D
Deleted User YDKXO
Guest
Has anyone ever had the feeling that the Big Man upstairs just didn’t want you to go boating? We’ve just returned from a few days cruising with my stepdaughter, her toddlers and our teenage son and it was pretty much an unmitigated disaster. I suppose we should have turned round and gone home on the first night when my stepdaughter ate some dodgy chicken and spent the night communing with the heads.
On day 1, we tried to leave our berth in Marina Frapa near Split but our 32A shorepower plug appeared to have welded itself to the marina socket. Got fed up and pulled the plug out with maximum force; unfortunately most of the marina socket came with it, leaving live wires dangling in the wind which I taped over for safety. No problem, I thought I’ll get a new plug at our destination in Skradin but when we arrived, there was no chandlery so with the crew begging for a/c, we had to run the genny all night. Day 2 dawned sunny and hot so we decided to anchor and go for a swim. However when I operated the pasarelle to launch the dinghy, there was a loud bang and hydraulic oil came spewing out all over the dinghy and the bathing platform. On inspection, a hydraulic fitting had parted company with one of the rams that I’d had expensively refurbed last winter. Spent the rest of the day mopping up oil and trying to stop little feet from stepping it all over the boat. In search of a 32A plug, we spent that night in another marina. Praise the Lord, they had one so after a quick rewire we had shorepower driven a/c or so we thought. We went into stifling hot Sibenik for dinner and returned to the boat around midnight expecting a cool boat to find it far from cool. The shorepower had failed whilst we’d been out. Another night on the genny. Next day, I decided to shout at the marina staff for allowing their shorepower to fail but to my embarassment they pulled the other end of the cable out of the boat and pointed out that the shorepower had failed because our Marinco plug was burnt out. Predictably the chandlery didn’t have a replacement but praise the Lord again, the chandlery in our home marina had one so it was back to Frapa for the night. One for nautical here, a lovely Malahide trawler called Calypso of Malahide
We decided to spend the day swimming in an attractive bay off the island of Kakan. During the process of picking up a buoy, one of my crew dropped our Ferretti branded boathook, which lives in a special hole under the side deck, into the sea, despite being specifically told by me to use the other boathook. Sense of humour failure on my part. So we returned to Frapa; much to my irritation, they hadn’t repaired the mangled 32A socket so we had to make do with a 16A one. I wired up the new Marinco plug to the lead and plugged into the socket. Zilch. Tried every other socket, pulled everything apart to check the wiring but zilch. Another night on the genny. In the morning, an electrician came, checked all my wiring, plugged it back into the socket and ho hum, it worked. Can’t explain it. Even better, another man came to look at the pasarelle. After first having said that the ram would have to be removed and sent away, he changed his mind and made a repair. I was so grateful, I tipped him 200 kuna (about £25). He obviously thought this was an insult as he walked all over my teak deck in his oily shoes. OK no problem, I guess we can clean it. So another idyllic day on the water beckoned except not so idyllic as we snagged a lazy line on leaving the berth and we had to anchor whilst my stepdaughter bravely dived under the boat to clear it. Penance for the boat hook incident, I thought. Anyway, we reached our intended anchorage on the island of Solta and had a lovely night under the stars with the kids disturbing the peace swimming in the blue glow of our fab new Lumishore lights (worth every penny btw)
Back to Frapa the following day as stepdaughter+kids were going home in the morning. Whilst threading our way through the islands, the GPS lost it’s fix and stayed lost for the whole day but by this time, I was becoming used to dealing with disappointments. On our return, the 32A socket wires were still dangling in the wind. I took the GPS engine apart and put it back together again and hey presto, it worked. Magic fingers, I guess. After stepdaughter and kids had gone, I decided to fill the water tank. Whilst doing this, I heard a shriek from my SWMBO down below. I went inside to investigate and nearly had a heart attack. The kids had ripped strips out of some of the vinyl lined panels in their cabins. Repairable you might think but Ferretti use a specific tan coloured leather look vinyl which so far, I have found impossible to match
Good thing the kids had already gone or their mother would have become childless that day. Anyway, having digested this new disaster, my thoughts turned again to the water tank. I forgot to mention that this season, the water tank gauge is on holiday so my only way of knowing when the tank is full is when water comes cascading down the side deck. Mmm, the hose had been filling the tank now for quite some time but no water on the deck; where was it going and why was a bilge pump whirring away merrily? The answer to that question was that the water was going into the bilges. Yup, the grp water tank had cracked again (see previous thread)
The crack was on top of the tank so providing we didn’t fill the tank completely, it wouldn’t leak so off we went again for a night at anchor. We didn’t even snag a lazy line this time so maybe our luck was changing. OK, the housing covering the underside of the anchor winch fell off whilst raising the anchor and, during some routine checks, I found that one of the bilge pumps wasn’t working but hey, that was cool, I could deal with that now. We spent our penultimate night in one of our favourite harbours at Maslinica and had an excellent dinner
