Superted meets India Juliet

A funny thing happened on the way back from Hardway the other weekend!   With the luxury of a rare additional crew in the form of Ann Arscot, we set off home in a steady 35 knots with two reefs and storm jib.  As we bashed past Lee On Solent hard on the wind, India Juliet appeared out of the gloom, circled around and hovered close overhead.

Looking up, we saw crew standing at the open door holding a board with 67 written on it.  Changing to channel 67 on the VHF I went below to communicate with them – far too noisy on deck!   “With the skipper’s permission we would like to do a high line” OK.   Now I’ve always wanted to do this practice but really with 35 knots of wind and big holes in the sea and the boat doing 6 ½ knots?  The pilot then asked if we were ready to copy the brief.  Not sure what the brief consisted of, I prepared myself to take down copious notes!   Scrambling around for a piece of paper and pencil with the boat lurching I got myself ready to write – wasn’t easy  but got a few keywords down “steady course,  close hauled on port tack,  don’t attach the weighted line to the boat, pull in all the slack, helmsman mustn’t be distracted by the helicopter, winch man will indicate when to stop pulling etc.   So here goes…………