Six Weeks to Nowhere
02 March 2016 | Regatta Pointe Marina, Palmetto, FL
Jill
We arrived back at Palmetto yesterday, back at Regatta Pointe Marina. We are back on dock C, just on the other side and a few slips in (where the finger docks are wider and maybe a foot longer). There were 5 or 6 of our old dock mates there and after we were tied up we were chatting and as everyone was saying “welcome back” I remarked that we’d gone 6 weeks to nowhere. Margaret said it sounded like a good book title, so I used it as the blog title.
It’s comforting to be here. Bud is not happy at all with the way things have turned out, but he thinks it is the right decision. We have come to realize that we like two different kinds of boating. I like to go boating to see things: ports, rivers, coast lines, whatever. I am basically an inland waterway boater. Bud likes to go sailing and would be content out on the ocean for long periods of time, at least if he could learn to do watches and sleep while he’s offshore. He’d do the inland stuff too if he could get rid of 90% of the other boaters. Anyway, we aren’t going to distant shores, so this boat is too much to own and maintain. It needs new owners who want to really sail her. I hope we find them.
There was no wind to sail yesterday. So this entire abbreviated season we have not sailed without the engine once. The bad weather this year was a real factor in our decision. All the wind we got was in strong fronts, too nasty to be out in. In between were very nice light air days, too still to sail in. We never even put a sail up yesterday.
True to form, we did get to make one last repair. Bud thought the helm (steering) felt really light as we pulled away from the dock in Venice. I asked him if he wanted me to go check the steering cables and he said no. The autopilot is working fine now and continued to steer. Bud hand steered around a crab pot and said he would like me to check. He showed me how he could move the wheel about 6 inches without affecting the rudder.
I went down and stacked all of the bedding on one side of the aft berth so I could lift the boards and look under at the steering quadrant. The first thing I saw was a lot of slack in one side of the steering cable. Further investigation revealed that the bronze pulley that the cable turns on was out of its bracket and its axle was gone. I found the bronze axle on the bottom of the boat below. It had one cotter pin through it but another hole with no pin. There are two horizontal pulleys. I looked across at the other one. It was still in place, but I didn’t see anything that was fastening its axle on the top. I reached through and pushed on the axle from underneath. It moved up about 3/16” and then I could see a hole for a cotter pin, but no pin. I couldn’t move the pulley all the way back in to its bracket, so I got out two cotter pins and a pair of needle nose pliers and explained the problem to Bud who went below and fixed it. We had to idle the engine in neutral and disengage the autopilot so the steering quadrant would not be moved while Bud worked on it. We were very fortunate that this happened on a flat calm day out in the Gulf with no one around us. In about 15 minutes Bud had it repaired and on we went. We’re certain this happened because someone who worked on the autopilot removed the pulleys to move the steering cable and forgot to replace the cotter pins. But what’s a trip without a repair?
So we’re back, and we are glad to be here with everything in one piece. We will be happier still once she’s sold. And very sad too. I just hope her new owners care for her as well as we have. She’s a great seaworthy boat and sails beautifully. She deserves the best of care.