Signs From Above - Or Not?

After a significant delay caused mainly by inclement 2012 weather but also by apprehensive procrastination, a week was put aside to get the old girl rigged and sailing. The weather had brightened, our enthusiasm was stoked and we headed out onto the water to begin the next phase of our maritime adventure. All three of us were scheduled to be in the same place at the same time but, alas, it was not to be. 

Missy Finally Performing Her Design Function

John, who had supported the mast almost single handedly when it had been stepped in early July, had had a grumbling back problem ever since and it chose this week to finally down tools altogether and he had to cry off while it was tended to. So Dave and I headed for Missy Moto with high hopes of a first sail. The gods, however, decided otherwise as a series of setbacks began with the engine failing to start after several serious attempts. Having hooked up the main halyard, the lazy jacks and the parrels we unshipped the engine and hauled it back in the inflatable to deal with on dry land fully intending to be back and sailing by Thursday. We left Dave to deal with the engine on the Wednesday and headed for our one day of work. On our return in the afternoon we found that Dave had closed the garage door in the middle of dealing with the engine only to find himself locked out of the garage by the closing mechanism jamming. All tools were in the garage and we had to borrow an angle grinder and cut our way in through the garage door. We now had an additional job to do to make the garage secure but at least the engine had been liberated and Dave could begin his diagnosis of the problem. Eventually, after some dancing around the local Tohatsu agent, who seemed to believe that we shouldn't have touched the engine since it was still under guarantee, the engine was sorted and running sweetly, reinstalled on Friday, the main sheet finally rigged and we motored out of the bay in very light drifting winds to raise the sail and have a bit of a shakedown. Everything worked, nothing was binding and the little boat sailed in the light airs but very slowly. Into an ebbing tide we were even being overtaken by Ballard Down at one stage! 

Small Hint From The Engine Whisperer

As a brief aside, the Tohatsu has a five year warranty but, and it's a big but, only if it's serviced to their specifications which are frequent, no doubt expensive, ministrations by their appointed agents. The very old-fashioned look served up by their local appointed agent seemed to say 'you really shouldn't have taken it apart because we can use that to invalidate your warranty'. Which kind of begs the question, what are you supposed to do if it fails at sea? Wait for the appointed agent to show up spontaneously on the off chance or try and fix it yourself thus invalidating your much trumpeted warranty. It seems that the 'warranty' benefits only one group of people, Tohatsu and their agents. In other words it's a waste of expensive paper. Ignore it.

Back on the mooring we were not unreasonably pleased with our progress and we were determined to take her out in slightly more wind on the following day. Force 3-4 was forecast with a slight sea. Perfect.

Sadly, our optimism was not rewarded. Carrying our stuff to the foreshore early on Saturday morning, the frapping in the boat park sounded like the mines scene in Lord of the Rings only with more hammers. It was glaringly obvious that it was blowing directly onshore and at around Force 6 far too strong for two novice sailors to venture out in an unknown boat. So we packed everything back in the car and went for breakfast. This was to prove the most sensible decision of the week.

After an idle day during which we were busy doing not much, Dave and SWMBO took a stroll into Swanage stopping briefly to check on Missy Moto who was rocking alarmingly in the short wind born chop that was carpeting the beach with seaweed. Viewed through the binoculars Dave immediately noticed something awry but couldn't quite put his finger on it. Then it dawned, we'd lost the mast! It was late afternoon so we left it to check on the following day, Sunday. We went to bed thanking whatever fates were looking out for us that we hadn't raised the sail in that wind on that day. Swanage lifeboat would have been busy and one or both of us could very well have ended up in hospital.

Sunday saw us on the boat and hauling up the mast, still thankfully attached by the main halyard and the lazyjacks, and securing it to the deck.

The final straws in this week of disasters was that the tender engine decided to die on us as well and the inflatable tender also sprung a leak.

So, we have a dismasted boat, unreliable main engine, unreliable tender engine, leaking inflatable. Maybe, we thought, someone's trying to tell us something! On the plus side, we still have the mast, both engines have had a thorough service, neither of us was injured and we survived with our dignity in tact if not our tempers. Oh, and we have a razor-edged cat flap in the garage door beside which I fully expect to find half a cat one fine morning - the other half being on the inside.

Ah, the pleasures of boating.