I launch in Lymington last Thursday and proceeded around to the fuel barge to wait for a mate to fuel up, I got chatting to chap bailing out his Rib-Eye. He'd forgotten to fit its bung and it was pretty much full of water! Having noticed the issue he dropped his family off, donned his wet suit, dived in and screwed the bung back in. He thought he could drain it while underway but had too much water in to raise the bow. On returning to the quay the bilge pump was hard at work but was exiting water at no more than 15 litres/min. After a while the chap operating the fuel barge suggested he ran his engine to avoid a flat battery, he did and the engine exhaust gurgled away under the waterline. He has one of his passengers catch the ejected water from the pump into a sand castle bucket and throw it over board otherwise the water just collected in the engine well. Anyway, we left and wished him well, I'm glad to say we saw him arrive at Totland Bay a couple of hours later.
We met again, this time at the ramp and after a short wait he backed down to the water to retrieve his boat. Some 15 mins later the lane next to him cleared and I reversed down the ramp until the rear rollers submerged - I was surprised that his Land-Rover was some distance further down the ramp and the rear of his trailer about 3 foot underwater. They had the bow winched in tight but the rear was floating and blowing in the wind, I gently suggested it would be hard to load with the trailer so deep. At that point they decided to drive up the ramp and hope to catch the rib on the trailer as they pulled forward.
The last I heard was that a chunk of gelcoat has been lost as the boat snagged on the metal frame holding the rollers - but not to worry money can fix anything!
At least the sun shone and they got out, but I'm sure there is C.7m Rib-Eye for sale in Bedfordshire!
Mavi Su
Sula
