I was interested to see the wreck of a Joint Services Victoria 34 (Ensis)
in
Cherbourg last year.

I spotted that too. Full of shingle. Any idea what happened??? Did you
spot the steel boats nearby? Suffered massive impact but still bent but
sailable.


Yes I did see her - a similar thing happened once to my dad with his steel
boat. Somebody hit her hard whilst she was unattended on a mooring. Made a
right mess but because she only bent she didn't sink. He's pretty sure any
wood/GRP boat would have been lost. Never found out who did it either.

A story goes that Ensis was trying to get into Cherbourg in poor visibility
and missed, hitting the rocks on the shore. They didn't know what they'd hit
and abandoned ship to the liferaft but pretty quickly realised they could
stand up. I imagine somebody got her out quite sharpish, but there were a
lot of bits missing when I saw her in June.

There was a sleeping bag right by the hole - the guy in that must have had
quite a fright!