Disaster Strikes

11 Mar. 12


Things just never seem to go according to plan and my bad luck, as opposed to other people, doesn’t come in threes but rather in sixes. Yrumoar sat on the trailer overnight whilst we repaired her damaged keels. In the morning we painted undercoat and anti foul. Then we discussed the procedure of getting her back into the water with the lift driver Eric. The previous day I overheard Eric telling one of his assistants that one of the trailer jacks had been put in the wrong place and had subsequently been damaged by the hydraulic back wheels whilst lifting Yrumoar. He also mentioned that the broken jack would have to be cut out in order to remove it. This small detail led to the events that occurred afterwards.

We were understandably very nervous about moving Yrumoar due to our last disastrous experience with this trailer. I tried with my limited experience at moving Yachts to check and double check all the ropes and knots that tied Yrumoar down onto the trailer and the packing materials that she rested on. Lola and I even measured and marked exactly where each bulkhead was situated so that she would be packed correctly and her weight would be distributed evenly.

We invited Eric to join us at the yacht club for breakfast but he declined and said that he would only have a cup of coffee instead. Whilst we waited for our breakfast and Eric drank his coffee Eric informed us that he was going to move another yacht and would meet us at our yacht after breakfast. Breakfast arrived and we ate. Some other friends from the boatyard arrived and we chatted for a few minutes. I was struggling to concentrate on the conversation because I felt a nervous tension building up in my chest. I then tried to cut the conversation short and told Lola that I just want to get back to Yrumoar and get the move over and done with. We started to leave when another friend from the boatyard came over and told us that we should relax our boat in on its way to the water. I was a little more than surprised and started walking faster towards the boatyard. The impending feeling of doom growing in my mind made my chest tighten even more and I was listening out for a crashing sound all the time. The crashing sound never came but I could see something was wrong as I approached Yrumoar. They had moved her out of our parking and past the slipway, but now she was standing still. My heart started racing and I felt my blood pressure soar through the roof as I noticed the reason she was standing still.

Her starboard rudder had dug a half metre long gash into the concrete and the rudder end was smashed as her weight rested upon the rudder. The trailer had not been lifted high enough and couldn’t lift any higher because the bent jack was preventing the hydraulics from operating. At this point I felt my body shaking uncontrollably as the adrenalin coursed its way through my veins. Everybody was standing around trying to puzzle out a solution and I went straight to Eric. Using some not very well chosen words I explained to him that last time this happened I was calm but this time I want to (unmentionable) him up. Some of my boatyard friends tried to calm me down but I felt an almost uncontrollable urge to throttle the life out of everybody that has anything to do with the lift service and had to walk some distance away to calm myself.

I sat on a piece of broken walk-on, waiting to be repaired, watching as they placed other jacks under the trailer and jacked the trailer up high enough to get the rudder off the concrete. All the time evil thoughts of sledge hammering someone to a pulp kept entering and leaving my mind. Eventually they managed to lift the trailer high enough to take the pressure off the rudder and the broken jack. Then they proceeded to grind and cut out the broken jack which they should have done before moving Yrumoar. Now the trailer hydraulics could function again. Eric came over and informed me that he would now take Yrumoar back into the boatyard so that we could assess the damage. I fought back the urge to break open his skull with a pipe and told him that he will not take Yrumoar back into the boatyard but he will take her onto the slipway just high enough out of the water for me to repair her rudder.

The damage to the rudder was limited to a small section at the bottom and most of the time taken to do the repair was time spent waiting for epoxy to cure. I am going to write a letter to the commodore of the yacht club and I am going to send an invoice to the lift company. Whether or not the commodore responds or the lift company pays is still to be seen.

We finally managed to get back into the water yesterday with a bit of help from a friend, Norman, and the chocolate family. When we arrived at our walk-on we were met by champagne and smiles organised by the chocolate family. We toasted Yrumoar and took some photos. The chocolate family went back to work on their project, Sea shoes, and both Lola and I felt overwhelmed by emotions whilst we sat in the cockpit still reeling from the experience. Now the preparation work on the water can begin. It seems that boats are just one never ending repair job.