see how that goes. Or else it’s another year with nothing but disruption to when I can use the boat. Frustrating, but we’ll just park her up for TT and enjoy the racing.
This is ace. I always think that a camera onboard never really shows distance very well, from the pics above you might not think it was that tight, I’ve stepped it out so I know and even to me the camera makes it look alright. Lucky for me then that during todays live TT+ stream (4th June) the helicopter decided to do a fly by over Peel harbour for an aerial view! So in the image below the purple dot is my boat, the green dot is the stern of the yacht next door (yes that big white blob really is 2 boats crammed in together, look at us compared to every other pontoon berth, then look at the free space astern we’re working with). Hopefully it gives some indication of just how little space there is. Then look at the blue dots which show the free berths that would have been far more suitable for either the boats behind or the yacht next door, plenty of smaller visitor boats along the river pontoon that could have slipped in alongside me and still give me access. Nothing to add, the picture says it all.
