On Monday, we dinghied in to Bristol Town dock and headed off to do some errands in a car we borrowed from Kat, followed by an interesting cup of coffee with Laurie’s cousin Valerie – which turned out to be a bottle of wine and some hors d’oeuvre instead! Unfortunately, when we returned to Bristol, there was no sight of our dinghy.

The dinghy is like our car – an essential piece of kit – and, as some may have read previously, in the last 12 months or so we’ve made a real saga out of it! We originally had a 10ft Rib with 15HP Yamaha engine which we decided was not the correct vehicle for our chosen cruising itinerary. We sold it and purchased instead, a rigid sailing dinghy which lasted one weekend! It was way too small and unstable so we sold it and bought instead a non-sailing rigid dinghy with an outboard. This was nearly as bad, with very little carrying capacity and a very wet ride. We got rid of that and purchased a fully inflatable 8 ft dinghy – stability at last! Although the 2.5HP engine meant it was no rocket ship – which when we got down to the Caribbean we discovered to be rather a hindrance… so when we got to St. Maarten, we purchased a 10ft Rib with a 15HP Yamaha engine. Yep – full circle and back to the beginning with basically what we’d originally had – but after a whole heap of money had passed through our fingers. To then find the dinghy gone on Mondays was almost too much to bear.

I couldn’t believe the dinghy had been stolen so on Tuesday morning I pumped up our backup inflatable dinghy (yeah, we couldn’t bring ourselves to buy high sell low yet another dinghy – so now we had 2!) and rowed across Bristol Harbor. I went walkabout around the town dock… and there she was. Stuffed under a pier in Bristol Harbor. It was high tide and the engine was just poking out one side of the pier and the tip of the boat was poking out the other side. She was full of water. There was no way to move her until the tide went down some.

I rowed back to Toodle-oo! and waited for the tide to drop. Then I rowed back (at least I’m getting some exercise out of this!), with a few tools in case the engine was compromised. The harbormaster had extricated her from the pier and it looked like damage was minimal. I pumped the boat dry and then tried the engine. Nada! Rats! I removed plugs, sprayed WD40 liberally, but couldn’t get her going…

I rowed back again (this was getting silly!) just to use the phone and arrange to get a ride to a local repair shop. I then rowed back again(!), got the engine off the dinghy and awaited Neal’s arrival. We took the engine to Don’s Marine and fortunately, within about 30 minutes of tinkering with her, the engine came to life! We decided to leave the engine there overnight while Don continued his magic, so Neal brought me back to the dock where I rowed yet again – this time towing the big dinghy across the harbor against a foul current!

It’s great to have the dinghy back and today we’ll probably have the engine back too – life without a car is miserable – just ask my shoulders!

The third running of the OCC’s ‘Southern New England Rally’ was a success – especially as we managed to pass management of the event to our good friends Peter and Patty on Serendipitous, and they did a super job. We ended up with 14 boats, about half of them foreign flagged. The cruise took us from Newport to Bristol then up Buzzards Bay to Woods Hole, across to Martha’s Vineyard and ending at Beverly Yacht Club in Marion over the course of 2 weeks. We had a great time with the varied group, enjoying dinghy drifts, beach barbecues, sunny and rainy-day games – and of course, plenty of sun-downers!

Dressed for July 4th

Boozy Raft-Up

Now it’s time to take a little break from cruising and get Toodle-oo! back into tip-top condition so we ‘sailed’ her back to Bristol as a staging area before we head into New England Boatworks to spend altogether far too much money! Our “Sail” from Marion was mostly motoring (10 hours! – eugh!) and for a good portion we were in thick fog so watching AIS and Radar carefully. It was fortunate that we were vigilant as we came very close to having a head on collision with another boat on a reciprocal course – I threw the helm over and we missed ‘Adagio’ by about 10 feet!!! (Interesting tidbit: Toodle-oo!’s previous name was Adagio!)

We made it back and are now sitting on a friend’s mooring in Bristol, getting ready for the next few weeks of TLC…

We stayed in Newport about a week and then daughter Abigail joined us and brought in tow her new Beau – Nick – who just happens to be a double Olympic swimming medalist… We had a great visit with them – and Abigail, recently licensed, decided to take me up in a plane as a birthday present… What a thrill to be flown, by your daughter, from New Bedford to Newport – and to circle Toodle-oo! who was sat at anchor in Newport Harbour. Great fun!

Toodle-oo! lying to anchor just off Ida Lewis Yacht Club

Captain and Copilot

Newport Harbour

Sakonnet Point

Boats are assembling for the the OCC’s Southern New England Cruise and we’ve had a lot of fun socializing with everyone, including a very nice evening at Ida Lewis Yacht Club with which the OCC has a reciprocal arrangement – I can’t for the life of me see how the OCC, a club with no home base, can possibly reciprocate – but there you go!

We sailed up to Bristol with Abs and NIck and used that as our home base for the next few days while I celebrated turning the horrendous 60!

Then… we went out for a day sail on the last night of their visit – planning to circumnavigate Prudence Island… we left in very light air but made good progress – right up until the wind filled in and we decided to tighten the halyard some – which we normally do when tacking through and the sail is unloaded and we manage the tack with the autopilot… All went well with raising it – but when I disengaged the autopilot I found the rudder to be locked solid! This resulted in our first Pan-Pan radio call – alerting other traffic that we were disabled and unable to maneuver. As it turned out, I was able to disconnect the autopilot and free up steering quite quickly and we could cancel the Pan-Pan – though the coast guard took some convincing!

We sailed on and the next thing that occurs is that one of our primary winches started screaming at us – the plastic feeder arm seems to have worn to a level that it makes a devilish noise when pulling a line in fast. This sail was not going to plan so we turned around and headed towards Potter’s Cove for lunch and to take a break… No sooner had we secured the anchor down, than Abs yelled out Fire! Fire! I ran back from the bow, into the salon to find the boat filling quickly with smoke. A quick peak into the engine compartment showed a small fire, so I grabbed an extinguisher and with Nick’s help, worked out how to use the damn thing and emptied it into the engine room. The small fire was out. It looked to be caused by the starter motor jamming on and building up excessive heat.

Remarkably calm and collected, we remained on the anchor to have lunch and a much needed beer and then sailed back to a mooring in Bristol – and promptly went out for sea food appetizers followed by an exceptionally good evening at Aiden’s – who had a new Irish band playing. Turns out Nick and Abigail are Irish music enthusiasts and Nick virtually took over the group’s musical agenda!

The boat is now fixed – new starter motor and repairs to wiring, autopilot sorted and even the fridge is working and we’re back down in Newport – “Dressed” – for the start of the Southern New England Cruise – whose first event starts in about an hour – so I’d better go shave!

Dressed and ready for action!