Sunlit Horizon 2 - 'Lads Week' 2012 - Day seven
I was really
rather enjoying this ‘easy life’ of less cruising more chilling, but
having left the lovely over night mooring on the Ant I planned to head
to Acle to take advantage of the free pump out that Richardson’s give
should you be hiring a boat for 10 days or more. I am not sure if other
boatyards offer this, but for an average family boat with two toilets
this makes for a tidy saving which can be spent on other things.
On arrival at Ludham Bridge it was showing just under 8ft on the height marker, so not wanting to risk taking the canopy off hitting the bridge I wound it down a few inches to be level with the top of the windscreen and all was well. Then down to the Bure, turn left and head for Acle.
Just after turning at the junction with the River Thurne and Bure I went to throttle up and the revs died.
Initially I was shocked at suddenly having no power and a wind that was blowing me to the left hand bank but this was to be a good thing as it meant it helped keep the boat on the bank and not drifting about in the middle of the river.
The engine was running smooth as it ever had, and you could put the engine ‘in gear’ and the properly shaft would turn slowly but if you went to give more throttle then nothing would happen. I therefore suspect it to be either the gearbox (which had seemed a little clonky) or the throttle cable itself.
I called Horizon Craft who initially asked me a few things and to try doing certain things and relaying back what happened (or did not) I found that to be very good because it was an engineer I spoke to not as at Stalham someone in an office who simply took the location and dispatched an engineer. In short, if it could be fixed over the phone it helps the hirer and boatyard wasted time.
Sadly this was not the case for me and because of my location the boatyards ‘tow boat’ was dispatched. While I was waiting for its arrival I found what I thought to be the problem, along the throttle cable was a sort of guide/camp and screws and nut assembly and while there was two screws there was only one nut – was all this down to the loss of a nut? About 20 minutes later the engineer arrived. He feared it would be serious to begin, then after about 2 minutes confirmed it was indeed all caused because one of the nuts had worked loose and fallen into the bilges (never did find out where along with his pen).
So new nut fitted and job done, throttle was working and I could get on my way again. On arrival at the boatyard I was surprised to see it so full, and managed to squeeze in to one of only two spaces. I was impressed, the chap on hand at the yard was too and though he is a very genuine, warm man I could not help but pick up every time he spoke to me him seemingly bemused as to why I was on this boat alone – I spose being relatively young, hiring a larger boat such as Sunlit Horizon and then behaving myself all seems rather unusual.
I was impressed that after the pump out ‘Bloo’ was added, I’ve only found this to be the case at Anglia Boats (Formally DRL Marine). Now it was time for me to act the fool. You see as a solo skipper I get rather attached to my ropes and how they are laid out and ready for the next mooring, and while people and kind in helping with the ropes, having them not along the side decks means I have to go back and put them along the decks to make the next mooring easy.
So I popped back to the boat, got on and the ropes were at the bow – ‘I don’t believe it’ I thought, and went and got them and made them ready, I then noticed my banner was missing from the front of the boat. I was now really annoyed because I thought if the yard disliked it being on the boat they could have asked and not just taken it upon themselves to remove - I came back to the stern and found the door locked. What the #$*! I thought! I’ve been locked out in the space of 5 minutes, the ropes messed about and my banner taken – jus then I looked up to the chap on the quay who had done the pump out standing with his arms folded smiling “Alright boy” he asked – I turned to see the boat I was on was Sunlit Horizon I – my boats identical sister – “I wondered what you were doing but did not want to spoil the fun you seemed to be having” he said...Oh the laughs we had.
Back onboard my boat it was time to depart, only the wind had turned and took me at the helm and him on the shore manually pulling the bow round to get out of the boatyard. Now on the main river I headed off to..Nowhere in particular. I love that, the freedom and sense of peace you get on the rivers with your own self – I decided why not go back down the Thurne to Womack Water and moor up somewhere and take it easy.
I did just that, and was surprised to see just how high the river levels were almost topping the formal 24 hour moorings on Womack Dyke. I went around the island, then back to the formal moorings and so decided to moor on the end – it was about 2:45pm so another early mooring for the day, but frankly I was enjoying this lazy life – and so took the time to make a nice late lunch, watch Bullet on the DVD I brought along and chill out.
