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| Bonny being lowered into the water at Iron Wharf, Faversham |
Steve helped me, or rather I helped him, with one of the major jobs on the list - the realignment of the engine. This required installing and adjusting new engine mounts to ensure the engine sat centrally and at the same angle as the propeller shaft. A tricky business, but one which Steve, as an ex-marine engineer was perfectly qualified to undertake. We also had to install a new thrust joint between the gear box and the propeller shaft. The old one had been severely worn by the engine's wild shaking at the end of last year's passage from Greenland. The final engine related job was to remove the old stern gland packing and replace it with new packing - a fiddly, tiresome and messy job.
Over the final few weeks Mick also helped out with a succession of essential jobs, the biggest of which was installing a replacement for the fractured Hydrovane bracket. I only noticed the fracture after we had lifted Bonny out of the water last September. I was extremely lucky not to have lost both the engine (and therefore quite possibly the boat) and the Hydrovane, which, minus the brackets was a new purchase in 2023! I complicated the installation significantly by fixing a mounting pad on the stern upside down. This made it impossible to assemble the various Hydrovane parts correctly. Once the error was discovered we had to remove it, which, because I'd bonded it onto the stern, meant having to destroy it and make a new one. The complex curves of the transom, meant this took hours of sanding with by hand. Clive, my neighbour in the yard and also a shipwright was most helpful with gifts of materials and the loan of tools and equipment. We finally completed the job the evening before the launch. Unfortunately we then discovered we'd set the Hydrovane shaft about two inches too low and so at some point we'll need to get alongside a pontoon and raise it.
In addition to those two major jobs I tackled what seemed like an endless list of others. They included sail repairs, a new forestay and a new sprayhood (all done by Wilkinson Sails of Faversham); some new skin fittings and associated valves; patching the copper coat anti-fouling; and patching up seams on the teak decks (the teak is now extremely worn and really needs to be removed, but I couldn't summon up the enthusiasm or stamina to tackle that job). Another big job was draining and cleaning the fuel tank. The engine failure suffered on the passage from Newfoundland to Greenland was caused by a blocked fuel pipe within the tank and so cleaning out the crap was a top priority. A horrible, messy ,smelly job, but I got it done over a number of weekends and then promptly poured 15 litres of diesel into the freshwater tank, which of course I then had to clean out as well!
A host of other less critical jobs were also tackled. Some like the cabin lighting circuit remain unresolved despite hours of effort on Mick's part.
The launch itself went smoothly thanks to the efforts of the boat yard team and Mick and I managed to get Bonny out of Faversham Creek without mishap and anchored in the Swale at Harty Ferry to tackle a few more jobs including changing the engine oil. We then motored up the Swale and Medway to Stangate Creek where we spent another night before a pleasant sail back to Hoo on Sunday 2nd October.
I returned to Bonny on Wednesday 26th August with ambitious plans to combine more jobs with some local sailing. I got as far as Stangate Creek that afternoon, where the jobs soon knocked any further sailing off the agenda. The main culprits to thwar my plan were the three bilge pumps (two manual and one electric) all of which had decided to malfunction. The body of the galley pump had mysteriously developed a split and the inspection hatch leaked so I disassembled it and painted the inside and outside of the cracked area with epoxy. That made absolutely no difference and water spurted out just as before. The inspection hatch o-ring looking perfectly OK but despite repeated re-fitting and careful assembly the hatch still leaked. Then I moved my attention to the cockpit pump. Disassembly was a right palaver, with many of the screws and nuts being extremely difficult to reach. Finally after much swearing I got it apart and discovered both a split diaphragm and a pencil sharpener caught in the outlet valve. "Dam" I thought the inlet must not have a strum box attached. I re-assembled the pump anyway but it still refused to work. I could only conclude that the inlet pipe must be blocked. Now I had two reasons to remove it. However, the pipe had been bonded to the pump as well as being fastened to it with a jubilee clip. The pipe was so stiff that it was impossible to remove with one end still attached to the pump so I had no choice but to cut it - fortunately I had a couple of joining sleeves. However, even after cutting the pipe I couldn't pull it out from beneath the engine - it was jammed. It may even have been deliberately fixed to the hull before the engine was installed over the top of it!!
