Emergency Repair

Near Little Cumberland Island, GA
30 58.591N 081 25.416W

If you've read any books about cruising, you'll recall that the skipper should be prepared to repair anything and everything on an instant's notice. We had an example of that today.

Yesterday, I wrote that the transmission felt funny. Last night I checked the oil level in the transmission. It was fine. It hadn't gone down a drop since I first filled it, and the oil is as clean as new oil from the bottle.

This morning, we were heading south, sometimes under sail only, and sometimes with help of the engine. I started the engine one more time and it wouldn't go in to gear. Moving the control lever forward or back just made the engine rev. "OH NO!" I thought. My mind always jumps to the worst in such situations. I remembered a note in the Beta installation manual that said that if you did not install the control cable just right, that the clutch would wear out prematurely and that this would not
be covered by warranty.

Fortunately, we were in a position to continue sailing for some time without the engine. I pulled up the floor of the cockpit, and crawled down in there and started moving the throttle control lever back and forth. "Aha!" Good news. It was not the transmission, it was the control cable. I investigated further and found that the place where the cable was anchored near the control box, had loosened and that the cable was slipping back and forth making it ineffective. I had it fixed within 10
minutes. Tonight, I have to readjust it to balance the motion forward and reverse, but for now we're OK.

From the sound of the weather, we can't go offshore until at least Friday night, and perhaps not even then if that nasty tropical storm heads our way. However, the good news is that we'll have all day Friday to walk on Cumberland Island National Seashore. That walking tour has been on our wish list for some time.