Note to self: Don’t let the dinghy painter get tangled in the prop.
It seems like a pretty basic premise, and yet, that’s exactly what we did. What started as a quick little sail out to Middle River for the weekend, turned into yet another project to fix. As we were trying to anchor in a spot we’ve anchored before we had a hard time getting the anchor to set. Come to find out the area had become overgrown with underwater weeds. So the anchor was just skimming along the top of the weeds. We were both getting a little frustrated when we heard the engine make a weird noise. Then Rich saw the dinghy floating away behind us. Luckily he was able to swim out to it before it got too far.
Once we were safely anchored, we thought it would be prudent to make sure the prop was ok. It was apparent the painter had found its way into the prop and that’s how it got loose. But first, Rich tried to run down his flip flop which he lost overboard while we trying to anchor; he didn’t find it.
I should mention that our dinghy painter line is similar to waterskiing line. It’s really light weight and floats. Plus, Rich put an actual float on the line. It just goes to show how much force the prop has that it was able to pull the line down from the surface of the water.
Rich put the GoPro on a stick and we were horrified by what we saw. There are two nuts that secure the prop to the shaft. One of the nuts was missing and the other was holding on by a thread (literally). Unfortunately, this was going to be just a short weekend on the hook and we didn’t bring any diving equipment or the tools necessary to fix the prop.
Thankfully, we didn’t lose the dinghy so Rich was able to drive it back to the marina, get some gear and tools and hopefully make it safe enough to get us back to our slip. By the time Rich made the round trip it was late afternoon, so we ate some food and chilled out for the rest of the night.
The next morning Rich went into the water see what he could do. The nut looked like it was close to falling off, but it was on really tight and he could only tighten it a few turns. It didn’t seem like it was going to fall off so we headed back to the marina. There was enough wind to sail most of the way, but when we made the final turn on the San Joaquin, it was straight into the wind. We tacked back and forth for a bit, then decided to risk it and use the engine.
Needless to say, we made it back just fine. Rich was able to track down new prop nuts and it was an easy fix. He ordered a spare set of nuts just in case.
