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by
Joel Pearl
Ralph said he would help me and be my safety man. I, for the first time, since I got the boat, had such a strong feeling that I had to look under the boat. I would not move it, or start the engine, without first looking under it, to check the prop, and the P bracket.
I met Ralph at the cafe in Canal Road, and we had breakfast. His was only slightly smaller than mine, with the first of the many insults to follow. ' I don't want to get like you' he said, with a big grin on his face. He licked the plate clean, and slurped his tea so much, I had to put earmuffs on to deaden the noise. I unloaded the dingy and the outboard from the car. We took them down the walkway onto Strood pier. While Ralph pumped the dingy up, I got the rest of the gear. Helping Ralph to do that simple job properly, we put the dingy in the Medway and made it fast. Ralph passed the outboard to me and I put it on the dingy. He then threw the rest of the gear at me!! I said 'I say old boy, be more careful with my property please!!' If you believe that, you will believe anything. He got in, and we made our way to the Enid, and made fast to her stern. I went onboard with Ralph handing the stuff up to me. He then came up to join me. I unlocked the washboard and opened the companionway. Ralph had a nosy around and said that I should be ashamed of myself for letting the Enid get into such a state. It's about time we sorted myself out so that we can do what we came for. So I got into my trunks and T-shirt and started to put my bottle on, but Ralph said I'd better put my dry suit on as experience tells that I needed it for protection! Again he had to make the comment about my fat belly, when doing up my zip. So I climbed into the dingy with Ralph holding onto my safety line, mask and fins on, ok signal, and in I went. It was cold and bright, with total zero vis, holding my hand in front of my mask I couldn't see it. I felt my way under the boat to the rudder, holding onto the rudder skegg. I felt around for the propeller and propshaft but couldn't find it. But I found a bar sticking out of the bottom of the boat at an impossible angle. Feeling along the shaft, I felt an alien unidentified lump of metal on what might be the propshaft. Feeling further along I felt the propeller but what was the lump of metal? I lost my grip on the skegg and the current got hold of me. It spun me around as in an under water whirlpool, and rolled me over as well. I knew Ralph had me, so no panic. If you find yourself in a similar situation, and you lose all sense of orientation, when the water in your mask is in the bottom, you are upright and when the water is at the top - you are heading downwards. When the water is on the glass, you are facing downwards, when the water is in your eyes, you're on your back {assume the position girls!}. No chance!! In my dreams! I surfaced and got into the dingy. Ralph spent five minutes untangling me from my lifeline. It was needed, take no chances, as you could come a cropper. I was going to do it on my own! I got my kit of, and Ralph unzipped me [we had both had baked beans in our breakfast. I didn't tell him that I started with slight negative buoyancy and ended the dive with positive buoyancy. He found out when he unzipped me!] Heeheeheeheehee! We got back into the boat, and I got all my gear off. We sorted ourselves out. I was thinking what could that lump of metal be? Then I realised that it was the P bracket. The P bracket is an arm that comes down from the boat and holds the propeller shaft in position. It sheared off flush with the hull. It would have been a disaster if I had started the engine, as it would have smashed into the boat. The stern gland would have split at the hose connection, and sunk the boat! Ralph listened to me as I explained what I had discovered, and that we couldn't move the boat under the diesel engine. So we couldn't get the Enid down to Hoo marina unless we towed it [there wasn`t any wind to sail the Enid down to Hoo]. A two and a half horse power seagull outboard motor on a three man dingy, towing a ten ton yacht. Ralph wasn`t keen on the idea, so he changed the subject, and reminded me that we had an invitation to tea on a neighbouring boat. So off we went to this big motor tugboat for tea. The Enid is moored front and back between two buoys. The big motor tugboat is moored alongside a barge, parallel to the trot of the buoys the Enid was moored to. We crossed the channel to the motor boat, and gave them a hail. The skipper invited us in and he put the kettle on. He started talking - he's got a loud voice - louder than mine! But he wasn't a bore. He ran away to sea when ten, and did his apprenticeship on Thames sailing barges, becoming skipper of them. He worked on big ships and tugs. When he retired, he started to renovate big boats. Also he took up driving teams of carriage horses in competition, meeting Prince Philip at some of the meetings. Oh, by the way, he also killed a man in a knife fight and was found guilty, but his dad got him off, I assume, on a technicality. I showed great interest in this man, but Ralph got bored and abandoned me to listen, while he went outside to have a fag. The tea and biscuits were good, but Ralph was scared of the skipper's dog. It was a cross Yorkshire terrier with a Whippet! Ralph macho man! The skipper asked me about my boat and what was wrong with it. When I told him, he offered to tow it to Hoo Marina for the