How self sufficient are you?

J

john_morris_uk

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Q: What caused you to retire?
A: Knocked down in Force 11 gale, thrown overboard, harness held, injured shoulder, torn main sail, torn jib sail, main compass broken, all electronic instruments out, batteries lost acid, VHF radio gone.

Q: By whom were you rescued?

A: Made port under own steam.

- Retirement questionnaire filled out by Colin Drummond, skipper of Sleuth Hound after 1976 Ostar

OK - I know that I nicked the quote from another website, but we were sailing off N Brittany this summer and had nearly complete loss of engine cooling water from a split rubber end cap on the heat-exchanger. I thought I'd repaired it temporarily by putting a hose clip round it, but it split again dramatically and we ended up motoring through the rocks at the entrance to Treguier with son and friend topping the coolant up every couple of minutes. Once clear it was up with the kite and sail to Jersey. I put some amalgamating tape round the leak while we were on passage and when we got a phone signal again I phoned round and ordered a new part. The amalgamating tape lasted just long enough to get us into the marina at Jersey. The part duly arrived and we were completely fixed a few minutes later.

I am not extolling my virtues as a handyman, but the thought occurred to me that at no stage did I think about calling the coast guard or asking for help. Perhaps I should have alerted the authorities to my plight. But we were in no danger - we were a yacht that was sailing and doing OK, so what would you do?
 
I too retired from the 1976 OSTAR. In my case the rudder quadrant snapped leaving the rudder flapping. I could alter course by climbing into the aft cabin and using the emergency tiller but there was no way to steer a course. I came back by balancing the sails and picked up my mooring in Chichester harbour 800 miles later.

I couldn't have called for help anyway - like a lot of sailors in those days I had no radio transmitter. That's the way things were in those days.

As far as the OP's situation was concerned, I would probably have let the CG know the situation but after a recent thread on the subject I'd be reluctant to do that as they do seem to send out the lifeboat at the drop of a hat.
 
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Robih said:
Invite you and your missus over to my boat for dinner to hear of your tales of "derring do". You up for that?

Rob
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Robert - always happy to have dinner with you - but I am not sure I have got any tails of derring do. I'm just another yachtie with the normal scrapes and excitement(s)that comes of trying to keep out of trouble whilst having fun on the green and crinkly stuff.
 
bilbobaggins said:
which way round did you go....?
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I was a few hundred miles SW of the Fastnet at the time of the mishap. It was pretty much a straight run back though of course it was all astro in those days so one or two fixes a day if the sky was clear. The channel starts to seem quite narrow when you are working on DR and you haven't had a fix for a couple of days.
 
john_morris_uk said:
OK - I know that I nicked the quote from another website, but we were sailing off N Brittany this summer and had nearly complete loss of engine cooling water from a split rubber end cap on the heat-exchanger. I thought I'd repaired it temporarily by putting a hose clip round it, but it split again dramatically and we ended up motoring through the rocks at the entrance to Treguier with son and friend topping the coolant up every couple of minutes. Once clear it was up with the kite and sail to Jersey. I put some amalgamating tape round the leak while we were on passage and when we got a phone signal again I phoned round and ordered a new part. The amalgamating tape lasted just long enough to get us into the marina at Jersey. The part duly arrived and we were completely fixed a few minutes later.

I am not extolling my virtues as a handyman, but the thought occurred to me that at no stage did I think about calling the coast guard or asking for help. Perhaps I should have alerted the authorities to my plight. But we were in no danger - we were a yacht that was sailing and doing OK, so what would you do?
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For around 35 years I've been very self sufficient. In my early days on cruising boats engines were unreliable and I was nearly always broke so DIY was the order of the day and learning curves were steep! I've sailed several boats out of and back into harbours engineless, steered one with a molegrip on the rudderhead and sailed another home with the spare genoa halyard as the forestay. I looked disdainfully at folks needing the lifeboat to tow in a sailing boat.

