Last week Barry Watts, the engineer at the Tollesbury Saltings repacked the stern gland and fitted a retainer to stop the crown nut coming loose. While the engineer at Bristol had assumed that Robinetta would need to be lifted out, being on a mud berth means the repacking could be done at low water much more simply.
Beautiful weather on Saturday saw us heading to Tollesbury to check out the work. Julian decided he wanted to leave the berth and go for a short motor, so we got all the covers off. It took a while, so we were at the top of the tide and I was not sure we should head out. Unfortunately that translated to us going aground trying to get away from the berth, and it took a lot of revs, and waggling of the tiller to get us off the mud.
In the end we just circled in the channel and went back alongside the berth. This certainly tested the new packing on the stern gland. The prolonged high revs in both forward and reverse were a really good way of checking the shaft was now dry, but I would not recommend running hard aground as a deliberate policy.
Barry appeared soon after we tied up, and checked there had been no strange smells or smoke coming from the packing. It had all been fine.
We put the covers on and came home, after a very short expedition.
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