St. Anthony ..........AGAIN
Soooooo......where were we, argh yes, on the way back to St. Anthony to fix the steering gear. I must say, we were all a bit jaded by this set back, thoughts of missing the transit of the passage this year passed by all our minds; but we soon rallied ourselves and started to plan the way forward when we eventually anchored back into St. Anthony.
The weather worsened as we approached the Belle Isles strait and headed towards Cape Bauld on the top of Newfoundland. That Belle Isles Strait !!!!............she's a little tinker........strong winds, horrible short seas, bad currents, fog and if that's not enough, icebergs to boot !!!!! All this with an emergency steering gear...........
As we progressed down the East side of Newfoundland the sea lifted and it became quite hard to hold the emergency steering aginst the swell, however, it worked very well despite having to hold the force back with your leg sometimes. With more time , we could have rigged a pulley system to impove things, but, we were in a rush........the ice was melting and quickly.
St. Anthony at last.............yes..............we've cracked that bit.
Next morning Steve and Terje went ashore and started to look for help in the local community. Steve Sheppard, the crew on the "whale & iceberg watching tourist" boat met them at the dock and soon had them in the right direction to find help to strip and clean the gearboxes...............oil and grease everwhere.
They found a local workshop and Steve asked if we could use their degreasing bath to clean all the parts............all good came the reply.
While all this was going on i had begun stripping the top and bottom gearbox bevel gears...............my heart sank.............mangled bits everywhere. One of the splines on the trunion bar at the base of the steering shaft (ooooooops sorry girls.... this could get a bit boring....skip this paragraph, or two if you like .........arf arf arf :-)) had sheared and forced the bottom bearing into the bevel gears............streuth there were ball bearings and bits of bearing casing everywhere..........teeth missing off the bevels and bent bits everywhere !!!!!
I set to with a couple of good files and a small set of fine engineers files. Dear me, some bevels were in a real mess, they should be trapezoidal (wow thats a good word), quite a few were like knife edges..............most like Toblerone....anyway after i finished they did look better, though not perfect.
We took all the bits to the workshop cleaned, inspected themwhat a mess, we all looked at each other with concern. The quadrant gear had an arm welded to the top shaft which we had to grind off to gain access to the gears. Luckily a grinder and welding set were at hand. Just as i was trying to remove a stubborn nut from one of the shafts with an air tool, the workshop boss walked in and looked in disbelief at his sudden increase in grease monkeys by 4 No. Unfortunately, Steve had not asked the boss for approval, but one of his minions. He was mainly concerned about insurance and any claims we might make if we hurt ourselves. Steve put on his best diplomats act and soon poured oil on stormy waters. In the end he realised what we were about and told his staff to help us as much as they could......................what a star.............great guy.
Steve had been in discusions with Lewmar (maunfacturers of the steering gear) for spares to be flown out. They promised us all the parts by next Wednesday, though not good, it was reasonable.
During all the goings on, we had neighbours in the harbour, Brad & Lorraine in their Nordhavn 55 super yacht and a young family Carl and Carly on a Bruce Roberts 65 ' steel yacht with their children Caprice (4), Carla (2) and Crew (4 months). We soon had them over for drinks and got on famously with them all......great people.
Sunday, we all go for a road trip to see the L'anse aux Meadows heritage site.............see next post
Luckily Steve had guessed Lewmar might struggle to get the parts out to us so quickly, so he ordered some more from Montreal through our friends at the workshop. These duely arrived on Sunday morning at the Hotel North............our watering hole and restaurant.
We set about rebuilding everything we could in preparation for the main parts arriving from the UK. Yep, you guessed it, on Monday 21st July Lewmar called to say the parts were now due in on Wednesday 30th July. Steve, did his famous impersonation of Captain Shouty............gloom again descended.
Thats it....we'll rebuild what we have and go, Steve blurted out !!!!
I have to say, i had some trepidation about going through the passage with only a partially fixed steering. Anyway, we set too and had it all back together in about 5 hours........now the acid test....turn the auto pilot on.......woooooooooow it works !!!!!!!
