For us, mooring in marinas is a fairly anxious experience. When we get into the Med we have a new form of torture to look forward to - Med Mooring. This involves lining Emerald up stern to a quay or pontoon and picking up a lazyline or dropping an anchor off the bow. Having done that we then have to reverse towards the quay until we're a suitable distance off to be able to get ashore. The problem for us is that Emerald doesn't like going backwards in a straight line due to her keel shape, so I'm sure it's going to be fraught. A good reason to avoid marinas as much as possible aside from the ridiculous costs in many Med harbours in the summer.

However, the marina we have chosen for next winter is Ragusa in Sicily which has lazyline mooring rather than finger pontoons. Once we're in we'll need a way of getting from the stern of the boat onto the pontoon and for which we'll need a gangway or passarelle.

Rather than spending a couple of £100 we decided to make our own. Two planks of Portuguese pine (€14), some wheels from the Chinese shop (€4), some paint (€20) and a bit of donated rope and here we have Colin's excellent creation.

It stores along the the guard rails along the back side of Emerald and will probably need two of us to get it in place but will hopefully last us at least a winter and all for less than €50.