It was one of those dank miserable Atlantic days with a stiff onshore wind and heavy black clouds scudding out of the west below a dull steely grey sky. The anchor chain was snubbing at the bow roller and the gusting wind would make lifting the hook a bit of a handful.
I had set the alarm for 0600 and as I stuck my head above the parapet I considered the warm and comfortable bunk that still lay un-stowed. But I knew from experience that if I didn't make the effort, I would still be in the small Spanish harbour of Lexi in a week's time.
A bacon sandwich - sadly the last of the UK bacon - and a huge cup of hot sweet tea and I was ready to give it a shot, regretting that my one and only crew member had jumped ship in La Corunna.
I started the Volvo and eased up to the anchor, struggling in the increasing wind with the 60 meters of chain I had set down the day before. I hauled the 30 kg lump over the rail and stowed it on the foredeck.
I would sort out the rest once I was away from the beach, well outside the anchorage and with a little more sea room. I began to motor out through the deep water channel.
Unfortunately the wind was right on the nose and I had little choice but to continue to motor - it was either that or beating out and past the headland off to port.
I had just turned south clear of the point, when although the engine continued to run with its pitch hardly changed, suddenly, without any warning, the boat stopped almost dead in the water. Worse than that, we now started to drift both astern and inshore.
I was about half a mile off the point with the gap narrowing by the minute. I quickly ran out the genoa, trying desperately to work out why my engine was running, seemingly with little effort and yet we were not going anywhere.
Had my propeller dropped to the ocean floor? Of course not, the engine would have taken off like a frightened cat without the load imposed by the prop. That theory also eliminated the possibility of the shaft coupling parting.
If I had snagged a line on one of the many crab pots scattered around the entrance to the bay surely the prop would have seized completely. Whatever it was I really did not have time to wonder.
With the weather worsening and the onshore wind getting stronger by the minute, the tide on the turn and the rocky foreshore looming over my port quarter, my only thought was how I was going to get myself out of this predicament.
I tacked feverishly to windward for an hour and managed to put a mile or so between me and the nearest point of danger. Hove to, that would give me 15 minutes at best to sort out the problem, if I could. The engine was still running with forward gear engaged. All the gauges looked right.
With the genny backed, it was difficult to decide whether the motor was actually injecting any forward motion at all and I was extremely reluctant to free the headsail sheet to find out. I tried astern which had basically the same effect: zero.
As I stopped the engine, the thought crossed my mind that I might actually be dragging something under the boat. I secured one end of a heaving line outboard of the starboard side of the push pit. I then walked the other end forward outboard of all the ropes and wires and dropped a good sized bite over the bow with my trusty tripping line shackle running freely in the bite to sink the line. I then continued to walk the end of the line aft to the port quarter, again, outside all the obstructions.
Hauling the line aft, I knew that if there was anything under there, the heaving line would snag it. There was nothing.
There was no way I could go over the side in the worsening conditions to take a look see, so with 60 meters of water under the boat, my options as a one man crew were pretty limited. I could carry on and hope that between where I was and where I was going, I would not have the need for the engine. Or I could reverse my course and run for the cover of Lexi harbour.
I knew what to expect in Lexi and with the prevailing conditions, going on seemed the more dangerous choice. I came about and headed under greatly reduced head sail back towards the harbour.
I watched the depth sounder as the boat began to accelerate through the entrance, drifting with the tide and the wind slowly toward the beach. The bottom was now coming up fast and it was pretty obvious that if I went aground, even on sand, in these conditions the boat would break up.
The sea was getting more agitated and so was I, as I went forward and dumped the hook over the side. I ran out all the chain I was carrying and hoped for the best. I was still 10 or 15 cables off the beach and she started to hold but as the tide increased and the waves got higher she began to drift inshore.
Once again I tried to sail off the beach but I was barely holding my own. A little after noon as a last resort I sent a red parachute up and called a Mayday on 16 in the hope that not everyone ashore was having an afternoon siesta.
After the second red and with no sign of any help on the VHF I was wondering how I was going to live down having to climb into a life raft just 200 meters off the beach.
I actually heard my saviour before I saw him: “Go forward and pass us a line.” I looked around in total surprise. He had crept in from up wind and with the sound of the surf and headsail flogging away I just did not hear him coming.
But there he was, 20 meters off my stern, the most beautiful 25 foot RIB I have ever seen in my life. I did not say a word. I went forward dragging the longest warp I could grab from the deck locker and falling over everything en route in my haste to get on to the foredeck.
With obvious skill, he edged his way around to the front of Four Two, his single crew member perched precariously on the boarding platform of the RIB between the two enormous Honda outboards. I heaved the line in his direction. With the agility of a ballet dancer he caught the rope and before you could say it, he had tied me securely to both the stern cleats on the RIB.
As he took up the slack and we started to move forward, I hauled in my anchor cable and dumped it unceremoniously on my lovely teak foredeck. Yachting niceties were not even a consideration at that particular moment.
I scrambled back to the cockpit. We were now proceeding away from impending disaster towards the inner harbour. Panic over.
Twenty minutes later in the almost total calm of the small haven, sheltered by the western arm of the natural bay on one side and the small fish jetty on the other, the RIB driver came alongside. During the whole exercise not a single word was exchanged beyond his first instruction to pass a line.
I had been ashore the previous evening in Lexi and wandering around the small village I did not find one single person that spoke, or was willing to speak, a word of English. I was expecting the same response now.
When the driver shouted across to me: “That was bloody lucky, me old son,” in the broadest Scots accent I had heard this side of Aberdeen my face fell open and he smiled wryly at my obvious surprise.
He tied me up to the jetty, explaining to the extraordinarily understanding fisherman on the dock, in impeccable Spanish, that I was in trouble and needed to park up for a while. He then took me off to the bar for a much needed brandy or three.
Jock Sinclair, late of Her Majesty's Royal Navy, had moved to Spain two years earlier where he had fetched up in Lexi, married a local girl and was now, to my good fortune, the lifeboat coxswain and local dive instructor.
He came down to the boat the next morning and we went over the side together to check out Four Two's bottom. The problem? A piece of fishing net rolled into a ball around my prop. No wonder I wasn't going anywhere.
Captain Bob Henderson spent 18 years in the Royal Marines and then 25 years at sea as a ship's master. He spent several long leaves skippering private and commercial pleasure boats from 45 footers to 170 superyachts, and took a sabbatical to go around the Med and the Caribbean in his own 35-foot yacht, Four Two. He currently has a powerboat based in Dover.
