Saturday  March 15th ,  2014

Union Island, St Vincent and the Grenadines  ,   12 36.2N 61 27.1W

Today's Blog by David (Time zone: UTC – 4.0)

My gentle tilt at the amount of on-going maintenance on a yacht was probably just asking for it.  I had no idea.

We left Grenada, a day later than planned and headed for Union Island, the most southern port of entry for St Vincent and the Grenadines, which are the next island group north,  38 miles  from  St Georges, Grenada. Well it would be 38 miles if the wind were not coming from where we wanted to go, so instead we sailed 57 miles, struggling to get in before dark.

Now, buried away deep in the myriad of operating instructions delivered with this boat  is an exhortation to check the condition of one’s steering cables before any long passage. Indeed, whilst their life depends upon a wide range of factors it seems I should have expected to replace them every 3-5 years. Much more frequently on a heavily used boat – such as Serendipity!  While we do check their tension from time to time, we have not hitherto extracted them from the conduit to inspect their condition.  (Error No1).

A tactical decision to tack round an approaching shower/squall put us about on starboard tack. The boat behaved strangely and Rudi grabbed the  helm. “The steering seems light”, he said – “In fact it feels unresponsive!” Those of you who know me well, can imagine the sympathetic hearing he had. As I grabbed the wheel from him I said:  “Don’t be so silly” (or something to that effect,  anyway), only to find the wheel spinning in my hands like the wheel of an upturned bicycle.

Now this has happened to me before, (on my Hallberg Rassy returning from Ouistream - 1996)  and rather than taking an age to erect the emergency steering (which I did then), we simply turned on  “Ray” (being the autopilot (Made by Raymarine)) and we got into the anchorage safely.  (The autopilot operates on the steering quadrant and does not rely on the cables).  

Having confirmed the diagnosis of a broken cable, we slept easily in the knowledge that we had a spare. Up early this morning to survey the situation  and to prepare for action. 

Dismantling the boat to get access takes some time but by around 08.30 we were ready to install the replacement cables. A precautionary call to the Oyster Eddie to confirm our approach elicited the comfort we were on the right track: It might be hard to start but once started, the cable would be easy to get home.  So having confirmed that the replacement was fully 2 metres longer than the original, once we got the cable going, and then finally ‘home’  we were disappointed not to find 2 plus metres  of the cable poking proud of the conduit at the steering quadrant – in fact nothing at all..

We suspected a ‘Wally Bomb’ and further dismantled the boat only to find the recidivist cable lurking in the bilge – the conduit having a discontinuity around a turning block!  After a few more false starts we eventually got it fixed and the boat back together  by mid afternoon.

Problem solved. Ashore for dinner at a beach bar (with the crew of Aequitas -  another Oyster rally boat).

Tomorrow – Tobago Cays!