It was a two-boat day.
Monday night, while we were dining with friends, cell phone rang (the new one I had to buy when the old one got caught in a downpour Saturday) and our dinner ended. Bluebird, the Mariner, had slipped its mooring in the Delaware River and was upstream and on the river bank.
In the dark, I found Bluebird, got her outboard motor started and moved her to the club dock, where she spent the night.
This morning, I hauled her out of the water on the Red Dragon Canoe Club's rickety marine railway and hoisted her onto her trailer.
She will cause no more problems for the next six weeks.
Then after lunch I drove to Maryland and fixed the problem with Robin's prop shaft that had been brought about on Saturday, just before that downpour, when I backed Robin into our slip and got a dock line wrapped around the prop shaft.
On Monday, I ordered the sacrificial coupling that had been turned into a handful of plastic and metal spaghetti when the prop, held tightly by the dock line, stopped dead and the engine kept running.
There were no instrucitons with the replacement coupling that I ordered Monday morning and that was delivered today before noon. That meant that I had to call the supplier twice to ask dumb questions so that I had a chance of making no dumb mistakes.
After more than two sweaty hours during which I was prone on my belly on top of Robin's engine, undoing eight bolts, fitting the new coupling in place and then, with adequate but not ideal tools, tightening its bolts, I ran the engine, put Robin in gear and let her strain against the dock lines while I observed the completed job.
Nothing wobbled. Nothing broke. Nothing made bad noises -- or any noises, as far as my aging ears could tell.
It is my wish that, with the completion of this repair, Robin needs nothing more in the way of attention before she leaves Cambridge and heads for Rockland, Me.
About Me
- doug campbell
- I have been fortunate in my life to have earned an income through writing -- specifically through journalism. That has permitted my world to expand beyond my three wonderful children and eight grandchildren and to meet a whole circus full of interesting human beings. Now, no longer employed as a journalist, I am taking the opportunity to write the stories of some of the folks I've met. With my wife, Monica, I have sailed to fascinating destinations with the expectation of visiting many more in the years ahead.
You could be a poster child for that flexible coupling. It saved you.
ReplyDeleteHow did Bluebird slip her mooring?
Aha, that was another dopey act on my part. Ten days earlier, I entered a race and a young fellow asked to crew. At the end of the race, we sailed onto the mooring. I had him on the bow to pick up the mooring line. He did that, and then he secured the line through the chock and around the deck cleat.
ReplyDeleteI noticed that he'd made the line very short. It angled up from the mooring ball at about 30 degrees. Much too steep, and I thought I'd better let a lot of the line out. But then I forgot about it. It was a very hot day and once we got the boat buttoned up and had the boom tent secured over the cockpit, I hid from the sun in the tent's shade.
I never once thought about the mooring line until I got a call from a friend who had helped secure roving Bluebird to the shore at 9 p.m.
What had happened, I'm certain, is that Bluebird bobbed up and down on that short line, jerking it against the weight of the mooring ball and its anchor chain, for ten days, each time rubbing a very strained line against the chock until the line wore through.