More broken boom crutches

On my way back from shopping on Friday I spotted that Robinetta's boom crutches were only again hanging over the side of the boat. These were our spare crutches, that we had built for use when I was varnishing the teak ones. We were intending to go sailing this weekend anyway, so it was no hardship to row out to Robinetta and see what had happened. Alas, it appeared that these too were now broken, in a very similar way to the teak ones. We had not had any problems like this last season...

Julian had spotted one of our CA friends on AIS as they motored past Dunoon, and when we discovered they were moored up in Rhu marina we decided to pay them a visit in Robinetta. 

We got the sails up on the buoy and floated clear of it without putting the engine in gear, but it soon became obvious that this was due to the tide, not the wind. Once we put the engine in gear and throttled up there was an odd rattle coming from the engine; not what we expected only a month after a full service. We made it to Rhu and moored up on the pontoon, where investigation soon revealed that the alternator belt was loose. A quick look at the engine manual, backed up by internet research, and Julian had it tightened up properly. We should have noticed it during our engine checks....

After showing Robinetta to our friend Camilla, and admiring her much younger Westerly yacht, we finally managed to fill our water tanks ready for the season before setting off for a sail. The wind had built to a respectable force3 northwesterly we could not resist going for a sail.

Craigandoran Pier

We headed out of the Gairloch towards Craigendoran pier, gybing away from the shore when we had less than 5 m under the keel. We were at the top of the tide, so the chart plotter showed we were only in 2m. We carried on towards Ardmore, but by the time we could see round the Ardmore promontory and up the Clyde it was time to head home.

We started beating back towards the Gairloch, leaving the Sugar Boat to starboard, but with the tide now against us and the wind on the nose we did not make much ground on each tack. For a while we sailed in company with a larger Bermudan rigged yacht, but boat speed and the differing rig type meant we were left behind after three tacks. With the falling tide strengthening against us we gave up on pure sailing, and put the engine on. The revs not developing as expected, and we had to come out of gear. Julian put the engine in neutral, and it revved up properly, and once we put it back in gear it did rev up enough for us to make progress against the tide, although the throttle position suggested we had more revs than we did.

Once we made it back to the mooring we had a cup of tea and relaxed before putting the covers on. Julian also rigged an extra topping lift to keep the boom up. One of the lazy jack/topping lift ropes was on its last legs, as we did not trust it to support the boom with no crutches. After that it was time to get back in Worm for the row back to the beach.