This morning Jo and I headed down to meet Gord at the Dovekie's marina berth, a little later than intended but the weather was holding up. The clouds were obscuring the sun pretty well and the wind was fairly gentle. The idea was to head out around Mana Island, anchor in behind for a cup of tea and Xmas cake, and then head back home for lunch.
I got sails, halyards and things set up while Gord moved the anchor back into position up forward and connected the chain to the nylon warp, ready to drop once we got to a suitable spot off Mana.
Reversing out of Dovekie's berth is simple. She won't turn in reverse - at least not the direction she needs to, so its straight back, then forward with tiller hard over. With little wind the bow came around nicely and we didn't need to do a three point turn. The tide was coming up the channel so it was a slightly slower trip out to the bay than it can be but Mr Volvo played nicely and pushed us out. Gord pulled up the sails and we reached out almost due west at 5+ knots in 10-15 knots of (variable) wind.
Heading out of Karehana Bay
Once off the top end of Mana we headed downwind along the west side. There was a bit of a swell and short chop that Jo didn't really like but we got down far enough to start turning and noticed the white caps coming closer with the flood tide up Cook Strait heading against the wind.
Just before we got into the shelter of the island and headed for the anchorage and a cuppa, I found that I was holding the tiller in my hand and it wasn't connected to the rudder any more - in fact it was broken off and the stump end looked really rotten - BUGGA! The tide was pushing us toward the rocks at the south end of Mana and we couldn't steer. Gord jump up and dropped the sails, closely followed by the anchor. I jumped up and dived down into the cabin to grab a length of rope to lash the tiller back onto the side of the rudder, and made sure the VHF was on channel 16. Jo wondered what she was doing there at all and kept out of the way while I proceeded to slip coming out of the cabin with my piece of rope as a wave went under us, and head butted the mizzen mast while I scraped the skin of my shin on the top of the companionway.
It didn't take long to get the tiller lashed to the rudder head, decide it would cope with the load, start the motor, lift the anchor and get under way again. The lashing slipped and needed to be tightened several times as we motored back to the berth. It wouldn't have been quite as much of a problem if the offset propeller didn't keep turning us off course to port all the time so needing constant pressure to go straight even when the waves/swell (now coming abeam us) weren't trying to do the same.Luckily the tide was almost full in the channel so there was only a little current to worry about and the jury-rigged rudder coped with that just fine. Likewise getting into the berth was a cinch with no wind to blow the bow off.
Not a great trip for Jo's first on Dovekie but a good run for the new motor.
I'm glad the tiller didn't break when we were close in a lee shore as we came around the south end of Mana - the water gets deep quite quickly so my 100 feet or so of anchor warp would have been struggling to hold us.
Approaching the south end of Mana Island
I'll be able to refit the tiller if I shorten it a bit but it is getting a bit rough so I'll get started on making a new one. I'm thinking light and dark woods laminated into a neat curve and varnished - or maybe not.........
