Carry on sailing

I had volunteered to crew for one of the club members for the Annual Candelabra race. I have no race experience so I was there as ballast and a spare pair of hands. The start was out in the bay at 12 noon so we met up at the club, ready to get away by 10:45. It was pretty blustery, blowing between F5 and F6, so was going to be exciting. The boat is a Horizon 23 bilge keel. It's like a tardis, full standing headroom, separate heads decent galley; a great cruising boat but also not too bad as a club racer.

We got away well at the start but as we were the smallest boat we were soon overhauled. We tacked our way to the first mark then had one long beat to the second mark at the far end of the swash channel. We rounded the mark and for the first time had the wind on our stern.

The skipper asked if we were ready for bacon sarnies, not what I was expecting half way through a race but welcome just the same. The next comment was even more shocking... "I don't think there should be this much water in here!" The skipper was wading around in about 5" of sea water. We abandoned the race and headed for the harbour, busy bailing out the bilges. No more water came in so it must have been a leak through a window or deck fitting, while the port rail had been under water for the whole of the long beat.

Back in the harbour with the sails down and motoring to the mooring the skip went to the mast to start putting the sail cover on. He lost his balance and I watch him do a perfect Fosberry flop over the guard wire. The other crew circled him while I searched in the cabin for a line to throw him. We got him back on board, he'd been in the water for four or five minutes which was more than enough. I was glad he had a boarding ladder, it would have been difficult dragging him out of the water. The most disappointing thing was that a race safety boat for another harbour club just sat and watched. The other worrying thing was that the bladder on his life jacket was already deflating by the time he was back aboard.

Back at the club and we eventually got to eat our bacon sarnies. The day was finished of with the post race BBQ and a few beers.

Sunday afternoon and I got round to fixing the main sheet car that got damaged last week end. I'd bought some delrin bar of the right diameter during the week. One of my neighbours has a lathe and he kindly bored a hole through it a pared it off into discs for me.

White one is original, black ones are new.. I have plenty of spares.

Car as I'd left it.

New wheels fitted

I had to remove a few of the screws holding the end of the track down to allow me to raise it just enough to slide the car back on. The Genoa is also repaired so Ciao Bella is fighting fit again.

Fitted and working.

Another wee job that got done this week was the short shaft outboard for the tender. I had stopped pumping water when I dragged it out of the garage.  I changed the impeller last week but it still wasn't pumping.  Time to dig deeper, I took the cover off the thermostat and was greeted by a salty sludge in every waterway.

Once cleaned out and reassembled I fired it up and it ran lovely pumping water like a fire pump then just like that it stopped.  It would run with a rag soaked in fuel held over the carb but could get it to run on its own.  As it was late it was time to leave it for another day, I turned back to my tea to find this unwelcome gate crasher... Yewk!

I returned to the engine again today and in the cold light of day I could immediately see the problem.  The actuating rod for the fuel tap wasn't connected so it had simply run out of fuel :~)   I took it down to the club today and gave it a blast... muck easier than rowing.  Just praying for some half decent weather next week so we can get to Alderney and back.