23rd July..............we're off
A container ship call's in to pick up shrimps for China
A few more fishing vessels back in port
The jetty we landed the dingy at, also the berth for the whale watching boat
Soooooo......where were we, argh yes, on the way back to St. Anthony to fix the steering gear. I must say, we were all a bit jaded by this set back, thoughts of missing the transit of the passage this year passed by all our minds; but we soon rallied ourselves and started to plan the way forward when we eventually anchored back into St. Anthony.
The weather worsened as we approached the Belle Isles strait and headed towards Cape Bauld on the top of Newfoundland. That Belle Isles Strait !!!!............she's a little tinker........strong winds, horrible short seas, bad currents, fog and if that's not enough, icebergs to boot !!!!! All this with an emergency steering gear...........
As we progressed down the East side of Newfoundland the sea lifted and it became quite hard to hold the emergency steering aginst the swell, however, it worked very well despite having to hold the force back with your leg sometimes. With more time , we could have rigged a pulley system to impove things, but, we were in a rush........the ice was melting and quickly.
St. Anthony at last.............yes..............we've cracked that bit.
Next morning Steve and Terje went ashore and started to look for help in the local community. Steve Sheppard, the crew on the "whale & iceberg watching tourist" boat met them at the dock and soon had them in the right direction to find help to strip and clean the gearboxes...............oil and grease everwhere.
They found a local workshop and Steve asked if we could use their degreasing bath to clean all the parts............all good came the reply.
While all this was going on i had begun stripping the top and bottom gearbox bevel gears...............my heart sank.............mangled bits everywhere. One of the splines on the trunion bar at the base of the steering shaft (ooooooops sorry girls.... this could get a bit boring....skip this paragraph, or two if you like .........arf arf arf :-)) had sheared and forced the bottom bearing into the bevel gears............streuth there were ball bearings and bits of bearing casing everywhere..........teeth missing off the bevels and bent bits everywhere !!!!!
I set to with a couple of good files and a small set of fine engineers files. Dear me, some bevels were in a real mess, they should be trapezoidal (wow thats a good word), quite a few were like knife edges..............most like Toblerone....anyway after i finished they did look better, though not perfect.
We took all the bits to the workshop cleaned, inspected themwhat a mess, we all looked at each other with concern. The quadrant gear had an arm welded to the top shaft which we had to grind off to gain access to the gears. Luckily a grinder and welding set were at hand. Just as i was trying to remove a stubborn nut from one of the shafts with an air tool, the workshop boss walked in and looked in disbelief at his sudden increase in grease monkeys by 4 No. Unfortunately, Steve had not asked the boss for approval, but one of his minions. He was mainly concerned about insurance and any claims we might make if we hurt ourselves. Steve put on his best diplomats act and soon poured oil on stormy waters. In the end he realised what we were about and told his staff to help us as much as they could......................what a star.............great guy.
Steve had been in discusions with Lewmar (maunfacturers of the steering gear) for spares to be flown out. They promised us all the parts by next Wednesday, though not good, it was reasonable.
During all the goings on, we had neighbours in the harbour, Brad & Lorraine in their Nordhavn 55 super yacht and a young family Carl and Carly on a Bruce Roberts 65 ' steel yacht with their children Caprice (4), Carla (2) and Crew (4 months). We soon had them over for drinks and got on famously with them all......great people.
Sunday, we all go for a road trip to see the L'anse aux Meadows heritage site.............see next post
Luckily Steve had guessed Lewmar might struggle to get the parts out to us so quickly, so he ordered some more from Montreal through our friends at the workshop. These duely arrived on Sunday morning at the Hotel North............our watering hole and restaurant.
We set about rebuilding everything we could in preparation for the main parts arriving from the UK. Yep, you guessed it, on Monday 21st July Lewmar called to say the parts were now due in on Wednesday 30th July. Steve, did his famous impersonation of Captain Shouty............gloom again descended.
Thats it....we'll rebuild what we have and go, Steve blurted out !!!!
I have to say, i had some trepidation about going through the passage with only a partially fixed steering. Anyway, we set too and had it all back together in about 5 hours........now the acid test....turn the auto pilot on.......woooooooooow it works !!!!!!!
23rd July..............we're off
Brad & Lorraine's yacht "Adventure"
A container ship call's in to pick up shrimps for China
A few more fishing vessels back in port
The jetty we landed the dingy at, also the berth for the whale watching boat
Far end of the harbour with the radio mast
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