A game of two or perhaps more halfs.

[Fingal]

Most of us like to draw a discreet veil over our less succesful ventures but since a crew member has grassed us up the full tale should I think be told. Cherry Ripe did indeed suffer an engine failure in the Moray Firth last week while motorsailing from Lossiemouth towards Inverness. My co-owner Ian made valiant efforts to get it going again at sea, including consultations (relayed through yrs truly) with the ever-helpful Norman at Bukh UK in Poole, but to no avail. The Invergordon AWLB was tasked to assist, and the coxwain decided that Cromarty would not be a viable refuge so towed all the way to Inverness.

Rejoining the boat on Friday the fault-finding process revealed that not only was there a blockage in the line from the main tank to the first filter, but that the 30 year old return hoses were so perished under the braided outer cover that there was at least one crack allowing fuel out and/or air into the system. Hardly surprising that it had been impossible to get the engine going again at sea. Our ever-resourceful crew member Bil (sic) swiftly found a hydraulic hose shoppe who were able to fabricate a whole new set of return hoses using the existing banjos. If you ever have to do this (it's a DV36), it would be good to get the hoses made a few mm longer than the originals, as that will make fitting the banos back to the injectors a lot less stressful. Also worth noting, I don't know how much Norman would ask for a new set of red-painted return hoses in a bag with Bukh on it but I am pretty confident it would have been more than the fiver we were charged.

Great joy filled the vessel when, after following the simple bleeding procedures set out in the Bukh book, the engine started again at the first attempt and ran as sweetly as ever. The joy turned to moderate hysteria when, on being informed that we would have to wait in the sea lock at Clachnaharry while various trains passed the bridge, the engine would not in fact stop on command. That turned out simply to have been the engine pixies having a laugh and the starting, stopping and running all now seem to be as one would wish.

The boat is now parked up for a couple of days at Fort Augustus and we are increasingly optimistic that she will be on her mooring for the season by the weekend.

[marisca]

I feel, at the risk of being smote by a higher entity for my hubris, that some form of piss-take is required. Are there any pictures of the latest rescue?
Here's one I took earlier.


Glad you are all safe in FA. Try the black pudding from the canal-side butcher - possibly as good as (he claims better) than Charlie Barley's.

Final thought - are you fitting oars for the SIPR? They could be the answer to all these lack of motive power incidents you seem to be having.

[Fingal]

I feel, at the risk of being smote by a higher entity for my hubris, that some form of piss-take is required. Are there any pictures of the latest rescue?

Glad you are all safe in FA. Try the black pudding from the canal-side butcher - possibly as good as (he claims better) than Charlie Barley's.

Final thought - are you fitting oars for the SIPR? They could be the answer to all these lack of motive power incidents you seem to be having.

Hubris? You? Surely not.

There are some very good pics taken by our Moray Firth Agent from Chanonry Point. I have only seen them on faceboook so far but will see if I can obtain the originals. There is also a picture on the Invergordon RNLI page.

Thanks for the black pudding recommendation. We are back home for 'work' at the moment but hope to get moving again on Thursday.

Nine tons will take a hell of a lot of rowing, we don't have any sweeps yet. Captain Cameron is in charge of our SIPR entry so he may have plans for very light weather that I don't know about. Knowing him as I do I imagine drifting with the tide and drinking well-chilled low alcohol refreshments may be envisaged.

[ash]

There is also a picture on the Invergordon RNLI page.

I wouldn't want to stir it, but since you mentioned it first, here's a link - http://rnli.org/newscentre/Pages/Inverg ... ghead.aspx

What speed did they tow at? On Seaside Rescue, the lifeboat always seemed to attempt to tow at well above the hull speed of the boat being towed.

Ash

PS - It's interesting that in this day and age, the RNLI are happy (within reason ) for their photos / videos to be downloaded - see link - http://rnli.org/Pages/Download-Confirma ... deoItemID=

Edited to add PS, but can't embed the url

[marisca]

Frae the RNLI -
With weather conditions breaching a Force 7 and a 2.5 – 3m metre swell in area, the lifeboat assisted the vessel into the safety of Inverness Marina, this took just over 4 hours.

With Cherry Ripe's cutter rig I would have thought there would have been a plethora of options for flappy things and with such a well found, world girdling vessel a wee beat past Chononry would have been nae bother. Parking could have been interesting.

[Fingal]

What speed did they tow at? On Seaside Rescue, the lifeboat always seemed to attempt to tow at well above the hull speed of the boat being towed.

I was not aboard myself but I understand that the tow did reach 7 knots at times which is about as fast as the old thing will go. It was I understand a pretty uncomfortable ride and provided a severe test for our liferaft lashings and for the recently installed new cable entry swan neck in fornt of the mast.