So despite not being very interesting a day as far as you the reader, or viewer of the Captain’s Blog it was for me another lovely day of doing not much which I really enjoyed.
On arrival at Ludham Bridge it was showing just under 8ft on the height marker, so not wanting to risk taking the canopy off hitting the bridge I wound it down a few inches to be level with the top of the windscreen and all was well. Then down to the Bure, turn left and head for Acle.
Just after turning at the junction with the River Thurne and Bure I went to throttle up and the revs died.
Initially I was shocked at suddenly having no power and a wind that was blowing me to the left hand bank but this was to be a good thing as it meant it helped keep the boat on the bank and not drifting about in the middle of the river.
The engine was running smooth as it ever had, and you could put the engine ‘in gear’ and the properly shaft would turn slowly but if you went to give more throttle then nothing would happen. I therefore suspect it to be either the gearbox (which had seemed a little clonky) or the throttle cable itself.
I called Horizon Craft who initially asked me a few things and to try doing certain things and relaying back what happened (or did not) I found that to be very good because it was an engineer I spoke to not as at Stalham someone in an office who simply took the location and dispatched an engineer. In short, if it could be fixed over the phone it helps the hirer and boatyard wasted time.
Sadly this was not the case for me and because of my location the boatyards ‘tow boat’ was dispatched. While I was waiting for its arrival I found what I thought to be the problem, along the throttle cable was a sort of guide/camp and screws and nut assembly and while there was two screws there was only one nut – was all this down to the loss of a nut? About 20 minutes later the engineer arrived. He feared it would be serious to begin, then after about 2 minutes confirmed it was indeed all caused because one of the nuts had worked loose and fallen into the bilges (never did find out where along with his pen).
So new nut fitted and job done, throttle was working and I could get on my way again. On arrival at the boatyard I was surprised to see it so full, and managed to squeeze in to one of only two spaces. I was impressed, the chap on hand at the yard was too and though he is a very genuine, warm man I could not help but pick up every time he spoke to me him seemingly bemused as to why I was on this boat alone – I spose being relatively young, hiring a larger boat such as Sunlit Horizon and then behaving myself all seems rather unusual.
I was impressed that after the pump out ‘Bloo’ was added, I’ve only found this to be the case at Anglia Boats (Formally DRL Marine). Now it was time for me to act the fool. You see as a solo skipper I get rather attached to my ropes and how they are laid out and ready for the next mooring, and while people and kind in helping with the ropes, having them not along the side decks means I have to go back and put them along the decks to make the next mooring easy.
So I popped back to the boat, got on and the ropes were at the bow – ‘I don’t believe it’ I thought, and went and got them and made them ready, I then noticed my banner was missing from the front of the boat. I was now really annoyed because I thought if the yard disliked it being on the boat they could have asked and not just taken it upon themselves to remove - I came back to the stern and found the door locked. What the #$*! I thought! I’ve been locked out in the space of 5 minutes, the ropes messed about and my banner taken – jus then I looked up to the chap on the quay who had done the pump out standing with his arms folded smiling “Alright boy” he asked – I turned to see the boat I was on was Sunlit Horizon I – my boats identical sister – “I wondered what you were doing but did not want to spoil the fun you seemed to be having” he said...Oh the laughs we had.
Back onboard my boat it was time to depart, only the wind had turned and took me at the helm and him on the shore manually pulling the bow round to get out of the boatyard. Now on the main river I headed off to..Nowhere in particular. I love that, the freedom and sense of peace you get on the rivers with your own self – I decided why not go back down the Thurne to Womack Water and moor up somewhere and take it easy.
I did just that, and was surprised to see just how high the river levels were almost topping the formal 24 hour moorings on Womack Dyke. I went around the island, then back to the formal moorings and so decided to moor on the end – it was about 2:45pm so another early mooring for the day, but frankly I was enjoying this lazy life – and so took the time to make a nice late lunch, watch Bullet on the DVD I brought along and chill out.
So despite not being very interesting a day as far as you the reader, or viewer of the Captain’s Blog it was for me another lovely day of doing not much which I really enjoyed.
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