Just like the good cop bad cop routine Belfast seems to have a calm logical Harbour Master (good) and an infernal assistant Harbour Master. (bad). Neither of them are easy to comprehend on channel 12 of the VHF and it falls to my lot to deal with them on the radio as I’m the only native english speaker (the logic goes I stand a better chance!).
The Assistant Harbour Master who must get out of his hammock on the wrong side each day, is of a stout build and who prefers to wear a suit topped by a life jacket, soon earns the nickname “The Fat Controller” as he develops a passion for being bossy and moving our ship from berth to berth ~ this we tolerate and try to prevent Lars, our voluble Danish skipper from arguing the toss, as this makes the Fat Controller build up steam! So a tacit peace is maintained until the fateful day of the Tall Ships departure, when in a rush of enthusiasm, Lars decides to leave our berth (grimy industrial) without the normal formality of a VHF request. Even worse as we slip our berth our skipper leaves the wheel, dives for his camera and proceeds to snap away, our vessel cuts across the bows of an HM Coastgaurd ship, and then fatefully across the bow of a Pilot vessel.
Unfortunately this is the Pilot vessel that the Assistant Harbour Master has commandeered to orchestrate the serial departure of square riggers down the Lagan River. In short order the Pilot boat roars alongside in a flurry of bow waves with the Fat Controller on the aft deck, his face an angry shade of red and voicing a string of expletives designed to make even the most hard bitten stevedore blush! We are banished (under threat of being towed to the nautical equivalent of purgatory) to the butt end of a dock and instructed to stay put and miss the fun!