MOB in the Mersey

Solo sailor Tony Purcell discovered how quickly a tricky situation can develop when he fell overboard his 42ft yacht on a busy tidal river

- Claudia Myatt

Since retiring a couple of years ago I have been sailing around the UK. Mainly they're day sails, leaving the boat in places, going back to it and carrying on. I'm trying to visit all the beautiful ports around the coast, and am having a great time.

I've got a 42ft boat, which is about as big as you want to sail single-handed. A good friend of mine often sails with me but on this particular leg, I was single-handed. It was the end of August, I'd been enjoying the Irish coast that summer and had left the boat in Fleetwood a couple of weeks earlier.

So I returned to Fleetwood Marina on 30 August and set sail at about 0930 the following morning, bound for Liverpool 50 miles away. It was a beautiful day, the wind was Force 3 to 4, off the land as well, leading to a flat sea. I made good progress and got to the end of the Mersey at 1900.

I dropped my sails as usually it is busy with shipping but actually it was very quiet that Sunday evening. I cruised upriver under motor slowly because I had time to lose. Liverpool Marina is in the old Brunswick Dock, and there's a lock so you need a couple of metres over the bar before you can go in. Based on the timetables for that day, high water was about 2200, so I wouldn't be able to get in till 2045 at the earliest.

Temporary stop

It was now 1930 so I thought, I'll grab a mooring buoy for an hour or so. I wanted to watch the America's Cup on YouTube. There are very few places to moor up the Mersey, but I found some small craft moorings, with a huge round buoy without a pick-up line. It was at least 750mm across, with a big, round body.