We’ve all driven and had a very slow-moving vehicle in front of us, maybe a huge truck. But it’s not always a good idea to overtake it. This is a similar situation, but it happened on water with a small sailboat trying to race a ferry. The outcome? The sailboat almost got sucked underneath the ferry.
It all happened in Poole Harbour in Dorset, UK, when an impatient sailor tried to overtake the Sandbanks chain ferry to the harbor and to steer the boat in front of it. Unfortunately for him, things didn’t go as well as he initially planned.
Instead, his 30-ft (9.1 m) sailboat got pulled by the tide and he was swept into the vortex of swirling water, pressing his vessel against the car ferry.
The entire ordeal lasted almost half an hour, according to sources, and a diving catamaran had to arrive at the scene so it could pull the small vessel away from the ferry.
Luckily, the seaman, who is in his 70s, was not hurt in the process, but the people on the ferry watched helplessly from the vessel as the sailboat got pinned up against the side of the 240-ft (73.1 m) long ferry and almost got sucked under it.
Eventually, the man had to leave the sailboat for fear of getting hurt. A rigid inflatable boat passed by and tried to help him, but it had the same issue, and got stuck as well. Luckily, a diving catamaran arrived on the scene, threw a rope toward the vessel, and towed it to safety.
A spokesman for the Swanage Motor Road and Ferry Company, which operates the ferry, shared via Daily Mail: “It looks like the skipper was inexperienced and did not understand the conditions and tried to race the ferry to get ahead of it and changed his mind at the last minute. Thankfully everybody went home but it could have been worse - this is something which happens every season. We are just relieved that nobody was hurt and the service was able to resume after 20 minutes.”
Imagine a Wenn diagram for cars and celebrities. At the intersection you'll find Monica, putting her passion for these fields and English-Spanish double major to work. She's been doing for the past seven years, most recently at autoevolution. Full profile
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