Thursday, July 19, 2007

Pesky Jetski

Staying with matters nautical, relaxing on the verandah of my cliff top mansion sipping the afternoon G&T just now, I heard a series of frantic toots coming from one of those TransEuropa tubs. He really was giving the thing some welly, and on closer inspection with the old 20x100BMs, it appeared that one of those jetski wallahs was impeding his progress into port.

Now I'm not the type to complain about rich-and-famous style activities such as charging around the ocean on your own personal aquabike, but really. If it came to the crunch between a 4000 ton ferry and a waterborne hairdryer, my money's on the ferry!

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

When I saw the headline I thought your article would be about the jets that seem to be doing circuits and bumps most weekdays now as well? Surely there must be some rules about where the jetskiers can go on those pesky things - I mean within how many metres of a shipping lane or something like that. Serve him right if he did get sucked under the ferry. I hate unnecessary noise just for its own sake just like those pesky minibikes.

Richard Eastcliff said...

Sign my Downing Street petition to stop the training flights then! The link is on the sidebar on the right.

They seem to have the jetskiers corralled in Herne Bay, perhaps TDC could learn a lesson from CCC in that respect. Well, in every respect really.

I was chatting with a nautical chum earlier about this incident and I put it to him that a jetski is pretty nippy and manoeuverable so it would have no trouble getting out of the way of the ferry in the approach channel. His response was: 'And if the jetski packs up?' I take his point. Ferries hardly come equipped with ABS as standard.

Anonymous said...

Only 16 at the moment ECR! not doing very well with the signings are we? Nice to see our OASIS friend flying around again yesterday, quite missed him on Sunday.
By the way it was not jet skiers who were the problem on Thursday, it was a Dutch yacht going into the channel ahead of the ferry. What you thought were jet skis were 3 Belgian RIB's entering alongside the ferry. Not the right thing to do but they were not impeding the ship.

Richard Eastcliff said...

Must give the old binocs a rub down. Thanks for the update Tony.

Clearly, though, the petition has got you quite rattled if you're checking it every day!

Anonymous said...

Rattled? Not at all, I just have a quick look to see how well, or badly at the moment, you are doing every time request people to sign.

Richard Eastcliff said...

Can't check the paper signatures, though, can you!

Anonymous said...

Go on then, how many so far?

Richard Eastcliff said...

Ah, you're a wily old fox Tony, but you'd have to get up much earlier to catch this worm. Oops, I seem to have mixed my metaphors there a bit!

Anonymous said...

Mmmm. A deliberate play on words I assume?

Richard Eastcliff said...

Er, eh?

Lucy Mail said...

He wants to know if you have any crumpets.

Richard Eastcliff said...

Oh, I see! Yes, I am a bit of a fan, as it happens!