How can the storage of a 10lt water butt and a few coincidences lead to a Mayday? Read on.

Last year’s Easter bank holiday weekend was earlier than usual, at the end of March.

Checking the weather the week before, there was an awful forecast of strong winds, rain and low temperatures. It looked like another weekend at home.

After a five-year ground-up refit, our Westerly Fulmar Cathy C had been launched exactly a year ago, and due to family commitments, we’d only managed nine individual day-sails.

Therefore we were semi-desperate to sail more in 2024, and more than a little keen to make a start at Easter.

As the weekend approached, the forecast indicated a weather window on Easter Sunday, with more bad weather predicted for Monday, 1 April (that should have told us something).

We decided to go for it. I’d promised my wife it would be a day enjoying sailing, no chores, no jobs, no maintenance, and to prove the point, I left the toolbox in the car boot, a mistake I’ll never make again.

After an overnight stay on board and breakfast at 0900, we headed out of Pwllheli Marina at 1000, motoring out of the bay into the wind to set a single reefed mainsail and jib, just as we’d seen our friend Han, a very experienced sailor, do with his boat when he left just before us.

Han was having a great time, screaming along in the bay, well heeled over, he had written his name on his black antifouling with white antifouling, and it was clearly visible – maybe a bit too much heel for us.

The forecast

The forecast was easterly Force 3, but it was already a Force 4.

Turning west and to starboard and into the wind, we headed to Abersoch, thinking we’d find somewhere sheltered to anchor for a relaxed lunch just as I’d promised my wife.

The waves were from the south, so a corner of Abersoch Bay near the old lifeboat station looked promising, gaining shelter in the lee of the St Tudwal’s Islands and the headland.

The wind backed and on a broad reach we managed 6 knots occasionally, that’s good for us and quite fast enough.

The anchorages of Llanbedrog and just off Machroes never materialised, we could see white horses in both of them just where we’d planned to drop anchor, so it was a lumpy return trip from Abersoch, around the north side of St Tudwal’s, with occasional 2m waves breaking at the peak with long periods between them.

It gave us an exhilarating ride, and we aimed to be back at the marina entrance by around 1600.

We had some fun on the way back, watched a seal watching us, found a small shrimp swimming around inside the toilet bowl, evicted the shrimp hoping he survived the trip through the Henderson pump, and practised sailing off a pretend lee shore (you never know when you might need to do it for real).

The wind dropped, then increased, seemingly changing its mind every 20 minutes. With the wind veering and growing in strength, the wave height increased as we approached the marina entrance.

About three quarters of a mile away we warmed up the engine, dropped the main and rolled away the jib, everything going well and according to plan.

Mayday

About 100m off the marina entrance the engine cut out.With the increasing noise from the wind and waves, I did not notice the ‘engine hot’ alarm, which must have been sounding.

The engine would not restart and we were being blown beam-on straight towards the beach in about 4m of water.

There were two options, drop the 15kg Bruce anchor and 40m of chain, or try to sail out into deeper water off the lee shore just as we’d practised earlier.

Anchoring seemed the better option.

We went up onto the bucking foredeck, pressed the windlass down button and nothing happened; the anchor winch wasn’t working.

With our winch, there is no easy way to release the chain, it needs the winch.

The second option was to raise the main, a reef still in (she sails reasonably close to the wind with just the main) and sail off the lee shore, hoping our earlier practice would stand us in good stead.

The main was quickly raised and we were just about to get a bit of jib up… but it was too late; we were already touching the sandy bottom with our twin keels, bouncing heavily, the boat shuddering with each hit and the beach maybe just 150m away.

This was my first experience of a major issue in 35 years of boating and I feared the worst; we could lose the boat.

The waves were now 1m in height and very close together.

Racing down below I reset the windlass circuit breaker, wondering why it had tripped; it had worked earlier when I’d adjusted the anchor chain.

At 1647 I declared a Mayday, instinctively pressing and holding the red button while reaching for the pre-printed ‘How to declare a Mayday’ card.

Once the VHF radio acknowledged our Mayday, I followed with a verbal Mayday, trying to follow the card: name of vessel, MMSI, identification, nature of emergency, number of people on board and what safety equipment we had on board.

I did forget to request immediate assistance.

Holyhead Coastguard replied straight away in a calm and reassuring manner; are we a fin or twin keel boat, do we have lifejackets and liferaft, and could I repeat our position?

Without my spectacles, I was struggling to read the latitude and longitude on the VHF display.

Everything was happening fast; while on the VHF, I’d managed to resolve the anchor winch issue, the circuit breaker had tripped, but I was needed on deck to douse the sails.

My apologies to the Coastguard, I could hear them calling on the VHF from the deck, but I was juggling, trying to anchor while dousing the mainsail which now had two tears in the luff; I should have used the handheld VHF radio – we have two of them.

