Unplanned voyage!!

[veshengro]

Out on my swinging mooring this morning. There are 3 other bouys up river from me then nothing but Farms, Woodland and mud flats. Small tides but quite a fresh breeze blowing so I knew the row back to the slipway would raise the heartbeat. It's only about quarter of a mile from slip to mooring but at times, even with a favourable tide can be hard work against the wind. Being lazy I leave the Dinghy wheels attached while afloat which cause drag and the inflatable never did row well anyway..
About halfway, crack!! and I go over backwards off the thwart. Starboard side plastic Rowlock has disintegrated... managed to hang on to oar and I am bound away up river on the wind....
With a strange sort of sculling movement using one captive oar from the side tube of the dinghy I managed to grab one of the only mooring bouys between me and an uncontrolled trip up river to the wilds..

Made fast to the Bouy with the Painter, and after a pause to plot ways out of spending the night with the Oyster Catchers high on a mud bank, it was Mr Leatherman and a length of Flag Halyard to the rescue. I had to remove the screws to gain space under the pivot bar of the Rowlock, so that I could pass a couple of turns of Halyard underneath to secure the oar in place for the row home.

Back in civilisation and a trip to the van for the camera...






Thoughts when safely ashore...I suppose I had better start carrying one of those telephone thingies.
Carried a Leatherman for 40+ years..no plans to change.
Order two new Rowlocks..Starboard one is looking iffy with slight rust staining around the Oar Pin.
Thinking I might seek out a proper rigid dinghy that I can row, rather than the red balloon that I have now...

First photo sometimes does not show...press red X

 

[johnalison]

Well done indeed. A very similar thing happened to me with our flimsy but adequate pram. An oar broke on the way to the boat on a windy grey evening (the outboard being defunct). I managed to get to the shore and sent my wife off to see what she could borrow, she returned with a paddle which got us going again, at least, until the rowlock socket broke its rivets and I ended up ashore again. In those days I took my toolbox to and fro to the boat and just happened to have a couple of bolts that would fit after a little drilling. I managed to complete the 1/4hr trip against the wind with an oar, a paddle and a bodged rowlock and we had a very satisfying weekend.

 

[veshengro]

I had a slightly more worrying mishap years ago when in the old Gibraltar Airport Runway anchorage. Rowing back to my Gaff Cutter in an aluminium rigid dinghy when a wooden oar broke halfway down the Loom, I lost the lower half and blade in quite a choppy sea.
An offshore wind and I was bound for Morocco, no doubt about that!!
Luckily a German family on a big Ketch anchored a bit further seaward saw me and quickly shot across in a Rib and towed me to their yacht and later back to mine

 

[NormanS]

There's a lot to be said for the Avon style rowlock.

 

[Aja]

There's a lot to be said for the Avon style rowlock.

To be honest, inflatables are just not designed to be rowed efficiently.

 

[veshengro]

I agree. The provision of oars is only secondary I suppose. I'm on the hunt for something more suitable for my use.

 

[LittleSister]

On a related theme, some years decades ago I took my sister and brother-in-law - not at all boaty people - out to my then tiny yacht moored at Calstock, well up the Tamar. I couldn't get the yacht's outboard started, though, so thought, 'never mind, I'll take them for a row along the river in my small GRP tender'. It was tender indeed, as after a few hundred yards one of the wooden mounts for the rowlocks broke off! I managed to paddle us with one oar to the town slipway which was fortunately close by, where I dropped them off and left them to hang around for ages while I paddled myself back to the yacht, locked up etc, paddled back to the boatyard and put the dinghy ashore, then walked into town to collect my less than gruntled relatives.

I've previously told the tale of a farcical calamity at Paluden, upriver of L'Aberwrach, which resulted in me and a couple of friends ending up in the middle of the night, drunk, covered in mud and unable to get our dinghy, outboard and clutter to the now distant low-tide water. I'll spare you here the details of how we got ourselves into that pickle, but in order to get back to our boat on a mooring further down the river we 'borrowed' one of the dinghies parked on the slipway on the main part of the river. This had no rowlocks, but with two of us paddling the oars we'd brought from our own dinghy, we managed to get back to our yacht.

