Family Magazine

Trying to Sink the Boat

By Saltykisses @svprili
Things always come in three's right? I hope not four's or five's.
We planned a 10 hour run yesterday but of course while I wasn't looking my iceberg hungry husband plotted in a course further north than agreed upon. So up we went. The weather had called for 15-20 knot SE and the local fisherman said calm seas. So of course we got 5 knots NW. The seas slowly intensified and the wind got stronger but on the nose so it was no help. We had motored for 11 hours and we were starting to get a lot of water over the bow, and in the hatches that weren't 100% dogged down. We decided to pull into a small town with an old fishing wharf. The guide book stated 10' of water at the wharf and the charts all stated minimum depth of 10' at MLW. In we go at 4 knots.

#1 KUNK!!!! We were about 200' out from the wharf when we hit a rock at 4 knots. It stopped us flat out. Everything got tossed forward and we all let out a scream from the loud slamming noise, well me Carl just swore. It had to have been a huge rock because of the earth shattering noise, the fact it was a dead stop and that we chucked her in reverse and got off straight away. Well that was eventful - thank gawd for a steel boat! We motored across the inlet and decided to anchor.

#2 we woke up at 1am to the anchor alarm. We had dragged 200'. Well maybe it was the swing so we canceled the alarm and went back to bed. Off it went again. Ok so now we're moving, bugger. It's now raining. We got her going set the sails and I went back to bed and Carl kept watch.

#3 I woke up at 5am (well 3am and 4am with the baby also)to Carl fooling around with the engines. The fog had rolled in the rain continued and we had to motor. Now our starboard engine went down. Carl changed out a few parts but couldn't get it working right. Then the port engine went down. Nice. Bobbing off the coast of Newfoundland in fog and rain. We couldn't work it out, what was wrong. Carl had checked the sea strainer earlier and it was clear but raw water wasn't getting pumped through. Out came the sea strainer and hoses. Nothing like jamming a broom handle in all possible holes to clear out seaweed and mermaids. We are up and running again both engines roaring and the current giving us a hand. Headed towards the tip of NL at 9 knots.

Of course we couldn't have done the easier thing and motored to the next port we had to skip it and now we are doing another 12 run. Bloody bergs!

Iceberg tracker had showed some bergs up near the tip the last time we checked so we are an extra keen lookout, I'm pretty sure Titanic was steel too.

Fingers crossed that we don't hit a #4 problem!

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