The next day was hot once again so I decided to search out new anchorages and we found one, a beautiful fjord type slit off a bay just south of Frapa
By late afternoon, I had noticed that the wind had got up and that there appeared to be some white horses out to sea. No problem, I thought, the Ferretti 53 is a good seaboat, we can handle anything. We raised the anchor at about 5pm and zoomed out of the bay at 20kts without a care in the world but by the time we left the shelter of the bay, all hell broke loose. There was a howling northerly wind (Bora) blowing straight into our faces and it had whipped up by far the worst sea conditions we have ever experienced in the Med, vicious, short sharp waves nearly as high as the flybridge. No way could we maintain planing speed and I had to throttle back to about 8kts. At this speed, the bow was burying itself into each wave and solid water was crashing onto the foredeck over the windscreen and up onto the flybridge; to be honest I didn’t want to let go of the steering wheel for fear of being swept off. After a few minutes of this, the flybridge fridge door parted company with the fridge and several glass bottles started careering around the flybridge. My SWMBO bravely gathered them up and managed to store them in a seat locker; I shouted to her to go downstairs to the saloon for her own safety. After about 30 mins of crashing through the waves, we were forced to turn into the bay in which our marina is located which meant being beam onto the waves which was even more uncomfortable. I didn’t know it at the time, but at this stage, the DVD player and the satellite box broke loose and flew across the saloon. My SWMBO who by this time was lying on the saloon sofa, was also thrown across the saloon and damaged her arm. Amazingly only one galley locker disgorged it’s contents but we lost some crockery. When we finally managed to make it back into the marina, we found we had left one of the hull windows open. In our first bit of luck all week, it was a bathroom window so only a bathroom full of seawater. I also found a small dead fish on the flybridge. The 32A socket still wasn’t fixed but I didn’t care.
In retrospect, despite my years of experience, I didn’t think straight when faced with those big seas. What we should have done is immediately turned around and gone back into the bay in order to stow anything that wasn’t nailed down. Normally I also drive from down below when there’s any sea flying about and I should have been there rather than on the exposed flybridge. They say you never stop learning.
The following day we flew home on Sleazy and amazingly had no more mishaps until we were quite close to home when a tractor forced us onto the verge on a narrow country road causing a puncture. Oh yes, I nearly forgot. I contracted an ear infection during the trip as well, probably whilst swimming, and I am now on antibiotics.
We are off to Croatia again next week for a few more days boating. I guess this boating lark is supposed to be fun but it certainly doesn’t feel like it some times.
On day 1, we tried to leave our berth in Marina Frapa near Split but our 32A shorepower plug appeared to have welded itself to the marina socket. Got fed up and pulled the plug out with maximum force; unfortunately most of the marina socket came with it, leaving live wires dangling in the wind which I taped over for safety. No problem, I thought I’ll get a new plug at our destination in Skradin but when we arrived, there was no chandlery so with the crew begging for a/c, we had to run the genny all night. Day 2 dawned sunny and hot so we decided to anchor and go for a swim. However when I operated the pasarelle to launch the dinghy, there was a loud bang and hydraulic oil came spewing out all over the dinghy and the bathing platform. On inspection, a hydraulic fitting had parted company with one of the rams that I’d had expensively refurbed last winter. Spent the rest of the day mopping up oil and trying to stop little feet from stepping it all over the boat. In search of a 32A plug, we spent that night in another marina. Praise the Lord, they had one so after a quick rewire we had shorepower driven a/c or so we thought. We went into stifling hot Sibenik for dinner and returned to the boat around midnight expecting a cool boat to find it far from cool. The shorepower had failed whilst we’d been out. Another night on the genny. Next day, I decided to shout at the marina staff for allowing their shorepower to fail but to my embarassment they pulled the other end of the cable out of the boat and pointed out that the shorepower had failed because our Marinco plug was burnt out. Predictably the chandlery didn’t have a replacement but praise the Lord again, the chandlery in our home marina had one so it was back to Frapa for the night. One for nautical here, a lovely Malahide trawler called Calypso of Malahide
We decided to spend the day swimming in an attractive bay off the island of Kakan. During the process of picking up a buoy, one of my crew dropped our Ferretti branded boathook, which lives in a special hole under the side deck, into the sea, despite being specifically told by me to use the other boathook. Sense of humour failure on my part. So we returned to Frapa; much to my irritation, they hadn’t repaired the mangled 32A socket so we had to make do with a 16A one. I wired up the new Marinco plug to the lead and plugged into the socket. Zilch. Tried every other socket, pulled everything apart to check the wiring but zilch. Another night on the genny. In the morning, an electrician came, checked all my wiring, plugged it back into the socket and ho hum, it worked. Can’t explain it. Even better, another man came to look at the pasarelle. After first having said that the ram would have to be removed and sent away, he changed his mind and made a repair. I was so grateful, I tipped him 200 kuna (about £25). He obviously thought this was an insult as he walked all over my teak deck in his oily shoes. OK no problem, I guess we can clean it. So another idyllic day on the water beckoned except not so idyllic as we snagged a lazy line on leaving the berth and we had to anchor whilst my stepdaughter bravely dived under the boat to clear it. Penance for the boat hook incident, I thought. Anyway, we reached our intended anchorage on the island of Solta and had a lovely night under the stars with the kids disturbing the peace swimming in the blue glow of our fab new Lumishore lights (worth every penny btw)
