Monday 3rd August

On Thursday the forecast was such that it made sense to wait a day, when the winds would be more favourable, before going to St Kilda.

Friday. Disaster ! Having left the anchorage at 5am and sailed for 6 hours on a beat, in moderate conditions, we were over half way there with about 20nm to go. I went below to make drinks only to discover water swilling around in the galley. A look in the bilges confirmed my worst fear, we were taking on a lot of water. An inspection of thru hull fittings did not reveal the source of the leak so suspicion fell on the keel. In the mean time we started bailing, and for the first time it has been used in anger, deployed the whalepump. We turned around to take some of the lateral pressure off the keel, and headed back toward the Sound of Harris. The flooding was stabilised with pumping out every 30 minutes. I wanted to anchor somewhere with totally flat water as soon as possible in order to get the floor up and find the source of the leak. So late afternoon we stopped in Vacassay Pool, amongst a bunch of islands at the SE end of the Sound. Investigation revealed water ingress at one side of the keel stub near the front. Try as we might we couldnt stop the flow, not even with a rubber pad and wooden blocks braced against a keel nut with wedges. So we were resigned to having to pump out every hour and half through the night. With a shift sytem worked out we turned in after a long and fraught day.

Setting off St Kilda at dawn

Saturday, 6am start to sail back to Arisaig, some 60nm. It was a broad reach in F4 occasionally F5 later. I was satisfied that the the risk was low of the fracture being aggravated by sailing. Pumping every 30 mins all day we arrived at Arisaig entrance at 1800. At the very same time the whalepump failed with a split gasket !! Having anchored back at the same place as last time, in the bay, set to replacing the gasket with a spare. Job done we could rest easy, but pumping would have to continue all night again.

Looking for the

Sunday, en route yesterday I had arranged for the boat to be lifted at Dunstaffnage marina near Oban. It is about the only place in this area that could do this at short notice and have the facilities to make repair. So at 0800 we dropped Chris on the pontoon to retrieve his car, while Brian and I sailed down to Oban via the Sound of Mull. There was little to no wind all day so had to motor most of it. The tide runs strongly at the southern end of the Sound so we needed to exit before the tide turned against us. We managed to make it just a little later than planned but still faced an adverse 3kt current around the southern end of Lismore Island. On arrival at Dunstaffnage we were instructed to moor on the fuel pontoon, ready for a possible lift in the morning.

Monday. Last pump out ! We were hauled out early this morning at high water. Very quick process, motoring straight onto slings on a hydraulic trailer lift. The yard had their grp fabricator guy do an inspection of the problem straight away so that we could make a plan. His view is that the keel stub has split across from side to side, just forward of the bearer that supports the mast. He has seen it before on Moodys. It will likely require the keel to be dropped before structural repair can be made. Timescales unknown we packed up to leave SO probably for some time and it looks like a premature end to this season. Watch this space.

same the other side…