[Fingal]

Frae the RNLI -
With weather conditions breaching a Force 7 and a 2.5 – 3m metre swell in area, the lifeboat assisted the vessel into the safety of Inverness Marina, this took just over 4 hours.

With Cherry Ripe's cutter rig I would have thought there would have been a plethora of options for flappy things and with such a well found, world girdling vessel a wee beat past Chononry would have been nae bother. Parking could have been interesting.

I suspect that exhaustion and catastrophe would have eventually set in if they had tried to do that.

The CG and the LB always prefer to render assistance to vessels in moderate difficulty rather than only being called upon as disaster looms. I'm a considerably more experienced diesel engine tinkerer than my co-owner and having eventually fixed the problem I am certain that it could not have been repaired at sea. I think a Pan Pan after an hour or so's spannering was a good judgement and I would probably have done the same.

[Fingal]

From Chanonry Point, start of the ebb.

[claymore]

Well
All respect, even from the RNLI who sent oot a bigger boat!

[Pilgrim]

I think it's very brave and very informative of you to share (your partner's) adventure for us all to reflect on.

Can I ask where they attached the tow line on your Rival 38? I presume that she has a deck stepped mast like our Rival 36, did they use the RYA method of spreading the load around the sheet winches or something different?

Thanks
Liz

[Zophiel]

T'was I who ventured onto the foredeck to attach the towing line. It was just attached to one forward cleat and over the bow roller. Since there was only quite a small loop in its end there was little choice in this. Plus we were given no time to mess around with bridles and things before they started pulling. There was no question of them trying to put a RNLI crewman aboard, by the way.

First they got us up to 6 knots straight into the choppy sea, then it was suggested that I might like to go forward to drop the main. I'd have preferred this to have been in the opposite order to be honest.

The tow was mostly uncomfortable for the helm, since with a 25kt breeze and the boat doing 8kt straight into the sea the constant spray stung quite a bit and was impossible to see through. We could scarcely see the lifeboat to follow it. There was surprisingly little snatching however, due to the heavy towing line which never stretched taut and, presumably, the Rival's weight and pointy forefoot. I suspect a modern, racy boat would have been slamming a lot.

I assume that "2.5 to 3 metre seas in the area" means "2.5 to 3 metre waves somewhere in the North Sea". They were certainly nothing like as high as that for the most part. There was just a fairly short chop with maximum 6ft waves and wind over tide.

Somebody mentioned a Pan Pan. Conversations with the Coastguard were very relaxed and they didn't push us to accept the lifeboat's help. We could have sailed to a handy port - say Lossie - but there's not really anywhere we could sail into on that coast and we'd have needed at least a short tow into harbour.

An eventful delivery trip all in all, what with failing autohelms and heaters setting fire to lazarettes.

[cpedw]

heaters setting fire to lazarettes.

Eventful indeed, but we've not heard about the fire. Are you in a position to tell us more? All in the interest of "learning from others' experience" obviously.

Derek

[Fingal]

heaters setting fire to lazarettes.

Eventful indeed, but we've not heard about the fire. Are you in a position to tell us more? All in the interest of "learning from others' experience" obviously.

Derek

Cherry Ripe has an Eberspacher cunningly tucked up inside the coaming at the aft end of the cockpit. The exhaust, even lagged with something I don't even want to know the nature of, gets extremely hot and if insufficient care is exercised when stowing the locker (really the only place to keep warps and that kind of stuff, melted ropes can result. Some form of additional shielding for the exhaust is on the 'defects to be remedied' list.

I should by the way have welcomed Martin (Zophiel) to the forum. I'm sure he will fit in well here, he enjoys a bit of thoughtful discussion.

[Zophiel]

Thanks Ken,

It doesn't help when the pipe falls off and directs all the heat at said melty ropes of course.

Cherry Ripe is a boat with a truly prodigious number of alarms. There's an alarm to tell you that there's water in the bilge, an alarm to tell you you aren't at anchor, one to tell you the toast's done, one to warn you of a damp spot in the headlining and numerous indeterminate ones just to keep you interested. Unfortunately there isn't one to tell you that the back of the boat is melting.

Still, it's better than the system on my boat. The alarm I've got to tell me that the boat's taking on water is a line half way up the mast. If the water's above that, we've sunk.

[marisca]

And another welcome from me, Martin.

I trust the old farts have recognised your efforts, trials and tribulations with a suitably liquid reward. You never have this kind of problem on your own boat - disconnecting cap shrouds perhaps, but none of this being rescued malarkey. Now you know why that rat McCulloch abandoned ship at Peterheid - it should have been a warning. I hope you're not being recruited for Cherry Ripe's SIPR attempt. If you are you'll probably end up single-handing round the MoK while the auld yins snooze below.