Not quite the finishing straight

 Well sailing keeps springing surprises. Up until around six o’clock last night we expected to complete our circumnavigation either today (Friday) or tomorrow.  Only 37 more miles to go. It was not to be.  Everything was going really well. We have loved having Georgina on the boat and we had a great day’s sailing from Dover to Eastbourne which ended with a delightful meal with Martin (and Jack the dog) and Barbara in an Italian restaurant.  

Eastbourne Marina is some distance from the town itself and entry and exit is via a lock.  We were moored by the lifeboats and saw the crew come home happy from whatever rescue they had been engaged in. 


The next day (yesterday) we headed for Littlehampton. Littlehampton has a bar to cross so entry and exit has to be a couple of hours either side of high tide. The earliest we would safely be able to get in was 5 p.m. so we didn’t have to have a very early start.  We refuelled at Eastbourne and came out of the lock around 10 a.m. Before long we were rounding Beachy Head (also known as Lover’s Leap). The views were spectacular. Just when we thought they couldn’t be better we were treated to a display of aerobatics by some small prop planes. 


The weather was glorious and the sea calm, this meant however that there was no wind. This as regular readers will know has been a bit of a theme of this trip! Coming into Littlehampton was fairly tricky as the local sailing club dinghy fleet were coming out as we were entering the harbour, together with a couple of rather hooligan jet skis! Our berth was on the Town Quay in the visitors section and it wasn’t immediately obvious where that was.  We moored against two different sections before finally finding where we were meant to be and rafted up to two other boats. As we were sorting our the lines and fenders there was a terrible acrid smell and smoke coming out of the cockpit lockers. I grabbed the fire extinguisher which was luckily not needed but something had clearly gone very wrong.  Investigation showed it wasn’t the batteries giving off fumes, but plastic and wiring burning out somewhere. 

It was a very sad moment. We were very worried and could see that our trip was not going to be over any time soon. Today has been a day of getting back into action to try to sort the problem. A local boat engineer came this morning and said that we need a new wiring loom and probably a new starter motor and solenoid. He felt we should use a Yanmar dealer who would be able to source the parts more easily.  We are now in contact with Ocean Marine Chichester and we hope to have more news on Monday.  As this is likely to take some time to resolve, we have decided to go home with Issie and Steve when they come to collect Georgina tomorrow and then come back to the boat, travelling by train, when we know when the engineer will be coming.  It is going to take a bit longer than we thought but we will finish the job properly!

Photos by Georgina of sunset in Littlehampton


Dover to Eastbourne        43.3 nms
Eastbourne to Littlehampton        37.2 nms


Comments

  1. RickAugust 13, 2023 at 3:58 PM

    Given your many adventures on land and sea, you have learned to expect the unexpected. Glad you and the boat are safe.

    ReplyDelete

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