Then last year I had the embarrassment of being towed into harbour with an engine problem. In our case this happened right in the heart of Le Raz De Sein. We had sailed all the way there from Camaret in very light winds which vanished totally right at our first waypoint for the southbound transit, there was a big swell too rolling the now windless boat. We started the very reliable engine and 3 minutes later the alarms were going, oil or water we new not which, so off it went PDQ whilst I investigated and SWMBO tried to steer under sail. The engine had dropped all it's freshwater cooling water into the bilges. I refilled it using the shower head which just reached but it came out as fast as it went in although I had no idea where from, our engine has good access but from one side at a time and it wasn't leaking from the side I was filling from. In the meantime the tide (springs and running hard) took us through the Raz and spat us out the other side, we couldn't have hit the rocks if we had tried. SWMBO tried to steer but zilch wind and big swell and no steerage at all, we even did a couple of 360s. We tried unsuccessfully for an hour to sail out of the area before the tide turned north again but this time taking us towards the rocks, anchoring was impossible it was too deep, over 150ft. Reluctantly we had to ask for a tow or risk being carried onto the rocks so made a call to the French CG (normal call, no Pan or anything) who had a ginormous trawler come to tow us clear, which he did at 9kts with us surfing at up to 14kts down the swells trying hard to pass him, even with no sails up! He took us out of the danger area and then shouted to us that another boat was now coming to tow us into Audierne and even then we didn't cotton on that it was the lifeboat! OK so we could have waited around for wind by then as we were now out of the strong tide but the lifeboat was already there, we still had an engine problem and no wind was forecast so reluctantly we allowed them to tow us in. That tow cost us 850 euros because no lives were then at risk, albeit that might not have been the case but for the fishing boat helping initially.

The engine problem was very simple. All that had happened is that a drain cock I didn't know existed at the rear of the engine had come out but it took 2 people to see that, me filling and French engineer searching.

So nowadays I'm a bit less critical of sailing boats needing help for lack of engine power! In our case we DID need help, we couldn't anchor and couldn't even get steerage way under sail (and we can sail in almost nothing). There was no way we could use a dinghy and outboard to move us in the 3m swells running at the time and trying that would have been very risky. If we had one more person on board to fill water whilst I looked maybe I would have found the cause and plugged the hole with last night's wine cork but as usual it was just me and SWMBO.
 
john_morris_uk said:
but we were sailing off N Brittany this summer and had nearly complete loss of engine cooling water from a split rubber end cap on the heat-exchanger. I thought I'd repaired it temporarily by putting a hose clip round it, but it split again dramatically and we ended up motoring through the rocks at the entrance to Treguier with son and friend topping the coolant up every couple of minutes.
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I've heard of running a hose from salt water galley tap to engine raw-water intake and have crew pump every 15 seconds - after seacock/filter failure.

The spare garden hose I use for flushing the raw side (actually, that's all there is on my boat) is now a bit longer than it used to be.
 
answer - umm not very

I have been in a couple of situations, only one required a tow and IMHO there was nothing to be embarresed about. The incident that did require a tow has sparked my thread "Scared fiancee - please help" which is still ongoing and proving very useful btw.

The first time i got into a sticky situation i was moving a 30ft fishing boat from Newquay to Plymouth, we came around Lands end as the sun was setting, and the swell was building. We did everything necessary to avoid being caught in bad weather but a simple squall blew through and made for an uncomfortable ride on a boat i had owned for a matter of hours. As the sun was setting i asked my deck hand to dip the fuel tank as we had been doing every few hours. To our amazment we went from 3/4 to under 1/4 since the last check.

I looked into the bilge, and yep - full of diesel the swell had cause a chunk of balast to peirce the tank. We had to knock down the revs, giving us a speed of 3 knots instead of 8-10. As my deck hand tried to source the leak i put in a call to HMCG, no pan, just on the routine traffic channel. Shortly after calling our GPS started smoking, and i dont mean the nicotine type.

Luckily we had given our position to the CG. They requested we check in every 30 mins with an update. And advised we headed straight for Newlyn which we did. Having stuffed the source of the leak with whatever we could find (a condom of all things ((no comment needed)) we carried on. Swell 15ft + wind 20-30 knots +. Cut this very long night and story short, we sucked the tank dry about 4 feet from the pontoon in Newlyn. phew - made that one by the skin of our teeth. But the feeling of knowing that our situation was known and we had people on standby just in case made things much easier to deal with. I honestly did not think we would make it without assistance at one point.

