Monday April 9th
Sitting in the cockpit of the Hanbys' 45' Jeanneau, I have come to the conclusion that Portoferrario on Elba is possibly one of the most attractive harbours I have visited.
In common with most Mediterranean harbours, it has tailed moorings, the notorious Mediterranean 'slime lines'. Mooring stern to makes the best use of the available space, but requires some way of holding the bow at right angles to the dock wall.
In days past, we used to reverse into the mooring, dropping our bow anchor on the way, and then setting the stern lines so that the yacht sat about two feet from the quay.
The problem came when trying to retrieve the bow anchor - there were so many anchors and cables there that it invariably got stuck, requiring either a trip line or a mask, snorkel and flippers to get it back on board.
The use of slime lines has saved that trouble. You simply reverse into the appointed space - and this takes practice when the wind is blowing the bow off - pick up the slime line from the quay and walk it forward to the bows to secure the boat.
All that's needed to leave is to sling the whole smelly, dirty line overboard, slip the stern lines, and try not to run your keel across anyone else's slime lines on the way out.
This leg of the voyage has proved the saying that there's no gain without pain. We had decided to make a three-day run from Elba along the coast of Italy, stopping for breakfast, provisions, fuel and water on the third day.
Lyn was coming to the end of her 10 pm to midnight watch, motoring 25 miles out from the Italian coast because of a total lack of wind, when the engine cut out. I was asleep, but the sudden absence of noise woke me. “It just stopped”, said Lyn.
A quick check that we didn't have a fire, and that everything else was secure, and I was up top to see what the problem was. Dirt in the fuel? Water in the fuel? Something round the prop?
|
| Lyn and Paul Hanby and Richard Thomas enjoy reviving Italian coffee ashore
|
Having an engine failure is never good news, but on a yacht it is rarely an emergency. But for Paul and Lyn, on their first voyage, at night, it must have been scary. We went through the check list.
We had filled up in France with enough fuel, according to the marina, to take us to Corfu, and we had only motored about 300 miles. So it was unlikely to be lack of fuel. Didn't sound like anything around the prop - the engine had died rather than being stopped suddenly.
Dirt in the fuel or a mechanical problem of some sort was the probable cause. Paul and Lyn were tired, it was dark, and the first action had to be to conserve vital battery power.
Navigation lights, GPS and Navtex were the priorities - so we shut everything else down, and I sent them off to bed, and set a course for the nearest port that had engineering facilities for yachts, which on my chart looked like Citiveccia, approximately 23 miles away on a course of 100 degrees.
No worries. Except that with almost no wind we were making little more than a knot under sail. Didn't fancy that much, but expected the sun to create a land-breeze in the morning.
By sunrise, we were still 18 miles off, and we would possibly need assistance berthing when we got to the harbour. Couldn't raise the marina, so tried the Italian coastguard to alert them to our predicament. No response.
However, a passing ship, the Sorrento, provided an answer. A brief call to her bridge, and the officer of the watch kindly radioed ahead in Italian to alert the marina and the coastguard, who arranged berthing for us.
Was this strictly necessary? Possibly not. It wasn't an emergency. But without power or wind in a shipping lane, and with no means of getting into a berth, we would need help when we got there. And a bi-lingual deck officer was a great help.
Paul and Lyn came up on deck after dawn, and we set about trying to sort the engine problem out in daylight. So much easier after a night's sleep and without having to use torches.
It soon became clear that we had a faulty fuel gauge and the problem was lack of fuel. The spare fuel was put in, and Paul did a good impression of a teenager tasting beer for the first time. Showing him the little lever under the filter that manually pumps diesel saved a second 'fuel-tasting', and after a little coaxing, we had power again.
A short motor to get fuel, and we decided to spend the night tied up to recoup. The coastguard had recommended a marina called Trevira, and so this morning found us sleeping off a little too much wine, planning to leave for Naples and beyond as soon as we had reprovisioned.
A slight problem with lack of gas might cause us a delay - Easter Monday morning is not the best time to try to replace gas supplies in Italy. But hopefully one of the other yachts in the marina might sell us a cylinder, and we can leave on the next leg of the voyage.
