Home And Dry… Not Quite

Calais… 5 am…

Not the best start to any day but we’re homeward bound and should be in Eastbourne by tonight 👍

As we were circling waiting for Calais port control to give us permission to leave, a German couple in a varnished strip laid yacht motored over and asked if they could follow us across the channel to Dover.

They spoke very little English and I presumed they were inexperienced or not confident for some reason.

I explained we were headed for Eastbourne, but said we’d see them across the TSS shipping lanes by which time they’d be nearly in Dover anyway. So we set off with them just a few hundred yards behind.

There were a few large vessels to negotiate in the usual Frogger fashion and the visibility wasn’t great but all was going well as we passed through the separation zone right in the middle of the channel.

With no warning the engine note suddenly changed and we rapidly slowed down!

I thought we’d caught some seaweed but the engine was turning the propellor shaft ok, just we had no drive forward or astern.

Also it was dead calm so no sail power either! We were completely stranded!

Suddenly the roles had been reversed and The Germans came over and offered us a tow!

They seemed very pedestrian about getting a line organised and all my attention was on watching and willing them to get a move on. And it was as they were untangling the line that I suddenly became aware of a huge car carrier vessel heading absolutely straight for us at some speed! Not slightly to one side or the other but absolutely on target!
Where had that suddenly appeared from!!

I sounded my foghorn to alert The German and jabbed my finger towards the ship but he seemed quite unconcerned and continued arranging his line 😱

Frantically looking on my phone AIS I couldn’t see the vessel or it’s name! I resorted to calling on channel 16 ‘large vessel in the southwest lane’ but that really was rather pointless.

What to do! I was cycling through the options and realising that there weren’t all that many available! By this stage I could see a clear bow wave and the bridge slowly sinking below the bow.. a collision was literally minutes away!
No time to call the Coastguard! Should we get below or stay on deck? Throw the lifebuoys overboard as markers? Deploy the liferaft?

Diving below I tipped the flare canister all over the deck and grabbed a white flare. Lifting it to shoulder level I snapped off the safety cap and had my finger on the firing pin.. when I noticed the ship start to turn. The bows were still above us and headed towards us but now I could see down the Port side of the vessel too!

Of course what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger and one learns from these situations.. to get the ferry next time!

I’m afraid I didn’t think to get a picture for you all !!

Perhaps I’ll post one of my underwear later 🤡

The tow was finally attached and we slowly headed to Dover with me shouting the course to steer at the top of my voice.

Now things were settled I radioed a very helpful Dover Coast Guard and listened to them contact each ship that came near us.

It was like a man with halitosis at a party – a path was miraculously cleared before us all the way to the west harbour entrance where the harbour patrol boat took over.

It’s a much better way to cross the lanes having the ships avoid you, rather than the reverse! Highly recommended!

As the launch delivered us to the dock 3 border control officers turned up. I don’t understand why breaking down makes you more of a risk, but they were very pleasant whilst checking all our papers and going through all the places we’d been to

And here are the heroic life-saving Germans!

Once we were all tied up we went over to express our great thanks.. we really would have been in trouble if they hadn’t been there – but, I asked ‘did you not see the huge ship on a direct collision course?’

The reply was ‘ Yes – but it vas essential that ze line was correctly attached’
Which of course it was!

The Germans got interrogated too. I hoped they weren’t just friendly drug runners who we had inadvertently drawn attention to!

So… engine turning but no drive. It had to be the clutch – ruled that out by checking prop shaft – or the key way that locates the prop on the shaft, or the propeller had fallen off!

A quick check leaning over the pontoon with a half submersed mirror revealed that we still had a prop! So with any luck it was the just the cheap keyway that had gone.

A lift out was arranged and as I had hoped that’s exactly what it was.

The lift crew were very good and charged £175 but though I got the prop off myself and cleared out the old keyway, the local marine engineer charged £55 to provide a new key!
A lesson in supply and demand, but I was just pleased he could do it there and then.

(The key is a bit of metal about an inch long and a quarter of an inch square that fits in a slot in the propshaft and into a slot in the prop and so keeps them turning together)

Later that evening I spent quite some time explaining to the German about shipping lanes, tides, and time zones. Resolving UTC, BST, German Time and what his watch said with very little common language proved quite a challenge. But it all became clearer with each additional beer.
Also I admired at the beautiful wooden sloop that it turned out he had built himself – quite an achievement. He’s setting off back to Calais in the morning (!) with the passage plan I did for him. I hope it proves a less eventful crossing 🤣

(I subsequently had an email saying they followed the plan and arrived spot on!)

It was Lynn’s birthday too of course, I always try to do something memorable, and in addition to all this excitement we had a meal out, where I spotted Cheese Board Moby

The Coast Guard and Dover Marina couldn’t have been more helpful.

It’s reassuring to know they’re there when needed 😎 👍

Huge thanks of course to The German and his partner, whose name I now know to be Rainer.. it was a good job they were there with their lovely wooden yacht ‘Sealace’ !!

I still don’t understand how someone can have a whole yacht so beautifully varnished. I only have the tiller and two hand rails to do and I can’t even manage to keep those looking decent!

Looking back on this incident, the thing I should have done was to contact the Coastguard immediately we lost power, but it was a flat calm, sunny day and at the time there were no vessels in sight, we were in the Separation Zone – just – and it seemed that we had the situation under control.
Also when you’re shorthanded you often have to choose between one thing and another. Attaching the tow seemed more urgent –  calling  on the radio seemed rather passive.
But it’s always a surprise how quickly things can change!

Eastbourne tomorrow then!