Rib crew in Lerwick.....

Just to clarify.......The Rib crew in Lerwick did a great job, they were VERY helpful and offered great assistance 24 hours a day to all. They provided a great service to us and other competitors and reflected the kind nature and willing to help famously found in the Shetlands.
We (the two of us) didn't check the water for lines before being towed out. We also didn't realise that we were not connected to a hard point on the rib as other tow's that we had witnessed had been. The Guy holding the line to us only let go when he couldnt physically hold the line any more (after our engine stopped and the 25 kts of breeze got hold of us) and would have ended up in the water himself if he didn't. My previous post seemed to indicate that the rib crew cast us off(which I believed to be true at the point of writing the blog) which was not true. They also provided a great deal of assistance to us post incident.

My cool nature was broken when this happened. I couldnt understand why it could have gone wrong, it was a bomb proof plan. Along with the sleepless night before and the famous stop in Barra it had been 10 days since having more than an hours sleep. It was very much a strain on rational thinking and when I wrote the post I did still think that the Rib crew were the cause.

In reflection we made the mistakes to cause the incident and my blog was not intended to cause offence to the volunteers of the rib crew. The facts are that if the line from the rib had been secured to a hard point on the rib we wouldn't have hit the jetty, if we had checked for lines in the water our engine wouldn't have stopped and we wouldn't have hit the jetty, if the wind wasn't blowing 25 kts straight into the mooring area (making it a very impractical and unsafe place to be berthed) we wouldn't have had required the rib to get us off the mooring and importantly if the rib crews hadn't given up their own time to be there we would have been well and truly stuck.

To end off.....

The thing that sticks in our mind after the unfortunate event is the helpfulness of all the volunteers and locals in Lerwick who had us fixed and ready to race again with a few hours. Without these volunteers every boat would have come off worse and the layover would have been a disaster for all involved. We would like to thank the rib crew and all involved at the stop in Lerwick and would hapily take their lines if they ever end up down south......