Training can be REAL!

After a cold, blustery day out on the water yesterday (Sat 11th June) today seemed to be promising finale to Mr Murray's Powerboat Level 2 course. It was a gorgeous day, pretty much zero wind, tide flooding at a fair rate (1knot), taking us up towards Perth, and beautiful flat, mirror-like water only "spoiled" by the spray from our training Rhib as we sped upstream.
Yesterday, Mr Murray had performed admirably well in all his required tasks and we were going to concentrate on MOB techniques today and finish off with Anchoring, then, there would be time aplenty for him to "play" and practice anything he felt he needed more time with.
So, after a briefing on MOB procedures and getting on the plane again, "Bob" fell out of the boat (as he does frequently...;-) ) and we went into "Man Over Board!" mode.
Excellently executed (the drill that is, not Bob...) and we're off again. Rounding the Stinky Bend (if you've cruised the Tay, you'll know where I mean...) Bob fell out again, but of course, this time the wind's in a different direction. No problem for my able Candidate tho', expertly conducting the Williamson Turn  then motoring past Bob at a nice safe speed and turning to approach him from down wind (as one should) and another expertly executed scoop and Bob is back on the boat safe and sound. Marvellous, what could possibly go wrong on such a glorious day?
Ok, so now we've reached the harbour at Perth (we have permission from the Harbourmasters to carry out training there, even when the harbour is working, as long as it's all done away from the loading ;-) ) and there's not  breath of wind, nor any sign of tidal movement, let's practice more "coming Alongside".

His first attempt yesterday was amazingly spot on. So were the rest of the "practice" runs. Today's first was good too, if just a little quick due to the lack of wind, but still managed well.
The next try tho'? Well, it seemed to go horribly wrong! The speed was fine, engine engagement was fine... but the steering was all over the place! I watched as he steered one way, then the next, then back again, but we were going in different directions from what he was asking the helm to go. He was most puzzled, I was beginning to think that yesterday had been a fluke, til I noticed that as he turned the steering wheel, the hydraulic rams moved left and right but the engine just stayed put!

Jings! The bolt that held the steering ram to the engine yoke had fallen out!

On closer inspection (as we had already done earlier as part of our "make ready for sea" checks ) the securing nut was still in place on the yoke, but the bolt had dropped down and was only held in place by one of the spacer washers. This bolt had been bashed, bent and the threads had been crushed so it must have been like that for a while! Think of all those High Speed maneouvres we'd been doing on the way up here, the steering could have gone at any time!

The quick repair

No worries, we tied up at the harbourside and effected repairs. There was no way that bolt was going back into it's allotted hole, so, with a bit of the Heath Robinson (I like his family's Barley Water :-D) I looped the two working parts together using some thick electrical wire from the toolkit (as there were no bolt sets small enough to go through the holes in the steering gear) and we set off for home. My candidate expected me to take the helm, but I said "No, I'll keep an eye on the repair, you'll be fine driving us back."

Still in one piece back at the workshop

Now, being used to sailing, and experiencing the lack of instant response from tillers, he took this in his stride, even commenting about how much he was enjoying this realism of a major fault/problem being sorted and being able to carry on as if nothing had happened! So much more fun than previous training courses he'd been on.
On the journey home we still managed to complete the anchoring portion of the syllabus (doing it for real?) and a few more MOB drills and "Ran out of Fuel" too ;-). Illustrating that even with a "crippled" vessel one can still address further problems should they occur.
Once back home safely and the paperwork etc out of the way, I got down to the full repair of the steering. It's all back together, in fact, it's better than before as there are no spacer washers adding torsion to the steering bolt any more (as it should have been put together when the steering was fitted 6 years ago!).
Hey ho, all in a days work... ;-)

Oh, he passed by the way. Another happy chappy with a sparkling new photo ID'd National Powerboat Certificate Level 2.