My first time at being the rescued not the rescuer came in July this year when myself and my partner purchased our current boat, a colvic UFO 34. Maiden voyage on the evening spring tide of the 22nd to be precise. We purchased the boat on the hard standing, had it dropped in on the evening tide (in the Tamar) loaded the cats and supplies on board and headed straight for Cawsand Bay to anchor up for the night with several other yachts. The motor was a little slow on the uptake, but thats to be expected after 18 months on the hard so when she did fire and run like a dream, everything was going to plan in my book. (Fiancee had never been on a yacht in her life!) We motored into the channel, hoisted the rags killed the engine and off we went.

It was such a nice evening that we decided to go around the back of Drakes island to make the most of the evening sea breeze. As the wind was head on heading into Cawsand we hacked up and were making our final tack close(ish) to Penlee point. At that second someone turned the fans off, it was like sitting in the middle pond, the water was glass and the sunset was breath taking. So i told the better half that sailing for today was finished and instructed her on how to start the engine which she did so as i dropped the sheets.

Again no probs in my mind, less than 1 mile from where i like to anchor in the bay, we should be there in a matter of minutes. Within 30 seconds of engaging forward gear, it died. I knew instantly it was fuel starvation, but i also realised at the same time we had 10 mins before we would be on the rocks of Penlee point due to tide - not desireable! A quick check of the sounder told me i was too deep to anchor under the chain and line we had, as its still fairly deep there. I asked my fiancee very calmly to go down below and put the kettle on. As soon as she was out of sight i was legging it around the deck like a heard of elephants taking any and every spare bit of line and some not so spare i could find in order to add it to the anchor line.
This gave me enough to make contact with the sea bed +10 to 15 feet extra.

Now i know im in the $h1t. I checked the plotter to confirm we were indeed dragging at a fairly decent pace towards the rocks, now 100-150 meters away, hearing the small swell on the rocks, and of course by this time the light had all but gone. So i know i have done everything in my power to avoid a pan call, but sometimes its just gotta be done. In case you are thinking i should have done that straight away all of the above happened in around 5 mins.

I could hear the lifeboat communicating to the CG - and asking to put the helicopter on stand-by as they did not think they would get their beast that close to the head. This made my fiancee go a very lurid shade of green and the hurling began. Within 4-5 mins i could see the nav lights heading our way at speed. Luckily, very luckily, they assesed the situation and passed us a tow line. No time to rescue the anchor or my line so i attached a fender to the end and left it behind. I dont know if anyone has been in close quaters to a lifeboat (15 feet away) at a decent amount of revs, but it felt like an earthquake on the water this caused the cats to expell fluids from every orophis across our cabin, pebble dashing it. They proceeded to tow us back to a very posh Plymouth marina at around 10 - 12 knots. (no problem with that, happy to be out of there!)
The helicopter crew were cancled, and we were safe.

In my experience with both Plmouth and Looe lifeboat crew (amazing people) when i have rescued kayacks stuck due to stupidity, or speed baots that lie about engine failure but have simply run out of fuel, they are not too sympathetic. But with me they could tell i was unhappy that we were in that situation at all and every single member on board the life boat assured me that i did everything 100% correct and i have absolutly nothing to be ashamed of.

So thats the one time i was not self sufficient and that is officially my longest post on this forum!

Since then we have completed almost 400 miles of safe and hastle free sailing. i.e we got straight back on the horse. This has of course affected my fiancee but maybe thats not such a bad thing. After all it is very easy for the most pleasent trip to turn sour very quick.

Hope i didn't bore anyone, thats if you got this far.

:)

p.s a very friendly RIB owner from the marina took me out to retreive the anchor.
 
I've once had a tow, and that wasn't really out of choice, but neccessity.

After leaving Eastbourne, heading towards Dover, we watched the wind gradually drop, until, as we rounded Dungeness it vanished completely... so we started the motor.... just 5 mins later, there was a horrible graunching noise and the engine stopped (it later transpired that the gearbox had failed spectacularly)....

We contacted the CG via a 'routine traffic' call, and just drifted with the tide towards Dover....

A good few hours later we were just off Dover, and the tide was about to turn... we would have been washed back into Dungeness.... we would simply have anchored and waited it out.... but as we approached Dover the wind reappeard (well enough to just make way against the tide), but Dover Port rules won't allow you to sail in to the harbour, and anyway, the only overnight location allowed is in the marinas, and they are between high walls, which wouldn't have been viable to sail in the very light winds....

