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portholenews@gmail.com

“OH NO NOT YOU AGAIN”

Trish of ‘Dragon Song’

In 2001 I sold my business and we were preparing for our adventure to sail around the world. We found our dream yacht, Dragon Song, a 52ft steel ketch, and began to get her ready to set sail. There was a lot of work to do as she had been sitting in a yacht brokerage for 3 years and looked extremely neglected.

 

We were getting very close; just a few more good byes to say and provisions to buy. We were ready to cross the Atlantic. At the time we kept Dragon Song on a swinging mooring in Portsmouth Harbour in the UK. This is where the story really begins...

 

We went to Brittany in the spring of 2002 on a shakedown cruise, returning at the end of May. On the 5^th June we went back to the boat on its mooring to find that it had been severely damaged in a collision. Dragon Song had been the victim of a hit and run! After enquiries at Harbour Control we found that damage had occurred to other boats in Haslar Marina and the Naval Sailing Club at Hornet in Gosport. This had all been caused by a drunken Icelander, Eriker Olaffson, who had been arrested by the police. We had no evidence to link him to our mishap, but fortunately the location is overlooked by flats and a Yottie living high up in one of the blocks witnessed the incident. Our insurers had Olaffson's boat arrested by the High Court and

organised the repairs at Camper and Nicholson's yard. The repairs were £25,000 plus costs. Olaffson's insurers paid. It was late October before we got our boat back.

 

Jim went back to work while the repairs were undertaken and we decided to postpone our departure until the following summer. On the 6^th June 2003 there was a phone call from Portsmouth Sailing Club, “Your boat has been hit on its mooring”. Jim was in Cowes, I was in Portsmouth. Assisted by Jim’s son, James, I went to the harbour to find Dragon Song sitting in the harbour entrance still on her mooring. She had been hit at the stern and pushed, complete with mooring, a quarter of a mile into the shipping lane. The damage was even more extensive than before. Almost a year to the day Olaffson had struck again! This time he was in police custody, having been arrested at the scene. He was too drunk to be questioned until the following morning.

 

The story was covered on television and in the newspapers. The Times said:

 

“A retired couple's dream of sailing around the world has been wrecked by a calamitous drunken Icelandic fisherman who crashed into their yacht twice in one year. The second collision occurred when Eriker Olafsson was again sailing his 44ft Nauticat in the harbour taking slugs from a bottle of wine. He spotted the familiar name Dragon Song and immediately set course for her to make

amends to her owner for causing £25,000 of damage a year and a day before. Again he smashed into her, getting entangled in her rigging, holing the stern and dragging her and her swinging mooring attached to a 2 ton sinker a quarter of a mile into the entrance of Portsmouth Harbour, causing £18,000 of damage.

 

Olafsson was fined £200 and ordered to pay £118 costs.

 

Jim and Trish said that the fisherman had shattered their life's dream 2 years in a row.

 

“What the man has done to us is incredible, we don’t want him to ever apologise to us again.” They added “Of all the Yachts in all the harbours in all the world he has to crash into ours... twice.”

 

There you have our tale of woe. We sorted the damage out ourselves the second time as Olafsson was not insured. That took 5 months while we had his yacht impounded until he settled the bill.

 

The UK still does not have a comprehensive law to cover operating private pleasure craft whilst under the influence of alcohol.

 

Some areas have local bye-laws, Portsmouth does not. The police were only able to charge Olaffson with causing criminal damage, to which he pleaded guilty; hence the paltry fine.

 

In that time we changed our plans to see some of the Med, prior to crossing the pond. We are glad that we chose to do this as we have been so lucky to see some wonderful places and make new friends. The highlight of our cruising has to be the East Med rally; we never dreamed of seeing the countries we visited.