price of the diesel he would use - twenty pounds. I accepted. We discussed details - the Medway port serviced the moorings two months earlier, and moved the trot closer to the shore. So the boat settles in the mud at low water. He suggested that I moved the boat across the channel to the barge, up from the one he is moored to. That way the boat would have water at all states of the tide. I agreed. No specific time was set for the tow but it had to be two or three hours before high water, so that the Enid would have enough water to get to the wharf to be lifted out. I needed the top of the tide to get across the mud flats down the channel. A tentative time and date were agreed - two days time. That meant that I would have to move the boat on my own. I felt that I couldn't prevail on Ralph again so soon after all his help to date. Ralph and I said our goodbyes to the skipper and left the big work tug boat and got into the dingy. We rowed back to the Enid. Ralph wasn`t very happy that we hadn't achieved very much in the time spent. I disagreed with him and explained that if we had started the engine, the propshaft would have whipped around and it would have damaged the boat, the rubber hose connector from the sterngland would have split and disintegrated allowing water into the boat and sinking it. So I was well pleased with the outcome of the day. The boat was safe, and a tow arranged. Packing up all the gear I suddenly remembered that I had left my logbook at home. 'Sod it' I said. Ralph asked what's wrong. I told him and he laughed. 'Ok, what's so funny?' I said. 'You can't log this dive!' 'Why?' I asked. 'Because you were too shallow and you weren`t under long enough', he said with a big grin on his face, showing the gaps in his blackened teeth. I stood there on the Enid, with my mouth open so far my lower jaw was bouncing on my belly. 'Do you mean to tell me that I was spun around in a whirlpool under the boat and rolled over by roller currents, in totally zero vis. It was potentially the most dangerous dive I've done to date, and I can't log it!' He nodded his head, through his laughter. I was so mad, I lost control of myself and farted. He laughed even more. I knew where he had put his false upper plate that he uses to hide his rotten teeth. So I went and got them and held them over the water. The bum stopped laughing, then I gave him his false plate back. We packed up the gear and left the Enid, and headed back to Strood pier, where we unloaded the dingy and deflated it. We loaded my car, and I said a grateful thank you to Ralph for coming down and being my safetyman. He said that's all right, but we didn`t achieve much today! I felt like putting the information into his pea brain with a hammer! Because Ralph needs to achieve so much every day and he never reaches his goal, he puts frustration into a new dimension, no wonder he bites his nails! Making my way home, I was thinking about how to get the boat across the channel to the barge. Sail it, tow it, or pull it. The first two were non-starters - no wind, so can't sail, two and a half horsepower outboard - not against that current. So that left pulling it with a long rope. Me against the tide and ten tons of boat with its own mind. Have I got enough rope? How far is it? About fifty meters straight across, but its not level. It's up river. It's got to be at least seventy five meters at the angle I have to go between the two moorings. And the boat is facing the wrong way, so I will have to swing the boat around, as well as pull it across all that treacherous channel on my own. Ok, this will tone your muscles up, or drop something that used to be precious to you. But don't worry - what you haven't used, you wont miss. Coming into London, I had to forget it for the moment and sleep on it. It will look better in the morning, I hope. Well its morning, a clear blue sky again, and it doesn't look any easier, so let's get down there and pull the bugger across. The tide won't wait. No breakfast today, just pump the dingy up and get out there. I look over the situation from the Enid`s deck. Looking up river from over the stern, I looked at how close the next boat is to me. We have to pass this boat on the way to the barge. Okay, fenders out both sides, get the ropes out, the three longest to knot them together and see. Make fast one end to the port side amidships. [Port is left, starboard is right, amidships is the middle of the ship! You should know this looking from the stern to the Bow]. I put the lead rope outside around the bow and back to the stern into the dingy. With this great coil of rope, away I went. Everything went well until half way across when the tide changed and started to ebb, and I was swept down towards the motor\tug boat, that was to give me the tow tomorrow. So I engaged second gear, then third wasn't laughing, but it must have looked very comical. Like the silent movies, dingy rowing at twenty knots, the drag of the rope in the current surprised me as it was so great. When I got close to the motor boat and the barges, the current eased, and I could make my way up to the barge that the Enid had to be moored to. I tied the dingy to a lorry tyre that was used as a fender, and climbed aboard the barge with the rope from the Enid. I made the rope fast to the bits on the barge and made my way back to the Enid. [Samson post, cleet, bits, all strong points that you could tie a mooring line too, or an anchor line, tow line etc.] I looked around and decided to change