We could have carried on across the Thames Estuary, but with no engine, and forecast absence of winds that wouldn't have been sensible either...

So reluctantly I accepted a tow into Dover....

Yes, maybe I could have tried for the Thames Estuary crossing, but with a big high sitting over the south east it would have been a very risky strategy.
 
Engine seized while on Folly Pontoon. I was alongside pontoon and either end of me were rafted boats. So nthere was I ... 25ft boat in a 30+ft slot with 3 boats rafted aft, 4 boats rafted ford of me ... bow pointing up river.... on channel side of pontoon.

So careful spill and fill of sails with help of spring line .. we glided out ... and once clear did an about turn and sailed down the river to Cowes. Mike with me kept asking how we would get up to Hayling Yacht Co. - my home berth, given the winding channel to it and also tide restrictions.
Answer - We worry about that when we get to it !!

So sail down river ... aproaching Chain Ferry - Folkboat in front playing silly b's .. so I go to bow and call to him .. Excuse me Good fellow .. I have no engine and I think I may like to pass you ... can you keep a straight course ?

Said Folkboat waved, moved over as he was under engine and we went on ... getting across chains before ferry started his crossing.

Out of Cowes ... across to Chichester entrance without problem as expected. Entered Chi. Hbr and turned into the channel for HYCo ... Mike asked if he could take her in .. Ok - be my guest ... and he then suggested we do it under mainsail only. I advised not - but her wanted to be skipper so I agreed. Unfortunately my boat is genny powered and she just slid sideways onto the shallows and aground. Wind was increasing and it was obvious it was going to get very uncomfortable.

A McGregor was passing us and seeing that great big outboard on back - called him to give us a tow ... wasted effort, the McG just skidded around with lack of grip in the water ... so he gave up. I anchored and asked the McG if he could take my crew ashore - I'd stay on board and wait better weather .. possibly HYCo workboat next day - this being sunday evening ! So Mike and ladies left and I was alone. It was cold, wind was getting stronger and I just felt I had to do something.

So I thought of combo ... genny and anchor. Ok - if I don't try - I will never know ... So with alternate anchor / genny ... genny when boat flaoting free ... anchor to pull her of putty ... I managed to leap-frog the boat round the channel and up to the marina. Boy I was tired by then ... but I approached the pontoon complex and dropped anchor last time. Dinghy over and take line ashore .. I joined together mooring lines to make one long one. I now carry a LONG line having learnt my lesson !. So made that fast to end pontoon ... rowed back to boat and proceeded to haul myself to the pontoon .... tied up and collapsed !

Called Mike on mobile ... " Hey Mike - where are you ? ...... Do you fancy coming back and collecting your stuff ... ? "

He couldn't believe I'd done it ... but sure enough there he was 10 mins later standing at boat side ...

It may not be ocean capsize, Fastnet stuff - but to me it was a solid, amazing achievement. Use of gear to do what if anybody had asked me - a task that needed other gear.

I also had deep satisfaction of hearing Sunsail skipper telling crew when trying to depart Folly Pontoon ... " Watch this - daft - it can't work ... ". Well Dear Mr. SS Skipper it did and I never got even close to your fenders !!
 
Only once lost the drive .... the prop shaft came out the back of the coupling as I was heading out of Chi Harbour. Once I realised I started heading back to our mooring (was only on a day sail anyway) ... just me and a complete novice crew who heard me on the phone to Father in Law (it was his boat) saying I'd lost the (use of the) propshaft ... didn't even think about calling in for a tow - just let family know what had happened.
Sailed up and picked up the mooring no problem!

Had a little "issue" off Gurnsey this year - little wind so motoring, came across a bigger AWB going backwards under motor looking confused on deck - he'd lost forward drive, so rather than leave him to work out how he was going to get down the Little Russel we offered a tow. Turned out his sail drive gearbox had disintegrated leaving him with reverse or neutral .... maybe he could've got himself in - but for the sake of a little diesel and 1/2 hour extra time I was happy giving him a tow (we did receive a couple of very nice bottles for our trouble though! :) ) and it saved him the concern - especially with toddlers onboard.
 
