Doing charterwork: the disaster charter I Skippered a Beneteau First 38 named VIVA for three days to Torunc,
close to Marmaris, Turkey. I was helping out a Skipper who could
not make it in time to its job. Those 3 day alone are worth a
story in my diary. The boat was a compete wreck. I had to start
it with a screw driver. No electronics worked, no VHF, no harness,
no nothing, the engine runs sometimes only on 3 cylinders, the
rig was a laugh, but the refrigerator worked. I was wondering
how it is possible to charter such a boat. There were not enough
blankets and other housing stuff on board. ..The three guests
Rita, Angela and Petra understandable felt like they lost their
holiday. And so disaster began. On the third day of our journey,
while sailing in the open sea, the anchor broke from it's secured
place and run with 70m of chain out. I still don't know how this
could happen. Now we had about 200 kilo on our bowl and and of
course no functional anchor windlass. There was one, but her
motor was not working and the handle for hand cranking was missing.
For about 2 1/2 hours I tried to winch the chain back with the
help of the genoa winches from the cockpit. One of the women had
to sit up in the bowl and change the chackles. With the short
and hard waves the boat heeled a lot and seasickness was invited
very quick. I myself was not very comfortable and stood on the
reeling with my finger in the mouth. This is usually working for
me and I feel much better after. The chain that was led over a
almost broken bowl was just to hard to pull up, and after 1 hour
I had about 10 meters back in the boat. Looking at the chart there
was no place to beach the anchor, and the failing engine just
did not invite a trip to the coastline that lay in luv. So we
decided to drop the whole mess and give the anchor to the sea.
When we came to Torunc a new anchor and chain was installed. The
owner was obviously too embarrassed by the condition of his ship
and the complains of the charter guest and he did not even bother
to make anyone responsible for the case. When I the I left the
boat, it made it's last trip, - to the wharf near Marmaris. The
engine had to be repaired and a list of other things. After a
lot of telephone calls with the agency, the 3 woman finally got
another boat and could continue their long deserved holiday.
dream boat: I am really not fond of those plastic charter boats like Beneteaus,
Gigsy and how they all called. They look to me like hospital rooms
with a little mahagony garnish. The boats are full of berth and
no space of living. But I took a job to deliver a 50ft Oceanis
single handed to Finnike 90 nm from EGG Yachting, based in Gocek.
That was fun. I saw a charter boat for the first time that was
in perfect condition, although 10 years old. It had all the tools
needed to do long passages. I switched on the Autohelm and got
bored at night, because I forgot books to read. Unfortunately
I could only sail 4 hours in the 15 hours trip, because the wind
shifted (as usual in the Mediteranean) right on the nose. I played
with the radar all night and was desperate for a cigarette, for
I forgot to take a lighter with me and the boat was coompletly
cleaned out. In Finnike I gave the boat to it's new crew and took
the bus back to Geöcek, near . For the first ime I saw the beautiful
costline in the south of Turkey. It reminds me a little of Monte
Carlo in France, or the Great Ocean Road near Melbourne of Australia.
I was enjoying the bus drive a lot and watched the whole time.
I saw the women on the field, working like 100 years ago, I saw
the ancient theatres built by the Greek and Roman Empire.... It
was as if I wanted to take a lot more impressions from Turkey,
before we would leave for good.
All those jobs filled our travel budget for the next weeks. AMBERELLAs
work had to wait and I could only finish the very important things.
Now we have things to maintain, before we even finished the boat.
It's a 24 hours job and cost money, money money. There are a lot
of excuses not to go, but to stay and finsih. But if we don't
go right now
4th May 2000 Big cleaning day. The girls arrive in 2 days and I just try to
organize my mess. I had another run with the gear box. All seems
fine now. I startet to put tools away, organize the mess in the
cockpit and washed carpets and cushions. The grease went pretty
easy off those carpets:)
Paragliding: In the meantime I was waiting for a phone call. I have the chance
to take part in a tandem paraglide for free. The day before yesterday
we drove up to Baba Ada the 2000m high mountain at Olüdeniz. It's
south of Fethiye ,Turkey, a famouse beach and Mekka for paragliders
all over the world. But the weather changed badly and a local
thunderstorm washed all my hopes away. But I hope to fly with
in the next couple of days. Until monday I have a chance to do
it. The paragliders will call me as soon as the weather is favorite.
Pictures following...
3rd May 2000 I won. The gearbox is back on the engine and works. Man was I
sweating to get the 45 kilo heavy piece screwed back. With the
bhelp of Georg and a pulley we managed. I hope I fixed the leaks.
