Not a Good Day!

As usual a poor weather forecast preceded a "lets go anyway" trip to the coast. First issue was that the number for Hamble Point's dry stack service. It went straight to voicemail. I tried 118118 to check the number but it was the same. So when we got to the Hamble how good to see Black Gold waiting in the water with her cover off.

After topping up Black Gold's oil tank, daughter Emma and I loaded up an odd collection of cleaning kit and were set for a mission to spring clean our sail boat moored in East Cowes. We started the engine. Almost immediately an alarm sounded. I looked at the two screens that we have - system view and the gauges on the GPS screen fed by Smartcraft. All looked okay so we pottered out into the Solent at 32 knots. I couldn't resist watching some of the sail racing - a big and competitive Laser SB3 start and the usual Hamble Spring Series. We continued to Cowes slowly. The alarm was still sounding and the engine didn't want to run fast.

We turned everything off in Cowes and, being the eternal optimist, I assumed a re-boot might restart the alarm system in normal mode. We cleaned the teak deck on Black Tie for the first time this season and had a good lunch in the Lifeboat in East Cowes. Back in the rib ready to go home, the alarm gremlin hadn't gone away. I found a crack in the false floor that supports the spare outboard so we decided to return to Lymington so that the Scorpion team could have a look.

I'm sure that there is nothing wrong with the engine, but I can't have it going into engine protection mode in the race. Our cruise to Lymington was down to 6.2 knots as we made use of the 4% power that the engine management system allowed.

By next weekend I hope we have dealt with the gremlins. It would be good to practise the first leg to Plymouth on Saturday.

Not a great day, but at least the sun was out and the sea calm.