Position 18:22N 64:34.6W Trouble in paradise
PASSEPARTOUT
Christopher & Nirit Slaney
Sun 24 Apr 2011 09:25
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Peter Island
Today, Saturday April 23rd, we had a near miss with
disaster which just goes to show that life does truly just hang by a thread.
Passepartout had been out of the water for three weeks in a boat yard
while we spent the Passover holiday in Israel. After a long
circuitous flight back via Newark and Antigua it was good to be 'home' again. On
Saturday morning Bob the crane driver came in to pick up some overtime
pay by lowering us back into the water. The new paint job looks great and a
checklist of a dozen other small jobs seems to have been diligently checked by
the team at Tortola Yacht Services. We topped up the fresh water, made a
quick visit to the supermarket and were ready to go. The plan was to sail to a
quiet bay where we could anchor, unwind and start preparing the boat
for our sail to Bermuda and the USA as part of a rally which leaves May
1st.
We arrived at the anchorage off Peter Island around 1
p.m. and joined ten or so other yachts who were already there. We decided
to skip lunch and forgo a snooze in favour of cracking on with our own list of
things to do. Nirit started unpacking equipment and refilling the big aft
locker, I got busy in the engine room. Suddenly there was an loud
crash, a scream from Nirit and a new sound which seemed to go on and on, like
something being dragged. At first I thought we’d been hit by a speed boat
or jet ski. I rushed on deck where Nirit was ashen faced and shaking near
the wheel. The life raft, or at least the compressed gas cylinder which it
contains, had exploded, ripping off the door to the locker where it
is stored, mangling bilge pump mounted on one side of the same locker and
generally making a mess of the cockpit.
For those unfamiliar with life-rafts, they self-inflate
from a cylinder of gas which is compressed under serious pressure.
Most life rafts, ours included, are inflated by pulling a lanyard which releases
the gas, some will also activate after going under water. The pressure of the
released gas is strong enough to break the seals on a tough plastic or fiber
glass casing. We were extremely lucky, if Nirit had been much closer she
could have been hit by the flying locker door. So much for our relaxing day and
a chance to unwind, we immediately headed back to the bigger island of Tortola
and tied up in the marina at Nanny Cay where we can hopefully start looking into
repairs and buying a replacement life-raft. Hopefully we'll still be able to get
ready in time for the May 1st sailing. What really makes me angry is that just
two months ago I had this life raft serviced and checked at a total cost of
almost nine hundred dollars, including a special test and refill of the gas
cylinder. We also fitted two new safety valves as per the manufacturer's
recommendation.
Does anyone reading this have any experience of similar
failures with life raft cylinders?
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