Time To Fess Up

[Baitrunner]

Saturday was the first time we had braved taking our current boat down the Chet. First time in 6 yrs since we have braved it. 

Was going to meet friends who had checked the tide times so we were aiming for the end of the flood to give us max depth. 

They lied. We ended up coming in on the flood!! 

Anyone who was on the way out who passed us thanks for letting us come through. The flood seemed to carry us faster than I expected. But thought nothing of it. 

Luckily (read on) our friends wanted to go in the basin to get a hook up, so we cruised past the spaces on the green area before the boat yards. 

Also at this point it was lucky our friends  had been delayed due to yakking in the marina and we were the lead boat. 

Into the basin and plenty of space at the far end. 

A bit of stbd to kick the front round and into neutral. Crap this flood is strong we are still going forward. 

Blip of reverse that will sort it. There was a word I cant print but reverse just made us go forward still. A bigger blip and another one of those words, we went forward even faster. The penny had dropped now.

With stern drives no engine power means no steering. So darent kill the engines yet as I had to turn. If you know the end of the basin you know why!!!

So hard stbd get the turn and kill the engines. I had no idea which engine was stuck in gear so had to do both!!

executed the best 4mph side on mooring ever, but with no brakes guess where the front hit!!

rode up the quay heading and came to an abrupt stop. Much noise, luckily of splintering wood. Lots of looking from the other boats who probably wondered what we were up to. 

Anyway, the stbd engine was jammed in fwd and any revs just sent us faster fwd. 

this all happened in about 20 seconds, but with hindsight it wasn't the flood pushing us in it was the stbd engine not going into neutral. 

The mooring owners were good as gold as we didn't do a runner and have exchanged details. Not that we could have run off anyway  

we spoke to another boat owner who had seen what happened and guessed we were stuck in gear and was sympathetic. 

Top marks to Boulter Marine who I have breakdown cover with. They came out to try and fix the problem which they couldn't, but made sure we got back to our mooring on one engine with no power steering. It's not easy when it goes andvyou have to negotiate a windey river like the Chet. 

We have left our mark on loddon (literally) but luckily due to the low quay heading and high front on the boat the hull damage is superficial. I had to push us off once we got the ropes on!

She comes out monday to work out what went wrong in the gear box. Fingers crossed it's the cheap cable issue in the drive leg.   

by the way it is a fly by wire throttle system so very hard to tell which engine had the problem.

I am disappointed we didn't make YouTube though

one wiser and hopefully more knowledgeable skipper now. 

[ExSurveyor]

 I am disappointed we didn't make YouTube though:

YET

 

[ScrumpyCheddar]

Mark it happens to the best of us mate....

Next time let wife skipper the boat... at least your have some one to shout at he he he...

Jokes a side at least your safe and well.... fingers crossed not to much damaged has been done except in the wallet....

[SwanR]

Nothing on YouTube? Any CCTV?   ... I think I forget about people who might be lurking with cameras when i'm actually doing something.

Sounds quite scary really though.

[Baitrunner]

Thanks Mike. Biggest damage was to my pride!!! Oh and the wallet. Monday will tell how bad  

Swanr - scared the pants off me. Now it has happened I'd like to say I'm wiser and would handle it better next time. Well I'd like to think that. 

It happened so fast though I think it was more luck than judgement I didn't do more damage. 

[BroadAmbition]

Respect to you for sharing with the rest of us. Hope it's not too expensive 

Griff

[Baitrunner]

Griff if I hadn't, you never know who was watching!!! Best to get in first not as embarrassing as a blue fender moment though 

we did see a hire boat being recovered from Breydon earlier in the day and I did wonder if  they had had an engine failure? 

The funny thing about that was the tow boat was there single handed, he had it lashed to his boat and was coming off the shallows as, wait for it. The SoB came hurtling down Breydon, I assume to help out after, after it was all done. Still they made sure she still works. 

[ExUserGone]

My best gear issue was on the gt.ouse in a norman 25 during a big rowing regatta, going upstream they would hold the boats back till a race went off and let the cruisers follow up through the race lanes (you'd never catch the rowers at river speed), I held back holding station nicely till I was given the signal to go and as I went into forward gear and gave it some throttle I discovered the gear cable had jumped off in reverse gear, backwards we shot shouting at the rowers waiting for the next race to get out of the way as all I could do was reverse till we reached the bank.

Luckily only a few thousand spectators, even more luckily before youtube....

[ChrisB]

I accidently got tangled in the Kill Cord, engine stopped dead. It was very windy crossing Barton but the engine refused to start. By now we were drifting fast so I went forwards to deploy the mud weight. Tried turning the key but nowt. Never mind, one of the reasons I chose Honda is even the electric remote models have a recoil starter. Dropped the back rest and pulled and pulled nothing. It was mid Winter but I was sweating, the boat was tugging at the mud weight and ranging like a kite in too strong a wind and not another boat in sight.

Judith then said "Maybe you should start it with the lever in neutral"  The emergency stop had left the throttle wide open. What a fool I felt!

[Baitrunner]

Well gearbox fixed. 

All that for a 10p split pin. Had fallen out ( no idea how) and has now been replaced. Help the selector cable in place  

Didnt take long for the engineer to spot and fix once it was in the sling. 

Hopefully I never have one of those go on me again!!

[quo vadis]

14 minutes ago, Baitrunner said:

Well gearbox fixed. 

All that for a 10p split pin. Had fallen out ( no idea how) and has now been replaced. Help the selector cable in place  

Didnt take long for the engineer to spot and fix once it was in the sling. 

Hopefully I never have one of those go on me again!!

Am I reading this right

the engineer noticed this once the boat had been lifted out of the water?

Edited August 7, 2017 by quo vadis
Stupidity

[Baitrunner]

Well it would have been hard to spot it under water as the gearbox is in the stern drive leg. 

[quo vadis]

Volvo putdrive?

[Baitrunner]

There the ones. 

Not always handy when they go wrong!!