I learned a lot about gearboxes in the last days, especailly mine...and
am very positive about other technical jobs now. I had some help
from Marinegears.com. They send me a scetch of the gearbox and part lists.
As a result of this succesful day I managed to finish the special
report about Tlos and Saklikent.
2nd May 2000 After one evening drinking out with paraglide pilots I am invited
to join in a tandem flight. We drove to Olüdeniz, but the weather
changed and we could not even go up the mountain. A few creazy
Russian Gliders flew anyway . Some of them had trouble coming
down because the reain cloud pumped them up the sky again. There
was the story of 4 Russians droped down the day before. They fall
the last 100 m of their 2000m journey right into the water, one
crashed on the beach. So I went back to Fethiye and started to
work.
I repaired the spinnaker pole I traded for my aluminium windlass
case. And I cleaned the bilge, before I want to put back that
gear box.
1st May 2000 The biggest job - taking apart my gearbox is almost done. AMBERELLA
has an hydrolic gearbox, brand Paragon. I found the website of
MarineGears.com and they could provide me with an exloded view of the model.Der
grösste Job mein Getriebe zu zerlegen ist fast getan. The problem
I had was a leak and the prop shaft would in neutral.. I was hesitating
long, because I was not sure if I can fix it, and if I would get
parts for it if nessesary. I was looking for a specialist, but
with my experiences in Turkey I decided to read some books and
do it myself.
With a pulley I craned it on the jetty. I started to unscrew whatever
I found nessesary and made sure not to mess up the parts. I marked
all imported things, wrote messures of adjustment screw etc. The
oilseal had to be changed that was sure. But while I was on it
I wanted to clean it as good as possible. One of the oilseal was
hard to get too and I had to go to the carshops to press a bearing
out of the case.But than I made a mistake. I pulled the wrong
bold and click click click, I heard a needle bearing inside the
gears falling apart. Damnit now I had to take the whole things
apart. Every gearrim sported a loose needle bearing of 64 pieces
and there were 6 planet gears rims. In order to open the part
I had to go to the gear specialist anyway, because a special tool
was needed ( the kind of like to unsrew an oilfilter but much
bigger). So I encountered again a turkish "specialist". He told
me to come back in two days. but I insisted to stay there and
take part in that operation. I was right to do so. I dealt with
the Turks so often and was not impressed with their workmanship.
If someone can use a hammer he is called here a mechanic and if
he is able to get the nail straight into the board, he is called
an enginer. It sound sad, but it is the truth. And just to confirm
my thinking, the specialist took a hammer and a srewdriver and
wanted to hammer the plate off its thread. He spanned the shaft
hard on a vice, which alarmed me allready and when he came with
his hammer and pliers I was sure I want to leave with my parts
right away. Just in time I found the device which is needed to
unscrew the plate properly and showed him how it should be done.
He was a bit pissed of by that, but what the heck. He ask me if
it is possible to work in a German workshop without asking and
I said no, but there the workers are not too lazy to use the proper
tools, becaus .theys care. I told him that in Europe an apprentice
would get a lot of trouble if he uses a hammer, like him!!! to
set an oilseal or a bearing. The last thing of our discusion was
that I just can't afford a new gearbox for 3000-4000 Dollars.
Well at least he took a gauge to messure the exact setting of
the plate. But he pulled another of those bolts and spilled about
200 pins right on the his dirty table. I spent 3 hours running
after him and picking up my little pins off the ground. When I
glued them back with grease I was amazed that all where there.
When everthing was cleaned a ready to put back I saw another worker
starting to grind some exhaust pipe and all metal partikels flew
right on my parts. I went berserk, covered everything and told
him to look what he is doing. It is really time to leave this
country. I just can't stand all this ignorance anymore. The Turks
are very friendly, have good food and infrastructure, they make
very good friends etc, but they work like 100 years ago. If you
want somethinmg done professionally? not here, at least not in
all the palces I spent my money the last couple of years.
I was happy to spent my afternoon with the "specialist" saved
my gearbox a dozen times, went back to the boat put it toghether
myself. I gave him 15 Million Lira (at the moment 25 US$) which
was still to much for his job, because basically I did it myself.
The next day I had to go back to him, because the only 2 screws
he put in were set wrong and I had him fix it.
Later on I found one crew thread damaged. It had to be recut.
Since I don't carry tools for imperial screws and threads (only
metric) I could not fix it my self. But I did not bother to go
back to the workshops. I asked an American sailor , SV Rumb Line,
for the right size stardart (imperial) tap and die and fixed the
thread myself within 5 minutes.
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