So as I said in the post before there is hours, days even, of boredom before a few moments of sheer terror. This is where that second part kicks in.
We arrived in Corfu at around midnight. In order to get to the marina we were headed for though you go up and around the top of the island and then come in from the north through a canal where all of the cruise ships like to hang out.
We were able to avoid running into anyone or anything alright because both of us were on watch and alert. The lights from the town lit up the coast and there were blinking lights showing where the cliffs turned into jagged rocks in the water. We didn’t get close to that. Check.
Next was our descent into the marina. There were mud banks on the charts on either side of the approach into the marina and it showed a red and green light. In fact there were a couple of each and they were floating buoys floating in the water. In the states we say “red right return” meaning when you return to port the red lights go on the right hand side and you’ll be safe. In Europe that just isn’t the case. So Dad had to keep that in mind when navigating through the mud banks, because running aground right outside of the marina after a three day sail would just be one of those disappointing moments in life. We got through the mud banks – check.
The deckhand who was directing boats into berths met us right outside of the marina to instruct us where to go and to our delight, spoke decent English. Dad informed him that we may or may not have problems with going in reverse. When we docked in Reposto after Dad got into the spot, the reverse crapped out. He thought it was either a transmission problem or something with the prop, but we went three days of sailing and using the prop without a glitch so we weren’t real sure what would happen.
This is where things went wrong.
We had plenty of space to back into the berth assigned to us. There were essentially two boat widths worth of space to swing a little with the wind, which was actually in our favor for a change and Dad went forward and lined the boat up to go into reverse and everything looked great. I was on the stern with the boat hook waiting to grab the bow line and toss the stern line to the nice guy who was waiting on the dock. When Dad went to put the boat in reverse… it clicked a bunch and stalled the engine. Dad kept messing with it as our boat got blown down a couple of spots and he finally got it into gear and we were going backwards at about 3 knots… into a cluster of three boats that were docked. I yelled as loud as I could to go forward and when Dad went to put it into forward gear the engine stalled. All I saw was us backing into the bow of a boat that was docked and that was the moment of sheer terror. You know what you see a car crash and there isn’t anything you can do about it? This was a 22 ton steel boat backing into one that was bigger in size, but made of plastic essentially. Dad told me to fend off, and as I tried using the 2in width aluminum boat hook to fend off of the anchor that was mounted on the boat in front of us I gave us and backed up holding on for whatever may happen upon impact. Now I am sure the ideal situation would be to use my body next to try and avoid any scratches on the new paint job the boat just got, but I failed as a first mate and chose to remember when Dad told me, “The boat has insurance… you do not!”. I learned that day that when the back of your boat runs into the anchor on the front of someone else’s boat it bounces… and makes a horrific crunching of metal sound. When we are out on the water we store a lot on the metal bars that border the stern of the boat. The outboard motor, the gang plank, the ladder is attached back there, it is one of the stationary points for the life lines to be taught, it all got pretty mangled. I liked how Dad described the event:
Guy comes out in a dingy after a couple of radio calls and actually speaks pretty good English. We follow him to the slip he parks and gets on the dock ready to catch our stern lines. There is maybe a 10 kt cross wind pushing us back onto the dock... usually ok. I maneuver the boat more or less into position, put it in reverse to start my back in thing and the engine grunts and starts to stall. I wrote before about the possible transmission issue, but I now realize that my fancy feathering, four blade prop is not changing directions (the blades rotate from forward to reverse depending on the direction of shaft rotation) and is locked up! I rev the engine and try again and with a grinding clunk it goes into reverse. We start moving back toward the dock with the wind. I put it in forward to slow our approach and the engine starts to stall. I whistle for the dock guy and quickly rev the engine some more -nothing. Through my concentration on the engine I here Katie yelling forward! and look back to see her jousting with the front anchor of a quickly approaching docked boat with the 2 inch diameter aluminum boat hook . We are moving maybe 3 miles an hour by now. Katie losses the contest announced by a resounding cacaphony of bad sounds erupted from Pipedream's stern. By this time the dock guy is back in his dingy as we rebound off the first boat and the wind starts pushing us sideways into the waiting line of moored boats for another try at maximum damage. We were finally towed ignominiously into a slip to await dawn and a compete damage assessment. Fortunately Katie forgot my lecture about throwing her body between the boat and immanent disaster to avoid scraping Pipedream's new paint job and remembered the end of the last safety briefing, "that is what insurance is for...".
Like he says we were towed by the deckhand watching it all go down and tie up to the side of a dock until morning. I don’t think Dad or I got a wink of sleep that night.
He broke out the manual for the propeller and read that it needed to be lubed once a year to keep it running at top performance. Oops. They attached and launched the boat 3 years ago with this propeller, and have yet to grease it up. So when we checked into the marina he asked what kind of boat lift situation they had and for the mere fee of €500 he was able to take the boat out, lube the prop, and put the boat back in. It took about an hour and what was the salt on the wounds was that the boat was literally just out of the water and this was overlooked. Oh well. It was a learning experience?
We are just hoping that is what was wrong with it and it's fixed. We managed to get from the boat lift to the original spot they had picked out for us alright and we docked without a hitch this time.
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