I set the alarm for first light, just a few hours later, to take the dinghy back with the last of the incoming tide, in case the owner was intending to go out in it. I resolved to leave a bottle of wine in the dinghy by way of apology to the owner for our temporary theft and the mud we must have got spattered all over its insides. I don't know if I moved very slowly in my tired and still inebriated state after the alarm went off, or I'd miscalculated the timing, but by the time I got going it was fully light and the tide now outgoing and against me. I was unable to make much progress on my own against the tide, my single oar/stroke paddle spinning the boat more than propelling it over the ground. I managed to get back to midstream and the line of empty fore-and-aft moorings, grabbed the rope that ran between the buoys, and hauled the boat upstream with this. The shellfish etc. on the rope were cutting my hands to shreds.

I noticed that despite the early hour there were already a few people out fishing from the river bank, and envisioned a very angry dinghy owner standing on the slipway shaking his fist at me as I painfully (literally!) slowly approached in his boat. At which point I realised that in my haste I had forgotten the bottle of wine, so I didn't even have that to try to placate him. Fortunately, when I finally got there there was no one waiting for me. I put the stolen dinghy back where I'd found it, and hoped the mud might be washed of by rain before the owner's return.

I trekked round to where we'd left our dinghy. We'd pulled it well away from the water the night before, as we didn't want it washing away but in the dark we couldn't see the tide mark. I found it ridiculously far from the water, despite it being around high tide, dragged that large heavy dinghy down to the water, and struggled to find the outboard we'd hidden in some bushes somewhere. At long last I was on my way back. It was such a relief to get back to our boat, wash the blood, mud and foul smelling slime off my hands and arms, and fall back into my berth to catch up with my lack of shut-eye, finish sleeping off the previous night's over-indulgence, and rest the numerous aches, cuts and bruises I'd accumulated since we'd blithely headed out to the restaurant the night before..

 

[Fr J Hackett]

I've previously told the tale of a farcical calamity at Paluden, upriver of L'Aberwrach, which resulted in me and a couple of friends ending up in the middle of the night, drunk, covered in mud and unable to get our dinghy, outboard and clutter to the now distant low-tide water. I'll spare you here the details of how we got ourselves into that pickle, but in order to get back to our boat on a mooring further down the river we 'borrowed' one of the dinghies parked on the slipway on the main part of the river. This had no rowlocks, but with two of us paddling the oars we'd brought from our own dinghy, we managed to get back to our yacht.

Strangely enough I did something similar in Dunmore East, a broken wooden box provided the paddles. I was pissed as well and the other crew had abandoned the skipper and me in the pub and taken the tender leaving us stranded. Necessity is the mother of invention at these unfortunate times.

 

[johnalison]

To be honest, inflatables are just not designed to be rowed efficiently.

Avons may not row efficiently, but they are pretty safe. On our first ever long weekend away in 1972 I had to report to our children’s grandmother by phone. This involved rowing a Redcrest from Pyefleet to Brightlingsea to find a phone box. This is a fair way and involved crossing the river Colne in the dark across the shipping lane, as it then was. I managed to accomplish this ridiculous assignment without anything untoward happening but wouldn’t do it again, or if so I would wear a lifejacket.

Rowing a flubber solo is not too bad but a passenger makes it very hard. My wife and I became quite good at sitting side by side and taking one oar each. This is surprisingly effective but demands a high degree of marital harmony.

 

[NormanS]

I use an Avon Redcrest, and having recently made a davit for the outboard, which means I don't row as much as I used to, rowing is still our norm. I made longer oars than normal, and that makes a huge difference.

