When the donkey goes quiet!

[SnaxMuppet]

I was out on a little trip from Plymouth to the the River Yealm. Wonderful day, bit breezy but nothing too uncomfortable. Nice trip.

That was until coming in to the Cattewater, near Queen Anne's Battery Marina, there was suddenly a deafening silence from the engine /forums/images/graemlins/shocked.gif.

The engine has done just 3 hours and so you can imagine what went through my mind immediately... however, about half a second after that I thought "anchor before we drift into those YACHTS!!! On what was a fairly strong tide and a F4ish wind. Yikes.

Anchor was down and we were spared the embarrasement of being watched by the gathering crowd on the shore hitting someone elses pride and joy.

Thank god we have an outboard... engine up to find yards and yards (I can say that instead of meters now I believe) of seaweed wrapped tightly around the prop. Phew. For a moment there I thought it would be a tow job but a few tugs on the right direction and off it came.

Engine down.. fired up... forward, reverse, all OK. Anchor up and away we go /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

Lesson learned? Always be ready with a backup plan for when the donkey gives up even if you have an aux engine... you may still need to get the anchor down in a hurry before you get it running.

Credit to my SWMBO for staying calm and getting ready with the fender in case we got too close to other boats.

What an eventful day /forums/images/graemlins/smirk.gif

 

[Major Catastrophe]

Well done. You prolly read that I took a saling club buoy with my outboard the weekend before last, just ten feet short of the harbour entrance. We managed to prevent falling onto the harbour wall, because the sailing club safety boat towed me off.

There was no time to deploy anchor or start aux engine adn in any case, even with anchor deployed, we would have hit wall.

I do start the aux engine every time I use the boat and always flush it afterwards with fesh water.

I drive through lots of weed, but never had a problem. I assume you were going very slow so the engine was not ruinning fast enough to clear the weed.

 

[SnaxMuppet]

Yes that is right... just 1200rpm as I was going past the yachts (I don't like hitting other boats with my wash - unlike some people GRRRRR!).

I was fortunate in that I had the space and time to drop the hook. It could have all ended quite differently otherwise /forums/images/graemlins/shocked.gif

 

[Sneds]

Qick thinking, cool head, well done.
I bet your heart was in your mouth as you cursed that new engine? /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif