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Should That Knob be Out?
My maiden voyage in Kahuna 
When I was in my mid teens I had an ambition to one day pull up outside our house in a Rolls Royce letting the neighbours know that this
unlikely sprite did have something about him after all. Now, well into middle age, life and reality have slapped me about a bit and I no
longer suffer from such delusions. However, I think that some echo remains in my psyche and is responsible for the little buzz I experience
whenever I use my pass to access the marina car park. And I know that my dear mother will have told those very same neighbours that I now
own a boat. The reality is better than the dream because if they ever actually saw the boat any admiration and respect they may feel would
very quickly turn to pity as they think 'What has that silly boy done now?'.
My wife and I bought Kahuna in April 2010 and, although she was not my first choice, has many faults and is slowly bankrupting me, I have become very fond of her since then. I'm starting to quite like the boat too. 
On the day of the hand-over I went through all of the lockers and stowage places from transom to bow emptying and re-packing them whilst
making an inventory of what I found and it is no exaggeration to say that it was like an Aladin's Cave of sailing treasure. There was even
an oil lamp. In a way it was sad to find so much good sailing stuff left aboard as it signifies that the previous owner had probably just
walked away from sailing. I didn't even have to buy life jackets as I found two almost new ones on board.
I spent a couple of months getting to know all all about the boat, inside and out and making a few little changes and customisations as well as some more expensive repairs required for insurance purposes. My son and I unfurled and took down the foresail, laid it out on the pontoon and gave it a really good scrubbing to get the rather embarrassing green stains off and we practised hauling the pristine new mainsail whilst safely tied to our berth. The job of raising the main was extremely hard work until someone suggested treating the sliders with silicon spray. We bought a bosun's chair and I hauled my Son, the cabin boy up to the spreaders to thread a line through the fittings for raising our radar reflector and day shapes. 
'Stop moaning!' I shouted, 'A hundred years ago it would have been chimneys and no one to pull you up 'em'. We replaced the ancient and
numerous flares with a nice new inshore pack at far greater cost than expected and we examined all of the additional sails and turfed off
a few of them that either needed modifying in order to fit or were just too far gone to be any good. We replaced the flexible wet exhaust
and the toilet pump and we rearranged the battery locker to make it easier to get the batteries in and out and we generally got her ready
to sail after what we assumed must have been quite a long absence from the sea.
Every day I had fewer and fewer reasons not to take her out but I still managed to find a few. We drilled the anchor for the retaining pin, put out the spray dodgers and spray hood, cleaned out the bilges, bought a book to use as a log and went back up the mast to clean the green gunge off the spreaders. We also brought in a man to look at repairing and modifying the ill-fitting spray hood and then waved him off down the pontoon promising we'd call him whilst reeling from the shock of his 'ball-park' estimate. 
So, she was ready. All we had to do was take her out for the first time as her new owners. 'Oh look! The boat-hook needs a proper home and the
transom's quite grimy and the winches need servicing and …
Had it not been for Rocyn announcing that he was coming to visit Plymouth I think I may still be finding little jobs which just had to be done before venturing out into the Sound. Rocyn was heading for Plymouth in his beautiful Westerly Seahawk, Gwylan in order to see off the Jester Challenge sailors and suggested that we do the same. And so, a plan was made and, with an immoveable date looming on the calendar, I desperately looked around for more reasons to delay and found none. My last attempt at procrastination was when I decided I had to work right through the weekend as my workload had quite genuinely more than doubled due to late changes by the customer. My boss had been glad to hear that I would devote the weekend to getting the work out but when the owner of the company found me toiling away on Saturday he told me to go home. And so, on the night before the start of the Jester Challenge, my son and I joined Rocyn and his crew aboard Gwylan for a drink before the big day. Gwylan was berthed in Queen Anne's Battery Marina which was also host to a few of the Jester Challenge entrants who were having a bit of a party, after all, they had a pretty big day in front of them too! I woke early on Sunday morning a little surprised to find that I was feeling quite exited about what the day had in store for me. I spent the early hours pottering around the boat and preparing her for slipping. The crew, my Son, being teenage, had to be roused from his bunk at ten am. I had decided to slip around 1100 which would be a little before free-flow at the lock. It is far easier to go through the lock when it's on free flow but, with all the other factors that influence when you go out, I didn't want to develop a fear of negotiating the lock as well. Besides, you will often exit on free-flow only to find you will have to negotiate the lock on your return. Once my crew had returned from his ablutions we discussed how we were going to slip and I made the final preparations while he had some breakfast. I got a call from Rocyn telling me that they'd already set out and would see us near Cawsand bay. When we finally donned our life jackets and let go our lines my heart was thumping nineteen to the dozen but we reversed off of our finger pontoon without incident, largely because our marina neighbour, Peter pushed the bow out when it got dangerously close to the pontoon. Clear of the berth , I engaged forward drive and we glided around the pristine, Princess yachts and headed out to the lock. With my heart still hammering away I handed over the helm and went below to call the lock keeper; 'Sutton Lock, Sutton Lock this is yacht Kanuha for lock out please. Over' I'd been practising that in my head for days though it's probably completely wrong. I always find the lock keeper's transmissions difficult to decipher probably because my radio, his voice and my ears are all a bit crackly! I think the jist of the reply was that the lock was already on free flow and he'd swing the bridge in a moment. I took the tiller once again and, while the other outbound skippers calmly held their positions keeping a careful eye on my antics, I drove around in circles like an excited puppy waiting to go for a walk. When the bridge was swung open and the green light came we headed out in turn through the lock past Queen Anne's Battery, round the Nose and out into the Sound while Garry took in the fenders and stowed them below. Not having been out before we didn't realise just how busy it was in the Sound. Of course, we weren't the only boat heading out to see the start of the Jester Challenge and I found that it was hard to relax while keeping an eye on everyone and constantly trying to work out if we were the 'give way' or 'stand on' vessel as motor boats cruised past us and sailing yachts changed tack. 
There was a bit of of wind in the Sound so, eventually I plucked up
the courage to let out the fore sail and put the drive in neutral. I was a little surprised to see that the log was working and showing about
four knots. Happy with this we headed towards Cawsand on a port tack (yas, I know the picture is starboard tack). Eventually I plucked up the courage to switch off the motor. I think most
amateur sailors who motor out of their berths enjoy that moment when the engine is silenced and the wind and the water become your power source.
'Now we're sailing'. I bet I'm not the only one who also finds it quite scary as you begin to worry if it will ever start again!
Unfortunately our speed soon dropped to less than three knots and the genoa flapped around in the light winds and it wasn't long before the little single cylinder diesel was chugging away again. We were hailed on channel 16 by Rocyn, Garry went bellow to take the call. On his return to the cockpit he explained that Rocyn, already bobbing around in the bay, had wondered if we had just 'shot' past them? Garry had explained that it was extremely unlikely as were weren't 'shooting' anywhere and still had quite a long way to go. We hopped from port hand mark to port hand mark diligently ticking them off in the log; 11:51 - Melampus, 12:11 New Ground, 12:20 Queens Ground. Somewhere between the last two we motored through the challenge boats assembling for the start. There was a large power boat with lots of people on board and a couple of ribs with a photographer and a film camera operator as well. Very soon we spotted a craft we suspected to be our friends' and as we drew closer we could see that it was. Rocyn waved a mobile phone in the air just before mine rang. He suggested we raft up to him so, we motored round in a large circle and approached him into the wind which, I now realised had picked up quite a bit. 
As we
circled we put out fenders on both sides just in case. Once again I was aware that my heart was thumping but the manoeuvre went off without
a hitch and I could tick off another sailing first; rafted to another boat with both boats drifting. I pulled the engine stop cable and once
again we enjoyed the relative silence as we waited for the challengers to set off. I was quite concerned about the way our two boats were
bouncing off each other and eventually we both decided it would be better to part company and watch the start separately.
I put the drive in neutral and set the throttle above idle and leaned in through the companion way to turn the key. The engine spun but did not start. I checked all I could think of; throttle forward, out of gear, battery 2 … turned the key and again it spun but did not start. I have to admit that I was already panicking. This little engine had never needed more than a few spins to start even from cold and on this occasion it had been running only ten minutes earlier. I rushed below and switched the battery selector to 'both' and tried again, what was I thinking? It's obviously not a battery problem! Of course it didn't start and for some bizarre reason, still not understanding the physics, I cried out that we'd forgotten to turn off the fridge! Somewhere in my head there is one little fellah, just one, who does keep his head when all about him lose theirs. However, on this occasion even he was shouting 'For Pete's sake Geoff. It's NOT a battery problem!'. 
I was back in
the cockpit by now pitifully looking up at Rocyn and struck by how calm he appeared as, with his crew standing by to cast me off, he surveyed
the scene. His little ship was ready his crew organised and he was cool. Attached by two thin ropes was a boat which was opposite in all
respects. What thoughts could be running through his mind? Fortunately perhaps, we didn't need to find out.
Garry was looking out through the companion way when he said 'Should that knob be out?' He was looking at the engine stop cable which I had not
pushed back to it's 'go' position after stopping the engine. I pushed it back in, he turned the key, the engine started. I looked up at Rocyn
and at once wished I could read minds and was glad I could not. 'He's a clever lad' was all I could say. I would understand anyone wondering
'Where on Earth could he have got that from!'.
The lines were released and handed over and we carefully motored away to find our own space in which to drift. Soon the start gun rang out and the solo sailors set off on their little trip across the Pond. Gwylan raised sail and accompanied them for a while before altering course for the Channel Islands which was to be their next port of call. We motor-sailed back towards home stopping for a while to practice reversing as I wanted to moor stern-to and when we last tried that, during mooring practice, I gave up and come in forwards after finding that Kahuna seems to have a particularly powerful kick to port in reverse. We came back through the lock on free-flow and once again my heart started thumping as we prepared to reverse into our berth. I approached our berth very slowly, went about five berths past it, pointed the bow to port to counter the kick and then gently but firmly applied quite a lot of reverse power and waited for steerage. 
Incredibly it came as soon as the boat became parallel with the fairway once more. I reduced the revs
and we glided home as if we did it every day. Garry stepped off with bow and stern lines, I applied a little forward power to brake and it was
all over, and not a soul saw us do it.
My brain had already begun the work of 'painting over' the engine starting debarcle and I could only remember a pretty good first outing. I felt good and
was looking forward to going out again and I think that is very important. I also think that if it had not been for Rocyn suggesting this
little trip we would have remained 'welded' to the pontoon for weeks and would have missed a really nice day on the water. I enjoy weekends
at the marina, lounging in the sun, pottering and mending and enjoying the activity and the difference
from the normal routine. But now, after venturing out for the first time I know we left it too long. I can't wait to get out there again.
Geoff. |
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