We had planned to leave Milazzo, on Sicily’s north eastern coast, for Tunisa straight after the guests had left but the weather was against us. The forecast was for 35-40 knot winds from the west (exactly the direction we wanted to go in) so we were stuck for a few days in a not terribly exciting town and a very expensive marina for 3 days waiting for it to calm down. We left at 2200 on the Sunday night and headed out into the dark as it was cloudy and the moon set soon after.
The moon just before it set.
We turned to west to motor sail along the coast of Sicily. After we had settled on to our course, the engine temperatures and oil pressures were stable and everything had been checked so we settled in to our watch system of 3 hours on, 3 hours off. During the night a rattling seemed to be coming from the propeller shaft area of the boat but could be removed by changing the pitch of the propeller slightly or changing the revs on the engine. I thought it was just a harmonic vibration that sometimes happens. As the night went on the vibration got worse and I realised it was the flexible coupling that isolates the engine’s vibration from the boat and the propeller shaft. After a couple of phone calls, I had learnt that at a reduced speed we could have safely reached Tunisa or even Mahon our final destination but it was decided that as we were in no rush, we would stop in Palermo to get it repaired or replaced. I took me quite a while to get it off, seeing as a huge dutch man called Willhem had been swinging on the bolts with a power arm to make them tight while in the yard last winter, and they were really tight! So after a week we are still in Palermo while a man in Derbyshire, England is sorting out a new one to fit our system. It is due here on Monday so once it is fitted we will finally be on our way to Tunisa.
Gordon