 

[dansaskip]

I can hear the old salts muttering in their beards and bemoaning people not knowing how to scull over the transom with a single oar. confess its not a skill I possess myself always mean to learn tho but well done for getting yourself out of a tricky situation

 

[veshengro]

Any 'Old salt' who claims they can rig a sculling notch from scratch on an inflatable while going downwind on a stiff breeze and with 2 knots of tide under him, before he disappears into the wilds, is probably a Marina Bar stanchion.

 

[Chiara’s slave]

That happened to me last year. As it was £90 for a pair of Zodiac rowlocks, and the boat was 30 years old, had it from new, we decided it was time for an honourable retirement

 

[veshengro]

I've just ordered a pair of replacement parts, port and Starboard, from the Rib Store. It's worth me paying the £30 to get the dinghy useable again. I need it to get out to my mooring, but I've started looking for something that will row easily.

 

[srm]

I need it to get out to my mooring, but I've started looking for something that will row easily.

I would suggest a rigid dinghy designed for rowing that can be left on the mooring when you go sailing. The deflatable can then be kept on the boat for, hopefully, less demanding use.

When skippering a charter yacht for a family dad and the boys went ashore in fresh conditions. Coming back they could not start the outboard, then broke a rowlock. Fortunately, close to the shore out of the wind so were able to grab on to some rocks. Told them to stay put while I recovered the anchor and got underway. They then let go, paddled a bit until the wind got them then drifted quite rapidly downwind to where we were able to catch them.

 

[johnalison]

Any 'Old salt' who claims they can rig a sculling notch from scratch on an inflatable while going downwind on a stiff breeze and with 2 knots of tide under him, before he disappears into the wilds, is probably a Marina Bar stanchion.

I have sculled an inflatable often, but I have stopped short of carving a notch in the stern and proceeded sideways using the rowlock kindly provided by the Avon people. This is not especially efficient but it gets you there.

For some reason, when we watched fishermen in Mevagissey doing this in the harbour my parents always called it yuloing. I couldn't find out much about this except that as far as I can see it refers to a different technique used in the Far East.

 

[Chiara’s slave]

I've just ordered a pair of replacement parts, port and Starboard, from the Rib Store. It's worth me paying the £30 to get the dinghy useable again. I need it to get out to my mooring, but I've started looking for something that will row easily.

We have a mini RIB, console steering, 25hp to get to our mooring. Obviously it does various other duties, taking us round to the club, tooling around seeing friends in the harbour plus towing XODs to their moorings occasionally. It’s very reassuring to have something solid under you. Plus it’s dead posh, we have a chase boat for the smallest superyacht in the world We still have an inflatable floor thing and electric outboard to carry with us. I’ve also considered the idea of some sort of sports row boat, a skiff thing. Get out there, bring the boat to the pontoon to stick the gear on board rather than putting the bags in the tender. I could row that in the river come what may. It might even be done for fun.

 

[veshengro]

Anyone that can scull an inflatable with a lightweight oar in a jury rigged sculling notch all within a couple of minutes before being swept away up River, please step forward. I'll get me camera.

I didn't include this photo in my original post, the Rowlock did not break until I was rowing ashore. I took this photo because an old ground rope was swishing about under my boat and I wanted to show the Boat Yard folk. Photo only shows the run of tide at my mooring, not the stiff breeze.

 

[johnalison]

Anyone that can scull an inflatable with a lightweight oar in a jury rigged sculling notch all within a couple of minutes before being swept away up River, please step forward. I'll get me camera.

I didn't include this photo in my original post, the Rowlock did not break until I was rowing ashore. I took this photo because an old ground rope was swishing about under my boat and I wanted to show the Boat Yard folk. Photo only shows the run of tide at my mooring, not the stiff breeze.

I couldn't possibly scull any distance, but it might get you to a nearby shore, and I have done it from one anchored boat to another close at hand.

 

[Chiara’s slave]

Sculling anything it’s hard to make meaningful progress. Back in the day, people used to scull their X boats into and out of harbour. Less hair raising than sailing them in I guess. CCYC is always entertaining after a race in an easterly wind. Judicious use of a bucket to restrict speed…