Rather reminds me of an incident about 20 years ago in Ramsgate.

 On passage back from Cowes Week we stopped In Ramsgate, in the days before all the jetties were installed. Everyone rafted up as was usual (15 boats thick) alongside the inside of the outer (as it was then) wall.

We all clambered ashore and up the almost vertical ladders (not pleasant being a vertigo sufferer) for the mandatory few beers.

Returning later we were met with verbal abuse from a Belgian yacht that was the inside boat, he really didn't like people clambering over his foredeck.

We retired to bed, around 4 AM we suddenly felt a huge crash - jumped on deck to find we were outside the harbour  bashing against the sea wall and still lashed to and rafted up with 13 other boats. Our polite Belgian friend had gone to sea and just cast everyone off.

With judicious manouvrering, we managed to get the raft motored back inside the harbour and tied up complete against the wall. There were only a couple of boats doing this, us and a Dutch boat at the other side of the raft!

In the morning we discovered that some of the boats didn't have crews on board, so we were very pleased we hadn't just cast ourselves off from the raft and looked after ourselves.

Lesson learnt = always ensure you know when boats inside you are leaving, and always put nice heavy lines ashore, bow & stern, with both ends made fast on one's own boat, passed through an eye ashore so no one can cast you off without coming on board your own boat! At least you then stand a chance of waking up, or at least only being cast-off from one end! (I won't mention the bit about being careful who you raft outside of, but I think it makes sense to establish a polite introduction if nothing else)

By a remarkable coincidence, I am reading this at an Internet cafe in Porto Heli!

Although I cannot match this tale, I have witnessed many incidents in which Italian boats were the perpetrators of various problems. Two days ago a large Italian boat entered Ermioni harbour, currently only occupied on the seaward side of the wall by two boats, British and Dutch. The Italian dropped his anchor, dragged it accross both the other, tripping them out, then motored away again. It took about three hours to sort out the resulting chaos, in which one boat got two turns of chain around his prop.

Many of our sailing friends are currently in the Aegean, in order to escape the August invasion of the Ionian by large, badly-crewed, Italian yachts.

Cathy Brown wrote (see)

Yes, but don't you love it when you see them forced to do a Le Mans start in the middle of dinner, haring down to the dinghy and rowing frantically after a fast-dragging yacht heading for the harbour entrance? (Actually it happened to us once, long ago on our first flotilla holiday in Greece.)

This made me laugh! We were in the Isles of Scilly watching exactly the same thing happen. The French would come in, throw out the anchor, in the inflatable and gone!

 One night 8 out of the 10 in the anchorage dragged - one on the rocks damaging his yacht legs.

Later that day a French boat came in and asked if it was OK to anchor in a certain spot. I indicated no in not very good French and pointed to a patch where I knew there was clear sand. He went to have a look giving me some bad looks then came back and spoke to one of his fellow countrymen before dropping anchor where I just shook my head.

I heard them muttering together with the other yacht as the boat settled - the word Anglais and looks in my direction - obviously not nice!

The chap he was taking advice from was the one who had dragged andchor and damaged his yacht legs the night before! Hardly the best of recommendations!

He moved the folloing tide due to rock around him though he was lucky enough not to settle on any.