The cavalry

The cavalry arrived from the Abersoch station in a 9m orange rigid inflatable boat (RIB) – the Pwllheli station at that time had an operational RIB too small for the situation.

The four men on board led by the coxswain, Phil (if I recall his name correctly), quickly assessed the situation.

We were safe, there was no water ingress, but even with the lifeboat’s two 115hp engines, we were too hard aground to be towed out of danger.

They were correct, the pounding had ceased and where we had been blown to, just around the corner from the breakwater, we had gained a bit of shelter; you could have mistaken it for a nice place to dry out for a quiet night.

Trying to work out how to get us to safety could now be handled in a more relaxed manner.

Phil tried his best to persuade us to go ashore to warm up, have something to eat and a break from the situation.

Being a fairly typical skipper, I wasn’t going to leave my vessel, hoping not to go down with our Titanic though.

We had heating, hot food, cooking and toilet facilities on board, lifejackets, liferaft and a tender. We were safe and in the unlikely event of a disaster, we could literally walk ashore in about 1m of water, albeit very cold water.

Checking with the marina, we could get a tow the following day, but with the times of high water, it wouldn’t be for at least another 15 hours and I recalled the weather forecast for the Monday… it wasn’t going to be good to be there another 15 hours.

We came to an agreement.

The RIB, though in no hurry to leave, needed to be back at Abersoch, so we’d call the Coastguard on the hour every hour with a situation update and I would inflate the tender to be ready in case it was required to get us ashore.

Self rescue

All of a sudden we were, I’m not going to say ‘alone’ because we had the RNLI services ready to assist again, but we did have time on our hands.

With a very limited toolbox comprising a Swiss Army penknife, dinner knife and fork, I investigated the engine issue.

The impeller which I’d replaced only a few weeks ago was perfect.

My wife topped up the water strainer from our drinking water and the engine started.

It ran well and water came out of the exhaust using 85lt from our fresh water tank in the process; wow, that engine has a good water flow rate!

I back-flushed the water inlet and at low water, leaned over the side to see that the inlet was clear of any obstruction.

The RNLI had taken our bow anchor to about 2-3 boat lengths astern of us (we were bows onto the beach) so that as the tide rose we would lift off, spin around stern to the beach and not be blown further ashore.

At around 2230 and an incoming tide, the weather deteriorated.

As the swell again pounded us on the sand, we started to lift and the boat started to swing around taking up the slack in the anchor chain, but with each lifting movement, we were still aground.

The wind was now gusting to 27 knots and we saw the occasional 30. I had checked the tide tables; the previous day was a spring tide, so we were on a falling spring high water.

If we were still aground at tomorrow’s high water then we would be stuck until the next spring tide.

We decided we needed to ‘self-rescue’ and get into the marina.

With my wife at the helm and throttle and me on the windlass controls, the plan was that between each pounding, we’d make some progress to deeper water and off the beach.

With the wave height and wind rising, it was hard work and we were still being pushed sideways towards the beach.

Just as I thought “One more and the pounding will be over and I can completely recover the anchor”, an incredibly large wave struck us on the starboard side; I fell hard to my left onto the pulpit, shearing off the rearmost bolt – 8mm of stainless steel, broken by 90kg (me) and a rogue wave.

I was glad I’d heeded regular advice to clip on when anchor handling.

Not only was the pulpit broken, but the anchor chain was now very loose, it too had broken.

My wife couldn’t hear me and in the dark could hardly see me, but we were off the bottom and into deeper water.

The 10m of what was left of the anchor chain was recovered and we motored into the marina thinking the ordeal was over.

We have been based at Pwllheli for nearly 30 years, and although we’ve entered the marina at dusk, it takes on a different appearance at night with no moon illuminating the breakwater.

We have a powerful deck torch, always on charge, but it’s our only torch, and it was stressful trying to illuminate the breakwater and buoys while juggling low batteries by turning the torch off between buoys, knowing as a scuba diving instructor that torches are most likely to fail through switching on and off.

Finally, at our berth, it took six attempts to dock, a combination of stress, shock, rising wind and current making it difficult.

To our embarrassment, we had also forgotten to turn the navigation lights from ‘at anchor’ to ‘steaming’.

Damage check

We assessed the damage over the following week: a lost anchor and chain, a torn mainsail, a damaged pulpit, scratches to my newly applied blue stripe below the gunwale, a bent anchor roller cheek plate, bruises to my ego and a few bruises to my body. Total cost: £6,000.

A fortnight later, a chap launching his dinghy spotted an anchor in the water, retrieved it and donated it to the RNLI station boat jumble sale.

One of the chaps at the station recognised it as belonging to Cathy C.

We had our anchor back and the insurance paid for a replacement chain. The local boatyard had a three-month waiting list for the pulpit repair, so I removed and repaired it myself.

The tears to the mainsail were not covered by the insurance, so I decided to replace it as it was getting on a bit.

