39.33N 2.23E

Thursday 15th June, 2017

Left Soller about 10:00 for 28 nm trip to Andratx, no wind so motor on.

Uneventful until 12:00 when engine dropped to 1000 rpm and made a lot of noise.
About 5 nm off-shore and of course no fishing buoys at all, but undoubtably there was a fishing net round the prop.

C bravely dived in to have a go but gave up after ½ hr with virtually no progress ( I have yet to go in the water since 2015! ). She said we needed a bigger hacksaw and garden shears, which we now have. Only 2 kts wind and slowly drifting on-shore so we called the lifeboat who only took an hour to arrive and then made sure we could steer before starting. They towed us in at 8.5 kts for 25 nm and put us almost in our berth at 17:00 and charged 1691 euro, which isn’t bad for 15 man-hours plus of course a huge lifeboat.

A diver with a big hacksaw and bolt cutters arrived at 19:00 and then took a full ½ hour to clear it.
C said she was very glad she gave up. The diver even congratulated me on not winding it up tighter by revving the engine. He originally said it would cost 150 euros but said it was not as bad as he thought so he’d only charge 100.

We were so fed up by then that we blew his generosity on a superb Chateaubriand for supper!
The prop shaft seems OK but we’ve yet to give it a road test.

I suppose we’ve gone 13 years and as many thousand miles without hitting nets so we can’t complain. Our insurance will ‘though!

Clare,

The insurance has said they will reimburse us if I can get the internet banking to work and pay the salvamente lads. The guy at Admiral said at least they are not like a Sicilian gin palace which tried to charge salvage of 50,000 euros for a 2 mile tow. I didn’t exactly dive in. More like plopped off the back of the steps. After 4 dives under the boat I had only removed a handful of net and didn’t think I could get it clear. Not exactly a fun swim!