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THE ABORTED 36-HOUR CRUISE...continued |
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26-31 MAY 2011. Needles In A Haystack Clang! Clang! Clang! The Automatic Identification System (AIS) collision alarm resounded inside Masala. The AIS is a neat bit of electronics that uses VHF radio transmissions to monitor other vessels in your area. Information about them, such as speed and heading, and whether their course is a collision risk, is displayed on the laptop.
A quick scan around the horizon revealed no ships in sight, but perhaps we could see a mast out to starboard. I went below to silence the alarm and check the details of the offending vessel. To my surprise, it was our friends Ann and Col on the gorgeous Hunter 45 Annacol. We hadn’t seen them since Fraser Island 19 months ago, yet here we were by complete accident only a few miles apart. Talk about needles in a haystack. After an |
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and autopilot and left Masala to it. She danced along in fine style, lapping up the sunshine and the fortunately light winds, while we started scratching our heads.
Three hours later the fault was still not found, but had been bypassed so the engine could be started. One side effect was that the cable operating the gearbox was out of action. We had to remove it, then at least the gears could be operated by sticking your head in the engine room and manually pushing the little lever on the back of the gearbox.
We decided our best option for repairs was to return to Gladstone. By this time, wonderful Masala had waltzed 17 miles up the coast, so now we had 25 miles to get back to the marina.
We turned around, and with the wind hard on the nose we motor-sailed back to the North Channel, not game to turn the engine off. We phoned the marina and requested a berth on the end of one of the fingers as we had problems operating the gears. Granted. Sails down, we motored back through the channel.
By now the sun had gone down. We phoned friends in the marina to catch our lines when we arrived as I would be the only person on deck – Leanne would have her head stuck in the engine room, operating the gears. We had a test run in the channel. She couldn’t hear me calling out directions over the noise of the engine, so she gave me our emergency whistle and said, “Use that. One short blast for forward, two for neutral, and three for reverse. One long blast means ‘Get the heck up on deck, NOW!’”
So that’s how we came into the marina, in the dark, with me on the helm mysteriously blowing on a very loud whistle. There were a lot of puzzled heads popping out of hatches all over the marina. Many thanks to Ross, Marge and Rex for securing our mooring ropes.
Once we were safely tied up, Leanne was heard to say, “This is the only time I’m going to be a dog, or is that a bitch, and respond to you blowing a whistle!”
Although it was a stressful time, we were chuffed at getting all the way back to the marina under our own steam. Even better was finding the fault and fixing it so it will never happen again, fixing the gearbox cable and replacing the throttle cable at the same time for good measure, and only being out of pocket about $150 for materials as we did all the repairs ourselves. Following some brilliant contributions, I am thinking of awarding Leanne an honorary degree in Electrical Engineering (I already have a real one).
Although it was a bit disappointing to be back in the marina so soon, we took the opportunity to do some other tasks we had been putting off, and Leanne also sewed up a wonderful new full aft deck awning, which will receive much use in warmer weather.
We set off again for the second time, two weeks after our first attempt. This time, all went swimmingly. |
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