Cassini blog #65 The journey that never should have been
Cassini's blog
Simon and Sally, Nigel and Catherine
Wed 13 Dec 2023 20:27
| The journey that never should have been! We made the decision to sail to Barbados after the Atlantic crossing, to drop crew off and collect Sally and Catherine for the rest of the Caribbean odyssey, mostly on cost grounds: the flights were cheaper to and from the UK. And anyway we thought, if it’s just 24 hours upwind, it won’t be so bad. We won’t make that mistake again and would strongly advise anyone else we come across thinking of doing the same, not to. The trade winds blew strongly straight in our faces and the large and sometimes steep Atlantic swells simply rolled over and around us for about 36 hours altogether, exposing raw nerves and a couple of leaks (which became obvious only with a gurgling river of salt water running over them). But before we set sail, we stopped to fuel on the way out of the marina. I noticed the rudder angle indicator was not reading correctly, and when I tried to engage autopilot beyond the marina, it failed to engage. Unperturbed, and since we could use Mildred (Hydrovane steering) rather than George (autopilot) anyway, I resolved to investigate more fully and make repairs in Barbados. Arriving late on Saturday evening though, and in the dark by now, we did not attempt the narrow entrance to the marina and instead anchored in Port St Charles bay. What I had not been able to see while we were rocking and rolling on the passage to Barbados, was that the bolt securing the rudder stock to the autopilot ram bracket, had sheered right through, leaving one half in and the other half out. Normally the bracket (and bolt) would also prevent the rudder moving more than about 35 degrees either way. Without the bolt in between bracket rudder stock, no such restraint existed. Early the next morning, and at least a little rested, we hauled the anchor up and proceeded to the ‘check-in’ dock to clear customs. On arrival at the dock, the surge and swell was so great, it was simply untenable, so we resolved to return to the anchorage and dinghy in. As we started to reverse out, the rudder whipped to one side, shearing one of the steering cables and jammed the rudder hard to port, rendering us totally without steerage. With the rudder jammed under the boat, the emergency steering was no use, so with a mixture of engine throttle and bow thruster, we manoeuvred ourselves backwards onto the anchorage without hitting any other boats (and missing the rocks by about 50ft) and dropped the anchor again. They don’t teach you how to do that on any RYA course I ever attended! At least now safely secured to the seabed again, I had a chance to see the problems we had. Beginning with the jammed rudder, Nigel and I rigged the emergency steering bar to a rope and winch to tension it towards the midships position. We rigged a rope over the side and under the boat to provide some leverage for me to push the rudder free with my feet. It actually moved fairly easily with my size 10 feet and fins pushing hard. Once the rudder was back a midships, we secured it there with the emergency steering bar and were able to progress to the core problems around the rudder stock, autopilot bracket, wheel cables and chains. The pieces of rudder stock bolt, now the rudder was free to move, actually came out fairly easily with a little judicious application of a lead weighted mallet. The steering chains were more of a problem. Thankfully only broken on one side, I nonetheless had to remove and replace the broken link. A little changing around of the links to move the broken part further into the chain, meant I could replace the broken pin with a bolt and locking nuts and use one of the good links to re-secure the chains below decks. After a lot of too and fro to re-mount, adjust the tension in the chains, between Nigel and I, we had working steering again by tea time. We still needed to replace the bolt through the rudder stock to restore both the end-stops for the rudder and the autopilot though. The following day (Monday) the dock master was able to direct us to a fabulous local hardware store, where a really helpful assistant provided everything we needed, and not at ‘chandlery’ prices. Steering fully restored by Monday afternoon and just in time for the arrival of Sally and Catherine. Phew. All that RN Marine Engineer Artificer training paying off again! Simon  Steering quadrant and rudder stock through it. The bracket with missing bolt is at the bottom of the stock (autopilot ram and sensor disconnected). |
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