The tagline of Rodney Bay Marina and its associated boatyard is ‘Arriving is just the beginning.’ If you go to St Lucia on holiday then this is a really positive note as you will be able to look forward to sandy beaches, friendly people and the best that the Caribbean can offer. If however you are going into the yard to be fixed then this is really quite negative. Would arriving be just the beginning of our trauma? We’d already sailed 100 miles upwind to get here and had missed many of the gems of the Caribbean.

After finding out that the yard was not expecting us and had not received any of our emails we thought that ‘Arriving was just the beginning’ of a nightmare. The yard however pulled a proverbial rabbit out of a hat, bumped us up the list and managed to haul us out of the water and arrange experts to look at us. Fiona as always expertly stopped Ruffian at the lift, the yard lowered the slings and then lifted Ruffian clear of the water. All just like clockwork. Now with word spreading around the yard that a boat had been hauled who’d hit a whale the crowd grew and grew.

Most important man in the crowd was a chap by the name of ‘Fibre’, as you can guess with a name like that; he was the main man where glassfibre was concerned. Out came his rubber hammer and he began tapping. When we say tapping we actually mean hitting poor Ruffian really rather hard so that she was making loud donging noises. Thankfully it was donging noises everywhere Ruffian was ‘tapped’. With the expert ear of Fibre and the surveyor they confirmed that there were no cracks in the outer hull and there were smiles all around.

Even after the donging noises Fibre, the surveyor and the crew of Ruffian still wanted to actually see the glassfibre on the port bow where we had had the collision and so we quickly came to the decision that we should ‘chock up’ and get rid of all the paint on the outside. We also had a look on the inside and made the decision that to make things better they would first have to get worse. Quick as a flash fibre set to work with an angle grinder and chisel and we could now see the outer hull from the inside. With everything opened up the smiles continued.

The prognosis was all good and we came to the conclusion that when we hit the whale the outer skin had flexed so much that it impacted on the inner skin. Where the inner hull then went through oblique angles the cracks on the inner skin occurred. The great news was that there was no residual damage, other to our confidence and all that we now had to do was replace the foam, glass up and fair the inside of Ruffian, and then fair, prime and antifoul the outside.

In between getting all the work done we also had to get on with the difficulties that living ashore presents. Primary among these was that was waged against the mosquitoes. When you are out at anchor you very rarely get mossies as they are not particularly at home being offshore, when ashore they are everywhere. We took the route of technology and chemical warfare but the mossies had numbers and every night they won the battle. With Ruffian being scheduled to be slipped into the water on St Lucia’s Independence Day anniversary we know that it would only be a matter of time before we won the war against the mosquitoes.

Having been ashore for only 4 days and being hauled, chocked, fixed, faired, painted and loved Ruffian was ready to go back into her usual environment. The guys from the yard came in early on their national holiday specially to launch us so they could resume their 3 day long party and when quizzed about their party they simply said ‘It’s in our gene’s to party’. It’s in our gene’s to sail and once again with Ruffian fixed we now can.

Ruffian like a fish out of water.


A night in the slings after we made the decision to ‘chock up’.


It’s got to get worse before it gets better.


Having gone back to glass on the port bow ‘we’ had to repaint outside.


On the mend.


At least we are working on Ruffian when it’s warm and sunny.


All fixed. Now exactly what was the problem?


Time for a celebratory beer. In the rain.


The main man, who greeted us both everytime with a happy ‘Yo, Cappy.’


All dressed up with somewhere to go. The water is calling again.