the stern mooring line from the starboard to the portside at the transom [back end of the boat - stern] and extend it as much as I could making it fast. I went forward and took a deep breath and slipped [let go] the bow mooring line. No tuning back now, I took up the line to the barge and started hauling it in. The bow came around until the boat was at forty five degrees to the current, then I really felt the weight of the boat. I sat on the deck and braced my heels against the tow-rail and really started to haul the bloody boat across. When I got it above ninety degrees to the current, the keel acted as a sail and the boat took off into the channel until she was stopped by the stern line. I made fast the line to the barge and released the stern line. The boat immediately fell back with the current and started to swing across the channel in an arc. It would crash the boat into the tug\motor boat, I rushed back and started to pull on the barge line with all my strength. I managed to swing the bow over to the opposite side of the current and off the boat went again. This time heading for an expensive yacht. I didn`t have the strength to pull it in fast enough, so I transferred the line to a winch and started to wind the boat across. It was slow but would it be quick enough to miss the yacht. No we were going to hit it, bugger! Hold on a moment. I jumped to the tiller and put the helm over, and the boat answered beautifully. Again we sailed across the channel to guess what, yes the motor\tug boat. So I divided my time between winching the boat and steering her. All the way to the barge, until sweet as pie, she came alongside the barge, and I made her fast to the barge, collapsing in a heap. I had enough, I'm going home - and I did. Next day, I got down to the boat three hours before high water, and went over to the work\tug boat. The skipper didn't waste any time but got me and his crewman casting off his workboat as he started up his engines. He brought his forty tons of ship along side my Enid sweet and gently. But I was too hyped up to appreciate his good seamanship. His seaman made fast the Enid to his portside, while I changed the mooring lines for slip lines on the barge. On the skipper's shout, I let slip the lines from the barge and recovered them. I then joined the skipper on his bridge, as he gently eased both vessels away from the barge. Getting under way we made our way up river to clear the barges, turning to port [left] we started down river, towards Hoo Marina. The skipper started to talk about what he was going to do to his boat - two more engines making a total of five, mounting them on their side, giving him well over two thousand horse power. Making a lot of accommodation over the engine room, but first he had to get new fuel tanks made up and installed. He was using plastic gerry cans for this proving trip! Bloody hell I thought, [he is using this tow as a workout for his boat]. I tentatively ask him how far he's used his engines since he left the dry-dock? Only from the dry-dock to the barge, he said. Here I am with a man who has a plastic can for a fuel tank on two big engines, that have only run the boat from the dry-dock to the mooring barge - a matter of two hundred metres. I'm lumbered with him taking my precious yacht down to Hoo Marina [IF WE GET THERE]. My two and a half horsepower seagull suddenly seemed as a towboat a bloody good idea. Wait 'til I get hold of Ralph for getting me into this. However, all seems to be going well. He increased speed to six knots, and we carried on our way. I said to him, at this speed we will get to Hoo before high water. Skipper said its best to get there early than late. If you run aground on a rising tide then you can float off, if you run aground on a ebb [falling] tide, you will have to wait for the tide to go out and come back to a higher level than the one you grounded on. Not necessarily the next tide, that's a long time to wait. How long? Come on, a kiss from me as a prize. Who said booby? Its a beautiful day and the sun reflecting on the water and everything's alright with the world. The skipper asked for tea. I left the bridge to check the mooring lines connecting the Enid to the tug. They are okay. Turning back to the bridge, I look into the hole that's the back end of the ship, and as I thought of how much the skipper has to do, I couldn't help but note how much blue smoke was coming out of the engine part of the boat. Too big an area to call a room. It was open to the elements because the bridge didn't have a back to it, and the aft end [back] of the boat wasn`t decked in at all. So the engines were open to the elements, and on close observation by me, watching the blue smoke, it was, if anything getting thicker. It was windy with our passage through the water, yet the blue smoke wasn`t dispersing by the wind. The skipper saw me looking, and said that he spilt some oil onto the engine casing while putting oil into the engine, and it must be burning off! Ralph, when I get my hands on you! We continued down river trailing a thick cloud of blue smoke. Burning oil by the gallon! [Was the millennium big bang going to come for me now !!] The crewman handed out the tea, and this optimist settled down to enjoy the experience. However, he also had tools with him, and he started to do work on the control panel. After some fiddling under the panel, he moved the throttle and started the engine. There you are he said to the skipper, I told you I could get the second