Every Day is a School Day.

Published 10:17 on 22 Sep 2023

So, there we were, sitting in the cockpit, reviewing the leg numbing hours in the forepeak, facetiming our electrician at home trying to get the anchor windlass to work. The Balearics with no anchor would be like Salcombe with no boat. Then, out of the blue, along came Tommy. Volvo Penta polo and a multimeter in hand. Yes he could indeed help and within five minutes had found the badly corroded connection in the anchor locker. An extra night in Soller and our new best friend Tommy had the replacement part fitted by 4.30pm. He was fairly restrained in his comments about the lack of protective silicone sealant. Who would have thought that an anchor locker would destroy newly fitted sockets within 6 months? How fortunate to find an electrician just ambling down the pontoon? It reminded us of an equally fortuitous event in southern Spain a few years ago when the gearbox started misbehaving just as we were tying up to a pontoon. 15 minutes of head scratching and there again was that Volvo Penta polo, visiting the adjacent boat. 10 minutes, 3 litres of gearbox oil, a fair amount of embarrassment and it was sorted. 

We had arrived in San Carles de la Rapita  4 days earlier. A day to provision and bend on the new mainsail and we were off. 100nm with 20knots on the nose was not ideal to say the least but we were on a deadline to meet family flying into Palma. The weather was set to deteriorate over the next few days so there was really no alternative. We arrived in Soller at 1.00am Sunday morning so took advantage of the empty fuel pontoon until they opened at 9.00am on Monday. We had then expected to anchor for a few hours until we could get into the marina. The anchoring of course, was exchanged for two hours going round the harbour in circles! 

Two days later we were happily crewed up in Andratx with a working windlass and chain counter. We had booked into the marina for two nights so headed out to a nearby cala for the proverbial swim, lunch and lazy afternoon. We found our spot in about 8m of water and pressed the down button on the controller. 25 meters will be ok. Well it wasnt! When the counter got to 10 metres the rode was through the windlass and over the bow. As so often happens on a boat, the unexpected and the inexplicable result in total confusion. This was no exception, particularly for the skipper, yours truly standing at the helm looking gormless while Sue got some muscle up to the sharp end to pull some chain back onto the gypsy. Confusion was still in charge. It wasnt really surprising that we were drifting closer to the cliffs: with only 10 metres of chain out what do you expect? Our idyllic afternoon had vanished: we retrieved the anchor and headed back into the marina. The mists started clearing as we approached and when we had measured the chain out on the deck I was finally able to focus on the C-word: Calibration. Who knew that a new chain counter would need calibrating? I certainly didnt and apparently neither did our electrician back home! 

~ Rob Sadler.