Well, that was new!

[Fortis]

I am int he process of helping a friend restore and upgrade his E24. She went back into the water 9 days after commencing her 4 day refit...
(this happens when someone says "Oh sure, the anti-foul is fine no porblems"...and he was sort of right....all 376 layer of old anti-foul were indeed fine.
anyway, several days of chem stripping, mech stripping and gelcoat repairs later....(to the point where the new rudder, new prop and new through hulls that I added seemed to pale into the backround in terms of the work involved) she was back in the water and flating proudly. Next comes getting the rig back on and then deck hardware installation...
But for today she was the start boat for the club race. All went well and we started motoring back up the creek towards our mooring. And it was while being very much "up the creek" that we discovered somehting a little awkward. The throttle/gear lever was jammed all the way into forwards. We could control the diesel motor to some degree of throttle power with the engine based controller, but we could not take it out of gear or stop the engine completly and it was too narrow to turn the boat around and head back out.

It made for an adventurous few minutes!

Eventually we used the engine throttle to starve the engine into stalling...but it took a while. I bled off extra speed by waving the rudder around in really inefficient ways that I usually save for yacht races and we eventually managed to doa  fend-off stop on a mooring pile in the creek and just step off the boat onto the swim-step of a big cabin cruiser. A little crreative tinckering saw things put to rights and I got the boat back into its own berth without further hassle....without having to go for "worst case scenario" of running the keel onto the mud further up the creek as a soft stop.

So I guess the moral is; check your cables and  have a think about what you would do if for a little while you suddenly CAN'T stop or go into reverse when you want to and fully expected to be able to.

My reputation with the owner has gone up considerably since I managed all that without putting one little scratch onto his newly refinished hull.

The engine control lever was on my list of "you might want to think about replacing..." items that I handed him at the start of the project. He tells me it has now moved a long way up the list!


Alex.

[AdriftAtSea]

Hmmm.. .seems like he has seen the light and wisdom of your recommendation...  LOL... good for you Alex.  grog to ya too...for not scratching the new paint job.

[Cmdr Pete]

Very good. All's well that ends well.

Had a similar incident one time.

I was backing into a slip at a waterfront restaurant. Unbeknownst to me, the shift cable for the engine had jumped out of its bracket leaving the engine in reverse.

So I'm backing up, about 6 feet from the dock. Put the engine in neutral (or so I thought).

Boat is still backing up. Put the engine in forward (or so I thought). Hmmmmmm....maybe a bit of gas.....Backed up smartly right into the dock BONK

No damage, but it was embarrasing.

I'm not sure my crew accepted my explanation.

darn mechanical contrivances

[smoegen]

My previous boat was a Fidra(20ft). I bought here in a a nearby fjord, approx 22m away, she was cheap and there was a lot of work on her. And to be honest I did not realice how much.

When motoring home, I decided when i was about halfway that it would be a good idea to try som manouvers, just to make sure that i would make a nice aproach bakc att the harbour were friends and family are wating to inspect my new bargain.
well.. full stop no problem, then revers and rudder starboard, a bit sluggish to stear in reverse but oterwise ok...

then full ahaed,,, or not.... engine cut out. A quick inspection revealed that the throttle cable had snapped...

well,, its a sailboat,, hoisted the mainsail(well i allready knew that the old woodenmast was in bad shape) only to have it blown straight in to my face...Oops that mast was just a bit worse than i first expected...

But the mast was strong enough to let me hoist the jib,, and by the jib alone i made it home...

After replacing the mast the Fidra was a sweet little boat. And I do miss her even if i love my Fin-Gal.

Stefan

[Fortis]

My favourite story of "trying a boat out" like that belonged to a friend that pretty much bought the boat for the prop. This may not make sense, but somehow, this little old 18 footer, with a very agricultural air cooled 6hp diesel engine and not much else going for it had ended up wearing a Powerflo three bladed all stainless feathering prop that really belonged ona 28footer or better and was worth in excess of $4K.
He left the dock with a huge chesire cat grin on his face as he had just paid $2650 for the whole boat!

It chugged and puttered towards home and he decided that he wanted to see if the boat was worth actually keeping (once he had "salvaged" the prop from her) and maybe turning into a bit fo a day sailer.

He steered right and the boat went right, he steered left and the boat went left....He would have put up a sail if there had been one on the wisely bare mast (the stays were hanging in gracefull parabolas). Then he decided to throw the enigne into reverse.

And it was in thsoe three or four seconds that he heard the uber-prop for which he had bought the boat unscrew from the shaft and sink to the bottom.

No sails.

No working radio.

No flares.


& hours later he got approached closely enough that he could attract attention, Plan B had been to wait until the boat was being swwept out of the heads of the harbour on the outflowing rip and jump overboard to swim to the nearer headland.

I am rather glad a boat came close. Plan B was problamatic.


Sasha

[CapnK]

Two good stories there!  ;D

Glad you were able to bring her in, Stefan! Seems like most of our best stories come when things don't go as we expected...  ::)  ;D

And Sasha - isn't it funny how often those "Chesire cat grin" moments are followed not long after by a look like your friend must have had when the prop unscrewed itself?  :o

Life is funny, sometimes painfully so... :)

[AdriftAtSea]

Alex-

Did he end up diving for the prop??

[Fortis]

No.

He never had more then a vague idea of where it happened as he was just following the coast...sometimes 200 meters out, sometimes about 800 meters.
No GPS with him, and 7 hours of drifting definately gave him other concerns and memories that overlayed the recollection of the exact spot. (And when he sailed with us in a few races in the area it would be "It was right here!" or "just over there!" on about four different locations in the same race.

He ended up keeping the boat for about six months and trying to half heartedly do it up a bit and get it sailing (I gave him the old fixed two blade bronze prop from Fortis)...Eventually he donated the boat to the local sea scouts.
They spent about two years gradually improving it while using it as one of their fleet. No idea if they still have it or if it was one of the boats they sometimes auction off so they can start the next project.

You are welcome to turn up for a holiday and go diving for the infamous prop based on old legends and questionable memories....Your very own treasure hunt AAAaargh!

[AdriftAtSea]

lol... nah, I doubt it'd fit my boat... ;)