RETIRED harbour master Peter Tambling wishes to share the story of the longest vessel to enter the port of Weymouth with Looking Back.

M.V. Kas Marrieanne, 137 metres in length, turned up in October 1989 after she became desperately short of freshwater and stores on passage back to Norway from the Gulf.

Peter, who was also port manager, said: "I asked her if she was fitted with a bow thrust system and information of her length. I made a scale model of her hull in paper and compared it against my local harbour chart. All looked possible and as it was wintertime, most of the small sailing craft usually found at moorings off the ferry berth no. 3 were ashore for the winter.

"Kas Marrieanne was informed that if she approached Weymouth, the pilot would board.

"Her master told me that he was flooding his forepeak to submerge his bow thruster unit. Pilot Bob Runyeard boarded the large vessel and told me that the bow thrust has been submerged, so I told him to bring her into Weymouth.

"As she approached the harbour I watched her with my camera at the ready. Our pilot boat was running close ahead and as Kas Marrieanne started to turn off berth no1 she started her bow thruster to push her bow around the bend. The the fun started - a huge jet of water arose from her waterline and cleared the top of the stone pier.

"Luckily Bob was observing movements and our pilot boat had to use her 2 ton thrust to push the vessel over onto berth no3."

In this photo Peter has very kindly provided us, we can see the Kas Marrieanne secured to berth No3 on a calm day with the Castorp discharging cars on No1 berth for Abbey Hill.

He added: "Weymouth was a very busy port in those days attracting all sorts of general cargoes, making good use of our 11 remaining local stevefores and ensuring swift turnarounds with sound financial funding for this harbour.

"In order to get Kas Marieanne back to sea later that day, two Ministry of Defence tugs had to be used!"

*Thanks to Peter for these maritime memories.