Night time operations, once you get started on them the whole tour ends up happening at night. We were heading into Dunkerque fortunately in ballast condition, the ship being easier to handle when light. The first hazard was at the breakwater a 90 degree turn with an easterly current, so you have to put on some power and turn into the current, but not too much power because you don’t want to end up half way across the basin and miss the lock entrance, then you could find yourself in all kinds of trouble. All the talking stopped when we made the first turn, all that could be heard was the background buzz of radars and the occasional blast of VHF traffic, I eased the engines and she started to turn nicely for the locks, no other helm or thrust was required, the pilot remarked ” she knows the way”, I said “yeah she’s been here more times than I have”. Once we were lined up for the lock I angled the bow towards the quay wall on the port side and gave a quick burst astern, she started to move in to the lock wall a bit too quickly so I gave the rudder hard to port and half ahead which stopped the advance towards the wall, then another belt astern and she sat nicely on the tyre fenders. The mooring ropes were already out and the pilot said “position”, so I said position to fore and aft.
After the lock we crept out and got ready for the first turn “hard to port, half ahead, full thrust to port” and she started swinging on the first 180 degree turn, she came around nicely and we made our way up the “Chenal Brocquaire” we needed to have some speed for steering but not too much that would make the next swing difficult, a balancing act, anyway the ship is right handed so when it was time to turn I gave an unmerciful kick astern to kill the way, the entire ship juddered as she came to a halt then “hard to starboard, half ahead, and full thrust to starboard”, and she gently came around and we came up to the pier and made fast. There were only about 2 or three sentences exchanged in the entire manoeuvre, and inaudible sighs of relief once alongside, then off to change underclothes! Not entirely text book, but they don’t mention the adrenaline rush in the textbook or the cold sweat dripping, and the silent tension, and I don’t think an astern manoeuvre is called unmerciful in the books either, but if you don’t give a savage kick astern you’ll end up in the next parish.
The entire manoeuvre was tracked nicely on the chartlet above. The curved red line is the actual track and the orange lines the intended. You can see where the southerly wind pushed us up to the north in the “Chenal” but we made it in the end as one pilot from Lancashire once said to me “without twatting anything”!
Recent Comments