Only once really wished I had a tow. Only second time skippering, on a flotilla holiday in the Sporades. It was 'free sailing' day and we were motor sailing from Alonissos to Skopelos (iirc) into what at the time seemed like a pretty steep sea when the engine died. I guessed that we were out of fuel and cursed myself for being a lazy arse for not checking it (ever present lead crew induced complacency).

Managed to get about a third of the jerry can of fuel in the tank, the rest everywhere but. Didn't have a clue about things like bleeding diesel engines so when it wouldn't start assumed I had diagnosed wrong. We were not far from the harbour we were heading for so continued sailing while trying to raise the lead crew, without success (we learnt when we met up again the next day that they had sailed off to some distant island for a barbeque with the lead boat from another flotilla and were out of VHF range).

As we approached the very narrow harbour in an increasing state of panic, we switched to calling 'any xxxxx flotilla boat' and were answered by one of our flotilla (who we knew were experienced sailors) who were moored stern to the concrete quayside with a one boat width space beside them. They reckoned we could sail in bows-to and they would be on the quayside to take our lines.

It was utterly terrifying. The wind in the steep sided bay was gusting from every direction between complete lulls and it was a nightmare getting any sort of control. It took about six attempts to get an angle and speed I was happyish with, but turned out to be rather too fast. Fortunately the son on the boat that was awaiting us was built like a proverbial, otherwise we would have put quite a significant ding in the quayside.

I think the son's was nicknamed Tiny, but my memory may have inserted that subsequently. But if you are reading and recognise this - thanks again.

I came straight home and learned a bit more about engines but am still paranoid about running out of fuel. There have over the years since been a few colourful exchanges with swmbo when I routinely refuse to use the engine when there is less than 1/4 a tank showing.

Mark
 
Robin said:
Then last year I had the embarrassment of being towed into harbour with an engine problem. In our case this happened right in the heart of Le Raz De Sein. We had sailed all the way there from Camaret in very light winds which vanished totally right at our first waypoint for the southbound transit, there was a big swell too rolling the now windless boat. .
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I had a similar problem in exactly the same place. We set off toward Biscay in light winds with the tide and before long the light winds died to absolutely nothing. We had a couple of miles clearance from the Raz but when I put the engine on it would not engage gear. I spent half an hour trying in the engine room to free the stuck selector, but with no luck and with the tide taking us toward the rocks of the Raz and still not a breath of wind it was getting a bit dicey. It's too deep to anchor but we saw a small fishing boat heading towards us. I could clearly see the name of the boat and called him on the VHF thinking he may be coming to help. There was no answer so I called a few more times explaining our predicament in broken French. Still no answer, by now he was almost upon us so I asked SWMBO to crack a handheld flare on the bow. He came within five feet and went straight passed! Then a voice with a French accent came over the radio and asked my position. Thinking it was the fishing boat I said with some annoyance "well now I'm behind you!"
The voice replied "I don't think you're behind me sir, I'm the coastguard and I'm in Brest....inland."


The coastguard were very good and monitored us closely but fortunately the wind returned slightly and we were able to sail back to Cameret at 2kts, where the young lad in the marina towed us onto a berth in his rib.....straight into the side of a Hallberg Rassey.

I have sinced "self-rescued" by lashing the dinghy amidships and using the outboard as back up power. it works better than expected, a 6hp outboard pushed us along at 3kts (38ft boat and 20,000lbs)
 
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We had dirty fuel this summer and so entered the marina under sail and docked with some people kindly catching our lines. (Incidentally, the day after the engine was serviced by a Volvo agent...) A second break-down occurred the following day when the fuel lift pump gave out. There we entered the Odet river for the Marina at Benodet (Spring tides) with the dinghy and outboard (2hp) tied alongside. Trying to tow the boat would never have worked. My daughter had to sit at the front of the dinghy to prevent it from doing a back somersault. We docked OK. I did telephone through to the marina office to warn them that we might need a hand and again they duly took our lines.

Afterwards the engine was fully serviced (again) and ran like new.

I have also had to enter St Mary's Scilly several times under sail (flat battery and, again, dirty fuel bought in Ireland). As I only had a beginner with me, I took 3 reefs in the main and rolled the genoa about 3/4 in. This meant the sails were easy to manage as we had to go around a second time to pick up the mooring.

John
 
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