On Sunday morning I was on the boat lying in bed having a chilled out morning. There was a bit of wind blowing past the entrance of the bay of Port Soller, Mallorca, so decided to stay on the boat for the day just in case.

The hills around the bay provided good protection from the south-westerly that was blowing outside the entrance so it was relatively fine in the bay.

However, out of nowhere, within seconds I felt a huge gust shift Rosey, and I heard my wind generator wind up making a thrashing spinning sound that I’d only ever heard before with 60 knots blowing through it when I was in Cala Tuent earlier on in the season.

I launched out of bed and ran to the hatch to check if all was ok, and that’s when I saw a sight that instantly caused my stomach to turn…

The anchor mooring had already dragged from the force and I was approx 20m from the rocks stretching out from the beach and moving towards them. I scrambled to get the engine started and leapt into the cockpit and got behind the helm hammering down the throttle forward. The force of the wind was absolutely insane, it was easily up to 70+ knots, the sound of it was terrifying, a roaring wind I had never experienced in my life before, the wind so strong that was completely sweeping off the tops of the swells being generated, causing massive amounts of horizontal spray across the surface of the sea. A sight and sound that I cannot get out of my head, and will probably be a long time before I ever do.

At full throttle I was making ground getting further away from the rocks, however, I was also having to drag the mooring, a 50kg bruce anchor with 20m of thick chain which was holding me back and hindering progress massively. I decided I needed to detach from the mooring and gun it to the safety of the fuel dock in the marina.

Knowing I’d only have seconds to detach the lines before the wind caused the bow to swing, I lined Rosey up directly into the wind, gave enough throttle to provide enough slack so that I could lift the loops in the lines from behind the cleats, I scrambled up to the bow as fast as I could to free them from the boat. I managed to get them both off however the second one got stuck in the bow roller at the front of the boat where the lines go through.

Although it only took a few seconds to release it, these were crucial seconds wasted, the front of the boat had already begun to swing from the force of the wind, and by the time I got back to the cockpit I was virtually now facing the beach and in shallow water. I slammed her into reverse to try to pull her away to deeper water but the wind felt even stronger and too powerful, through trying with every bit of might we couldn’t make any ground and we were getting pushed towards the shore.

That intense feeling when you and everything you have in this entire world, your entire home with you on it is heading towards and going to collide with the shore and you cannot do anything about it, is a feeling I will never ever forget, its an incredibly desperate and sickening feeling.

Thankfully we were now in front of the sand which is obviously a lot softer than rock hard jagged rocks. I just knew it was game over, and we were going to bump the bottom any second. I thought if we’re going in, I’m going to rest her down as softly as I possibly could even though, I use the word softly very lightly, cause as I’ve now discovered, when you bottom out on a yacht, it is anything but soft.

In those final seconds, I swung the wheel hard to port and gave the throttle a full blast forward so that it would swing the front of the bottom around and try to get a 20-30 degree angle with the shoreline so that when she rolled onto her side, she would roll “gracefully” with the shape of the hull from the front to the back onto her side parallel with the shore to prevent her from rolling straight onto her side with bigger impact.

As I clung tightly to the inside of the cockpit bracing for full impact, with a few hard bumps she rolled onto her side, I just saw everything on the inside go flying and crashing across the cabin as if your entire home had been lifted up and turned upside down.

With waves pounding on the exposed side of her hull with big bumps making trying to climb across the obstacle course of a cockpit quite a task, I managed to get inside through the hatch to shut off the engine. A moment after I gazed around at the carnage in the cabin which resembled something out of the movie Adrift, I just shook my head in despair and took a few deep breathes before grabbing a few essentials in a bag.

As I climbed out the hatch still getting pounded by the waves, I peered over the side of the cockpit, and there was Chris from Mezzo Magic Sailing Port Soller Charters, who had tried to race over to my rescue in a rib after seeing I was in trouble from across the bay, he’d just pulled up, but sadly it was too late to do anything, she was resting firmly on the beach.

With adrenaline still pumping through my veins and probably in shock, because I was noticeably way too calm considering what had just happened, a little dazed and confused I stepped off the boat and walked up the beach towards the gathering crowd, whom amongst them were friends and some of the Mezzo Magic family who’d raced down to the beach, some of which were sitting at a table in the window in the Marina Hotel Restaurant and had seen the entire episode unfold since Rosey beached right in front of the entrance of the hotel.

I walked off the beach across the walkway asking if anybody had a cigarette, then into the hotel restaurant and sat at the table where they were sitting. Looking like a drenched rat I gazed around the room at all the faces staring at me completely gobsmacked at what they’d just witnessed, with glaring looks as if the King of England had just casually strolled into the restaurant and sat at a table, I just sat there for a few moments trying to decompress and let my mind just catch up and piece it all together, and thinking “what the f*ck just happened?” The entire ordeal had lasted about 12 minutes… They were a very intense 12 minutes that’s for sure….

That certainly wasn’t the end of it though, but I’ll tell you about that in the next post, but I’ll also tell you why I have so much love, respect and an absolute appreciation for everyone I know, the people that form the local community in this beautiful little bay of Port Soller on the North West coast of Mallorca, and why I love them all like family…

Photo: Sailing Yacht “Rose Rambler” lying on the beach in Port Soller, Mallorca after a storm.
Location: Port Soller, Mallorca, Spain.

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