engine to work. The tea went down and up the wrong way clearing my nasal passages and staining the front of my tee shirt green. Ralph you bugger!! Blue smoke from the only engine. Okay so now we have two engines. Why don't I feel any confidence. I go out to check the tow. The sun's out, its a fine day, but I'm so strung out, you could use me as a bow string, and fire an arrow twenty miles. I fart again. Ralph said pulses were good for me, but not when I blow holes in my pants! The Enid sits there like a lady snug and secure. I enter the wheelhouse and wondered why both doors are always open - stop a gas build up? For goodness sake, the wheelhouse doesn't have a back! Is it my farting the skipper can't abide? Oh well, he shouldn't make me so nervous, with things breaking on the boat every two minutes. Did I say the skipper was big? Well he has dish plate palms and jumbo size sausage fingers! I'm not going to piss him off if I can help it. So that's why I go outside to fart. He's saying about his horses and how to handle them, and how he sells them. How he runs them in competition. I realise that a man who can read the mood of horses, can also read the shit scared passenger beside him, and he was putting me at my ease. Anyway, what else could go wrong? We continue down river punching the incoming tide, small boats get out of our way, but we get out of the way of big ships, and the size of them means that they probably help to keep the channel open, by using there draft as a plough. You feel the power of the vessels as they pass, awesome. Coming back into the channel after passing one, the skipper bringing the boats back on course, he used his throttles to adjust speed, and the linkage of the second engine - you know the one that the crewman fixed, broke, u/s, kaput. While the crewman fiddles the skipper tries to get the boats under control. We do the military two step around our part of the river, scaring cormorants, yachties and other river traffic including me. I go outside to do it again, and check the mooring lines again. Back on course again, one engine again, you know the one with the appetite for burning oil. How can a person be laid back in a situation like this. I'm not laid back, I'm a gibbering idiot. The crewman, bless him, gets the linkage fixed and starts the second engine again, and we're off again. The skipper tells him to fill the fuel tank up again. You know that plastic can! I suddenly think are the engines self priming? I hope so. I must not tempt fate. We're making progress down river. We come abeam of the army jetty with its steel landing craft moored there. [Abeam / beside / level with]. The river bends to the right. The skipper turns the wheel to the right and the boat turns left, he keeps tuning to the right, but the boat turns left, heading across river, towards the iron jetty with the steel landing craft moored to it. I leave the wheelhouse to check the Enid, and asses the situation, looking at the angles. I can see that we are going to smash into the jetty with the Enid, as a fender between the jetty and the tug/work boat - all forty tons of her. I think of the insurance, then remember that it's lapsed! Ninety to a hundred grand of uninsured liability, sailing towards disaster. I fart again. Sod it, I've got reason to! Enid crushed to matchwood, that's what's on my mind. I casually get aboard the Enid and get the knife ready to cut the lines and free me from him, so that I have a chance, even if it was only to anchor. [Ralph I'll swing for you yet! We're invited for tea! I`ll have your gonads for tea!] We get closer to the jetty. I go back aboard the tug to tell the skipper that I'm cutting loose the Enid. There's not much time as I enter the wheelhouse. He put the engines into reverse and brings both boats to a stop out of the fairway and clear of any danger. I'm standing there with a knife in my hand. He looks down at me and the knife. No comment, just a raised eyebrow, I'm two inches tall, and I'm not talking about my dick. As I put the knife away, the crewman comes forward and tells the skipper that the tiller stock's come away from the stern. The nut came off. He rummages around and tips a bin over, and picks out the biggest nut and said this will do. Then he picks up a giant pair of stillsons and staggering back astern under the weight of the stillsons. The skipper shouts to him 'careful of your fingers', an acknowledging shout comes from astern. Everything is quiet as we drift. Well it looks as if we won't get there early but on time. He said it as if all this was planned by him, to get us to Hoo on time and not too early. You're right I said, more water under the keel to get Enid to the wharf for lifting. We need six and a half feet to clear the keel. I'll put the kettle on, we'll have a cup of tea, said the skipper. As he poured the tea the crewman came up. All done, he said. It won't come adrift again. Which rudder have I got to use now the skipper said. Same as before said the crewman. I raise a questioning eyebrow to the skipper. We have three rudders, he said. The middle and the portside are u/s, so we're just on the starboard rudder, he said. I think, 'hold on, we're on middle and portside engines and steered by a single starboard rudder? This configuration is completely out of balance. And this man is controlling an offset side by side tow. He went way up in my esteem for his seamanship. Top man. Pity about his boat though!' This has got to be the most eventful trip I've ever done. He starts