Fortunately, I had a spare length of pipe so I pinched the strum box from the galley pump attached it to the new pipe and installed that in place of the old pipe which I had to leave in place. Thankfully the pump then worked and so at least I now had one pump working. All the above and other bits and pieces took me until Friday evening to complete and there was still plenty of jobs still to do including repairing the access hatch in the fore-cabin sole, disconnecting the water heater in preparation for removal - it had sprung a leak, investigating the electric bilge pump, renovating the cooker burners, investigating the engine stop switch, fixing the headlining above the quarter berth and many more. Indeed during the few days I was on board I added more jobs to the list than I completed! So more sailing was definitely out.
So I stayed in Stangate Creek and got on with the jobs. I left on Monday morning to sail back to Hoo in a brisk westerly wind. That meant beating up the river. By the time I got to BeeNess a couple of hours later I was completely knackered with aching triceps and knuckles raw from scraping them on the solar panels whilst frantically winching in the genoa every 10 minutes or so. The next leg from Fort Darnet to Hoo Fort was a reach so I had a short rest before beating once again. The river was beginning to get more crowded with moored craft and so after a couple of tacks I decided to motor. 30 seconds later the engine stopped dead and would not start again. Bugger! I decided to continue under sail, get above the Hoo moorings, douse the mainsail and sail back against the flood to my mooring under just the genoa so that I could easily control my speed. What could possibly go wrong? I would soon find out.
With moored boats on either side of the river above Hoo, the navigable river is quite narrow and with a strong flood running against the wind it was difficult to find enough room to douse the mainsail AND turn round. In fact I failed to do so. On my third attempt I got the mainsail down but failed to gain steerage way against the flood quickly enough and Bonny was swept alongside a moored yacht and immediately pinned against it by the strong flood tide. I managed to get a single line on board and eventually a couple of fenders. Thankfully the impact was side on and no damage was done to the rigging or stanchions of either boat. My new neighbour was scratched but no serious damage was done to either boat. Then suddenly there was a lull in the wind and the single line that had prevented Bonny from surging forward now had no way of preventing her from being pushed backwards (bloody obvious to anyone with half a brain) and she was suddenly jammed onto the other boat's stern and sat tethered diagonally against the flood. I imagined her pulling the mooring up and careering up stream still attached to the other boat and causing absolute mayhem in the process. As quickly as I could I took a line from Bonny's bow to the other boat's bow and released the original line. Bonny then quickly moved off the other boat and with the wind and tide cancelling each other out rode parallel to her for the next few minutes.
I took the opportunity to dash down below for a much needed pee. Shortly after re-emerging, there was a sudden increase in the strength of the wind and Bonny surged forwards. The bow line tightened, the gust blew through, the tide grabbed Bonny once again and aided by the tightening bow line, swept her onto the other side of the moored boat. Fortunately my fenders prevented any further damage but Bonny was once again, well and truly stuck and in a most ungainly manner.
After a while I managed to gain the attention of Medway Yacht Club's launch, driven, it turned out by the very helpful Ashley. He enlisted the help of another club member and between them they were able to tow Bonny of the moored boat and down the river to the Hoo Ness moorings where I was able to drop Anchor close to Bonny's own mooring. I then managed to get a line onto Bonny's mooring and got her anchor up. Shortly afterwards Ashley very kindly returned and helped me get Bonny back on her mooring. I then passed over my details for forwarding to the owner of the moored boat and bid Ashley a most grateful farewell. He and his fellow club member have my heartfelt thanks.
It was an all too dramatic end to Bonny's first outing of 2026 and of course I now have an engine failure to contend with. I'm pretty sure it's a fuel supply problem - again. This time though it was a very sudden failure unlike on previous occasions when failure was preceded by lots of faltering. Perhaps the fuel pump has failed? Anyway, that's now the first job on the still growing list.
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| A deceptively tranquil scene! |
