NoLL
You may remember some of the stories we posted previously about Art and Don, those two great sea farers that we met in the Bahamas. Here are links to stories 1 2 and 3. We only got to chat with them for an hour or so, but the stories just poured and poured from their memories. If I could spend a few days with them, I'd have material for a great book.
Anyhow, as you know from reading this blog, experience hardly conveys immunity to stupidity and embarrassing moments.
We were sitting in the cockpit of Don's boat, Road of Isles. I was drinking in all the great stories of their adventures. As I listened, my eyes were drawn to an inscription on their binnacle. It said RUD in big block letters. I tried for a while to guess that that might mean, but nothing came to me. Finally I asked Don. Here's what he told me.
"We have a hydraulic steering system on Road of Isles. At night when sitting at anchor it makes a very annoying clunk clunk sound as the wave action pushes the rudder from side to side. To sleep I must get up, go into the engine compartment, and open the bypass valve that disables the steering. However, on three departure occasions, we cast off our lines from the dock, engaged the engine, and motored off only to discover that we had no steering control. As the boat drifted out of control, I had to dash down to the engine room, crawl under the engine and close the bypass valve. The RUD inscription on the binnacle is supposed to remind me to never do that again."
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Hi Dick,
ReplyDeleteYour story reminds me of a useful tip I picked up from a video by well known cruisers Lin and Larry Pardey. Their 30' cutter Taleisin has an opening port in the hull in the forward compartment where the v-berth is. It's close to the water line and something that they definitely want to have closed while underway. They have a little pink pom-pom on a rubber band that they hang from the dog that closes the port. When they open the port they take the pom-pom and put it on the tiller. That way when they get underway if the pom-pom is there they know to go below and close the port.
Cheers,
Bob