At sea with Cara

摘要

When Halmatic invited us the opportunity to experience one of the largest pilot vessels in the range - in December - it brought back memories for Bill Thomson, though he survived to tell the tale. Ship & Boat recently had the opportunity to experience a pair of vessels from pilot boat specialist Halmatic, courtesy of the builder, Harwich Pilots, Seania, and Trinity House. The chosen venue was Harwich on the UK North Sea coast and the time early December, so testing conditions could be virtually guaranteed. In fact it brought to mind one of the editor's earlier existences involving motor yachts and a wait of several days to find a window in the weather to take a 12m motor boat across to The Netherlands. Each morning we would venture downriver, reach the Harwich/Felixstowe port area, get thrown around all over the place and turn back to sample the admittedly rather limited delights of Ipswich for a further day. And that was in July.