We lifted the boat out of the water to check the keels and rudder. No damage – Westerly did make strong boats.

The RNLI and Coastguard, and everyone who assisted us that night, have my thanks and gratitude. My family has a monthly contribution to the RNLI and I’m so glad we’ve been paying all these years.

Hindsight

Was the Mayday necessary? A few weeks later I met a senior member of the coastguard team working on his own boat, and raised that question with him.

His very kind comment was, “Better to have alerted them nice and early than to have lost the boat and crew, and that as skipper, if I thought it valid at the time, then it was valid”.

Later, I discussed it with some of the Pwllheli crew – they were very supportive and I was in no way made to feel inadequate.

On reflection, maybe it should have been a Pan-Pan, but decisions are always better made retrospectively.

Whatever the call, I’m glad I made it if only to reassure my crew.

Conclusion

Five months later the anchor windlass circuit breaker was still tripping occasionally.

Everything had been checked, the cable for chaffing, the connections for corrosion, and the current in both up and down modes.

Nothing was amiss; the circuit breaker was rated at 100A and the instruction manual said it needed 50A minimum.

Once more in lumpy water I noticed how we stored our 10lt drinking water drum, next to the circuit breaker.

Heeling over to port the drum would press the trip test button. Since moving the drum it’s not tripped at all. We found out why the engine overheated.

The new impeller was faulty, the rubber vanes turned with the shaft at normal slow revs, but at higher rates, the shaft turned and the rubber parts didn’t.

I replaced it and it’s not missed a beat since. The rubber vanes were not bonded to the central brass collar.

If the anchor windlass had worked when we pulled into the bay, the damage would not have happened.

How do I know? A few months later, we anchored just outside the marina in 1.5m waves and 28 knots of wind in 4m of water with the same anchor and 25m of 8mm chain for five hours.

An uncomfortable five hours, and when we weighed anchor it was firmly embedded in the sand, we didn’t budge.

If only I’d stored the water butt and toolbox the other way around…

Lessons learned

1. Always have a set of tools on board, even if you’ve promised your crew a ‘no-maintenance day’. A Swiss Army Knife is no substitute.
2. Don’t be too desperate to sail; after a five-year rebuild, another week won’t matter.
3. Look at tomorrow’s forecast, it could arrive early.
4. We need to have back-ups for everything, including our rarely-used torch.
5. Mark the boat’s name on the anchor. We engraved it; stainless steel Bruce anchors are expensive.
6. If you need them, have your spectacles close to hand, I couldn’t read the latitude and longitude on the VHF radio display.
7. If you’ve got a handheld VHF and you’re in difficulties, have it on deck with you as someone may be offering assistance. Months later, I found that the Pwllheli RNLI were trying to contact me from the beach; they could have tried to tow the boat with the small RIB before we got into difficulties. They’d been watching our arrival from their canteen and would have been with
   us in minutes.
8. I’d never checked the anchor chain during the rebuild. If I had, then I may have seen how worn some links were and replaced it.
9. Finally, everyone involved will offer kind and reassuring words, telling you that you did the right thing. In our case, one friend sent a group text on
   1 May, asking: “What is today? Isn’t it Mayday?” There’s no option but to laugh along.

Expert advice

PBO’s engine guru Stu Davies responds: Wow, how to deal with issues under pressure!

We were based in Pwllheli for many years before we sailed to Portugal and know the area where Steven’s boat grounded very well.

His is a lesson for all of us and shows how things can go wrong very quickly.

It took great skill to think things through and to deal with them. I salute him for saving his boat, because lets not beat about the bush, on the face of it, it was a goner!

So to my brief, the engine, why did it stop? Did it overheat badly, and did it seize and if so how did he get it going again?

Seized diesel engines usually don’t recover well and I recommend a full inspection. I would even go so far as to boroscope it.

The reference to the water pump impeller; yes, faults like that can occur and it can be one of the most frustrating things to happen.

The engine gets hot and yet all appears normal with a “whoosh, whoosh” noise as the water exits the exhaust.

However, a clue that something is amiss is the exhaust noise; the exhaust boom in between the whooshes is a bit louder, almost like a hollow sound.

This is because there is not enough water getting through the system to cool the exhaust under load. So there is the clue, does your engine sound ‘different’?

If so it is a hint that something isn’t quite right with the cooling system.

The symptoms can be the same when you get a bit of foreign matter in the strainer or intake through-hull or the cam in the water pump is starting to wear.

Lack of cooling water not only means overheating it can also lead to less silencing.

About the author

Steven Copeland is a Midlands-based sailor, sailing out of Pwllheli, north Wales. Although Yachtmaster qualified with over 35 years of experience, most of it has been with small sports boats because the family wanted to water ski. His Westerly Fulmar Cathy C was bought in 2018 and saved from the scrapyard as a project boat, then launched five years later after a major rebuild.

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