Saturday has come and gone. The decking is finally in place and looking good, and there's more diesel fuel aboard.
That's two steps forward.
It's the steps backward that are most interesting.
Once the deck boards were bolted to the boomkin, we prepared to move Robin to the fuel dock. Robin faces east-northeast in her slip. The wind was east-southeast and we needed to turn to starboard, across the wind, to go out the fairway. The risk was that the wind -- not very strong; maybe five to eight knots -- would keep the bow from turning to starboard.
We analyzed the situation and decided that we needed to keep a line from the outer starboard piling, running back to the midship cleat, in case we needed to warp the bow around the piling. I explained this to Monica and told her that when I said "Now", she was to drop that line in the water, leaving it attached to the piling. We could pick it up when we returned to the slip.
With all the other dock lines shipped or on their pilings, I moved Robin forward. She turned without a problem, so I told Monica to drop the line. Robin's stern moved to port as we turned, so there was no risk of fouling the dropped line.
At the fuel dock, we took on 17 gallons of diesel even as the clouds darkend rapidly to the west, threatening an electrical storm. I checked the fuel level with the wooden dipstick at 17 gallons. When I pulled the stick out, it looked as though we only had 27 gallons aboard, which surprised me. I thought I would have 32. So I inserted the dip stick once more.
When I retrieved the stick, it caught on something, split and two feet of wooden stick stayed in the fuel tank. That had never happened in the eight years we've had Robin. I still haven't learned what diesel fuel will do to wood. There is no port in the fuel tank by which to remove the stick. Perhaps I'll learn the answer by experience.
But I had no time to ponder. Now the storm was approaching rapidly, so we left the fuel dock, did a U-turn and steamed back to our slip.
As usual, I hugged the edge of the fairway on the side of our slip and, just before we reached it, pushed the tiller hard to port. Robin responded predictably, her bow sweeping to starboard.
Just before the stern reached the piling on the near side of our slip, I shifted into reverse and gave it a lot of power. The water boiled, Robin stopped in her tracks and then began surging rearward.
The boomkin poked into our slip, heading across it toward our neighbor's boat, just as expected, so I shifted into forward and gunned the engine enough to stop her retreat and begin her moving forward.
The result of this maneuver is predictable. The stern sidles sideways to port enough so that the next time I shift to reverse, we'll be headed straighter down the slip.
Which is what happened. Perfect.
Then I shifted into forward once more to improve our line, and that's when we took the second step backward.
I hadn't calculated that all my maneuvering would create a current in the slip that would draw the dock line we'd left hanging. It was a long line, plenty long enough to get caught by the propeller, to wrap several times around the prop shaft and to stop it dead.
There is a flexible coupling between the engine and the prop shaft. It is there to be sacrificed in such an event. The power that I delivered to the engine was enough to shred the coupling, leaving us powerless but, thank goodness, protecting the engine from a severe trauma.
The rain began splattering. We tied Robin's port side to the outer slip pilings of three slips. I went overboard, cut the rope away from the prop shaft. Saw that the prop had been pulled back into the rudder. There was no chance of motoring.
So I swam a long line from the stern to the piling supporting the dock at the deep end of the slip. Then, with the help of a couple who had seen our predicament, we hauled Robin manually back into the wrong slip, even as the thunder began go crash and the lightning to flash.
Perhaps on Tuesday, a new flexible coupling will arrive in the mail. At that point, I'll return to Maryland and fix the damage and hope that, finally, Robin's ready for Maine.