both engines and turns both boats on engines alone, slowly building up speed. We head down river as the speed becomes great enough. Top man changes to the helm. Again he starts talking. It seems that he's never been to Hoo Marina and doesn't now the approaches to Hoo wharf. I tell him that I haven't been there for three years and things may have changed. I told him that we had to go around the Island and that there were two channels. One straight across at an angle of ninety degrees from the bottom of the Island to the trot of moorings, and then to port along the moorings to the wharf. Or, back up the Island past another trot of buoys, then sharply to starboard and straight along side the course way to the wharf. This one needs top of the tide over the mudflats, but I haven't been here for at least three years and the approaches may have changed, I said. The channels aren't very well buoyed. Skipper chose back up the island and right down beside the causeway to the wharf. We continued down river. The crewman refills the plastic can. How much fuel can you buy for twenty pounds? I hope its enough for those big engines. Then I remember that boats are exempt from fuel tax, what's that, twenty or thirty pence a gallon. That's a lot of fuel, oh no it's not. Waiting my turn for the pump at Brighton marina a few years ago, the gin/palace filling up ahead of me took ages and the skipper handed over a large wad of notes, it must have been at least a grand. I moor up and say fill her up please. I put the nozzle in the filler and start to fill up. Five seconds later its full. 'How much?' ' Four fifty'. As I pay him, I say how embarrassed I feel after his other customer. He just shrugs, I said 'well what I'm paying and what the other feller paid, it must have been at least a grand.' He said 'over'. Yes, that's a lot of fuel for a smallcraft. As the tide reaches its peak, the bigger ships come up the river to dock. They are so big, awesome is the word. We pass them quite closely. It feels like going under their shadows not through them. Around the last bend we can see the island and the marina. It looks so tempting to go straight there but its too shallow. The Skipper sees a boat similar to his but the conversion has been done to an obviously high standard. The Skipper knows a lot about this boat, its power, top speed and that his boat will beat that gin palace any time once it's finished. And he knows the owner, " rivalry? " Guess what, the journey around the island was uneventful. Now it starts again. Rounding the bottom of the island we continue up the other side of it. In the channel passing the trot of buoys and small boats moored to them, heading towards the causeway. I'm watching the echo-sounder getting shallower all the time. I remind the skipper that the Enid draws six and a half feet. The echo-sounder is showing five feet and getting shallower all the time. He puts starboard helm on, to counteract the drag of the Enid's keel, acting like a plough cutting a deep furrow in the mud. The Enid's bow dips, both vessels swing to port. The echo-sounder shows one and a half feet!! We aren't going anywhere. Skipper stops engines and said let's have a cuppa. He puts the kettle on. We're reviewing the situation. I wish I could divorce myself of him. I'm so down and depressed that I'm looking up at an ant. It looks like the bottoms changed since you last came here, he said. Yes, I said, we'd better go the other way. He agreed. After tea, let the tide do its job for a bit first, he said. Remember a rising tide, he talks, but I don't hear. Looking across the channel at the wharf, I can see the crane but no space on the wharf to put the Enid, except a small handkerchief size space. He can't put it in there surely. Come on Felix Portabelly, you keep on under estimating this guys ability trust him and relax. Oh yeah. While a total of fifty tons dead weight are hanging on the Enid's keel. Yes, I know, its my fault too. Tea and biscuits finished, I wished it was rum. He gets on the throttles again, starts both engines and using them he fishtails us into deeper water. Back in the channel, we head back for the end of the island, but he tries to cut the corner and guess what, the Enid dips her bow and we swing on her keel again! He said 'OOPS !' I said nothing, but I went outside to fart again. [Next time I will make sure that the person I'm dealing with, is of normal proportions, so that I could at least smack him one, with a chance of survival]. I go back into the wheelhouse and remind him that we're at the top of the tide, so we have to move now. He nods and starts with the throttles and again his skill gets us through. This time straight to the channel, turn to port, straight down to the marker buoy. Turn to port again and down the last channel. At last, to the wharf. We pass the moored fishing trawler and head for the handkerchief space. It's small, can he do it? Yes, he gently lays me up to the wall. Well so he should, after all the Enid is a 'Lady'. And you should always treat a lady gently - so that you get your own way. I cast off the towropes and throw a line to the man on the wharf. We make the Enid fast. I look around to see the tug/work boat heading for the shallow channel, trailing a cloud of blue smoke. I give him a wave and get a hand sign back! The Enid`s lifted out and into the cradle. The rest is another story. Felix Portabelly.Copyright (c) 1999 Joel Pearl All Rights Reserved.
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