Some pics of the Sealine fire
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03/12/2009, Island Harbour
Hi All,
Well, we have been home for over a year now and at last Ba has had an operation that we hope will make her fit again. It has been a long uphill struggle for my poor lady so we are hoping that this will do the trick.
After a lot of help from Sandra at Tradewindsin Bequia, we have managed to receive our belongings safely back home. It took a long time and cost a fortune but we felt it was worth it. Even my guitar found its way to England and we hope to have that back some day soon too.
We are not committing ourselves to anything permanent for the foreseeable future as we need to ensure that Ba's health is properly stable and that she is back to a good level of fitness. So, after a few weeks of convalescence, we are taking Wight Mistress to Holland for 3 months just to nose around and generally enjoy ourselve. Most of you will already know that we did a 'there and back' delivery of a new Nautitech 44 catamaran from Ijmuiden Seaport at the entrance to the Amsterdam Sea Canal to the Southampton Boat Show and, on completion of the show, back up past Den Helder and right across the Waddenzee, through the Konverderzand Lock at the east end of the northern dyke, then into the Ijselmeer and a couple of miles to Makkum, where we delivered her back to her owner, safe, sound and clean. It was a lovely trip. We have just been offered a delivery of a fairly new Beneteau 41 from Island Harbour to Dublin in a month or so's time. We are looking at it carefully. Ba may not be able to come so I will be looking for crew to do the task.
In case you didn't know, last week, while teaching on a very new Sealine F34 flybridge cruiser, it caught fire in the engine room, so we exercised engine isolations, anchoring and putting out a MAYDAY call in quick succession. The emergency services were brilliant. Because we anchored, the boat 'weather-cocked' into the wind and we were picked up
bone dry and smoke free off the foredeck. We stayed around for the 2 hours it took for the boat to eventually sink. It took a whole hour from the start of the smoke and into the fire phase before the gas cylinder going up.
It didn't explode as one might expect, it gave off a 2 metre-ish jet of flame for about 3 seconds and that was it. So, the Sealine gas stowage design is good. Anyway, we made the local news that night; we are in this week's Isle of Wight County Press (www.iwcp.co.uk) out on Friday as well.
That's it for now, must dash and feed my lovely lady.
S
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Whew, thought I had lost this lovely picture but managed to find it., AND the sun is shining
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