Back to Frapa the following day as stepdaughter+kids were going home in the morning. Whilst threading our way through the islands, the GPS lost it’s fix and stayed lost for the whole day but by this time, I was becoming used to dealing with disappointments. On our return, the 32A socket wires were still dangling in the wind. I took the GPS engine apart and put it back together again and hey presto, it worked. Magic fingers, I guess. After stepdaughter and kids had gone, I decided to fill the water tank. Whilst doing this, I heard a shriek from my SWMBO down below. I went inside to investigate and nearly had a heart attack. The kids had ripped strips out of some of the vinyl lined panels in their cabins. Repairable you might think but Ferretti use a specific tan coloured leather look vinyl which so far, I have found impossible to match
Good thing the kids had already gone or their mother would have become childless that day. Anyway, having digested this new disaster, my thoughts turned again to the water tank. I forgot to mention that this season, the water tank gauge is on holiday so my only way of knowing when the tank is full is when water comes cascading down the side deck. Mmm, the hose had been filling the tank now for quite some time but no water on the deck; where was it going and why was a bilge pump whirring away merrily? The answer to that question was that the water was going into the bilges. Yup, the grp water tank had cracked again (see previous thread)
The crack was on top of the tank so providing we didn’t fill the tank completely, it wouldn’t leak so off we went again for a night at anchor. We didn’t even snag a lazy line this time so maybe our luck was changing. OK, the housing covering the underside of the anchor winch fell off whilst raising the anchor and, during some routine checks, I found that one of the bilge pumps wasn’t working but hey, that was cool, I could deal with that now. We spent our penultimate night in one of our favourite harbours at Maslinica and had an excellent dinner
The next day was hot once again so I decided to search out new anchorages and we found one, a beautiful fjord type slit off a bay just south of Frapa
By late afternoon, I had noticed that the wind had got up and that there appeared to be some white horses out to sea. No problem, I thought, the Ferretti 53 is a good seaboat, we can handle anything. We raised the anchor at about 5pm and zoomed out of the bay at 20kts without a care in the world but by the time we left the shelter of the bay, all hell broke loose. There was a howling northerly wind (Bora) blowing straight into our faces and it had whipped up by far the worst sea conditions we have ever experienced in the Med, vicious, short sharp waves nearly as high as the flybridge. No way could we maintain planing speed and I had to throttle back to about 8kts. At this speed, the bow was burying itself into each wave and solid water was crashing onto the foredeck over the windscreen and up onto the flybridge; to be honest I didn’t want to let go of the steering wheel for fear of being swept off. After a few minutes of this, the flybridge fridge door parted company with the fridge and several glass bottles started careering around the flybridge. My SWMBO bravely gathered them up and managed to store them in a seat locker; I shouted to her to go downstairs to the saloon for her own safety. After about 30 mins of crashing through the waves, we were forced to turn into the bay in which our marina is located which meant being beam onto the waves which was even more uncomfortable. I didn’t know it at the time, but at this stage, the DVD player and the satellite box broke loose and flew across the saloon. My SWMBO who by this time was lying on the saloon sofa, was also thrown across the saloon and damaged her arm. Amazingly only one galley locker disgorged it’s contents but we lost some crockery. When we finally managed to make it back into the marina, we found we had left one of the hull windows open. In our first bit of luck all week, it was a bathroom window so only a bathroom full of seawater. I also found a small dead fish on the flybridge. The 32A socket still wasn’t fixed but I didn’t care.
In retrospect, despite my years of experience, I didn’t think straight when faced with those big seas. What we should have done is immediately turned around and gone back into the bay in order to stow anything that wasn’t nailed down. Normally I also drive from down below when there’s any sea flying about and I should have been there rather than on the exposed flybridge. They say you never stop learning.
The following day we flew home on Sleazy and amazingly had no more mishaps until we were quite close to home when a tractor forced us onto the verge on a narrow country road causing a puncture. Oh yes, I nearly forgot. I contracted an ear infection during the trip as well, probably whilst swimming, and I am now on antibiotics.
We are off to Croatia again next week for a few more days boating. I guess this boating lark is supposed to be fun but it certainly doesn’t feel like it some times.
