A great sleep, trunks on and straight off the back of the boat and in to the sea. Good Morning the Isles of Scilly! Duly invigorated I couldn't resist diving in again: positively chilling at 11 centigrade; that'll shower me until Falmouth.
Next job of the day: the good exercise of hoisting the repaired genoa back up the mast. Beautifully calm conditions, all repaired an in good order to sail home.
Motored around the west of St.Mary's to drop anchor in a bay within tender reach of the town quay. Emtied the 3 spare water cams into the rear freshwater tank and took a group to the town. Filled up the cams with fresh water and back to the boat to empty them in the tank. It was on the third such trip that the engine caught fire! Although we were approaching the pontoon Brian and I were alarmed to see how much smoke was billowing out from the engine hood. I turned off, closed off the petrol supply, tied up the boat and stood back. Approaching I heard a bizarre crackling from the engine which was more than overheated. Stella arrived from the town as we let the engine cool down. Took the canopy off to check and cool further. Stella phoned Peter on the yacht and we arranged to row out and rendezvous in the bay.
Back on board and I enjoyed the pleasure of steaming the yacht from St.Mary's up New Grimsby Sound (where we removed the outboard engine in the calm) around the top of Tresco, east and then south down Old Grimsby before heading east again to a mooring off St.Martin's Hotel. We're having our end of voyage dinner there this evening because Falmouth is full of Olympic Flame celebrations and fireworks on Friday.
Checking the 4-stroke outboard over we found, or rather, didn't find any oil in her at all. We believe this accounted for the unusual overheating although one might have expected more noise and awkward behaviour from the engine before now. So, just need to give it some oil and... Ah! No 4-stroke oil! No probs, Peter has a sailing mate Dave on St.Martin's who kindly brought some oil to the quay; Mike and Jill rowed over, oil in the engine and it works like new.
Bizarrely, at the same time, Peter took a call from another Cornish Cruising yacht in the isles that had seen us motor up Old Grimsby Sound. Had we any fuel to spare for their outboard? When later, Alcyon came up alongside us (pic) they offered us oil in exchange - but we were sorted by then.
It is such a lovely spot on a sunny day we decided to take a team photo with our Cornish Cruising circumnavigation T-shirts and caps on. Pic below excludes Stella, but in future she'll be there when I can get timed shot off my camera.
No comments:
Post a Comment