HOLDING POWER

When you find yourself in a tangle, seaman’s etiquette dictates he who anchors first has all rights

- TOM CUNLIFFE

The wind rattled the inn-sign and it was coming on strong when the landlord’s voice cut through the buzz of smoky conversation in the Mermaid. “Anyone from the big black cutter?” This is not what you want to hear on a rainy night in St Mary’s on the wild Isles of Scilly, because when you are the man in question, you know your genial host is not about to ask where you buy your galvanised shackles.

“Bloke just pitched up says there’s a yacht dragging onto you…”

I never saw my crew guzzle their pints so quickly. We galloped out the door as though the bar was on fire, slithered down the weedy granite wall and dropped into our dinghy like rats down a drainpipe, but we were too late. Out in the anchorage, the scene was discouraging. The waves were getting up and the reeling spreader lights of uninvited callers had eclipsed my paraffin riding lamp. Clambering aboard, we found one yacht lashed to our port side, grinding her fenders in the darkness, with a second athwart our hawse, wrapped up in our headgear. We had never seen either of them before.

The breeze felt like a solid Force 7, but our hundredweight hook was dug in on a serious scope of half-inch chain. Ignoring the shouts of the new arrivals, I took a moment to watch the loose transit of a couple of shore lights in line abeam. At least we weren’t dragging. Not yet, anyway. Our tackle was holding all three vessels.