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Our undercover reporter, Wynne Cha-Grinder happened to be on the London-Hamble cruise and sent us this report.....
Thursday 15th was quite blustery, with winds of F8/9 blowing down the Thames. Which explai ns why that very nice Kevin Hillyer only managed to get Concorde to St Katherine’s dock in London at 2100 hours rather than 1500. In the meantime, the return crew of Andrew Dixon, Nigel & Lesley Winter, David Cuss and Chris Lemon had been receiving a stream of emails and text messages from skipper Hobs about where they might pick up the boat: Gallions Marina, Quennborough, Limehouse Marina, as usual Hobs’s email and text messages caused enough confusion in their own rite without all the changes to plan going on. for example, what is the best route to Gallions marina via public transport?
It was a lovely evening (even though i was hidden away without the crew knowing I was on board) with a great view of London Bridge.
 The 0630 trip down the Thames was very pleasant, motoring steadily along and then put up the headsail as well to get some extra speed. We reached 11 knots at one point! Winds were variable, up to 30 knots, much more than forecast. Past the QE2 bridge. Along we went to places that I have only ever heard of. Sheerness?
Everything as we went down into the estuary in the Princes Channel. Some waves, say 1.0 to 1.5 m, were a bit choppy and occasional dives into the trough. Past the wind farm, now punching into the tide. Being gentle with the engine because the rev counter wasn’t working.
It got rougher approaching North Foreland.
And then NOTHING. The engine stopped.
I heard the conversation about the re-starting procedure but nothing happened.
So stuck in F6 winds, with the Thanet wind farm to leeward, strong tides and no engine. A quick discussion between the skipper and crew - no way back to Queenborough or to Ramsgate without an engine. Nowhere to go.
Hobbs manfully took control of the radio handset and called Dover Coastguard, who asked for routine traffic to switch to channel 67. The ensuing discussion led to a quick response from the CG “the Margate lifeboat is coming to your assistance”.
And they did. After rigging a bridle they took us in tow to Ramsgate (there is nowhere else to go).
see the RNLI press release! click here.... They may have overstated the gravity of the situation a little bit.
On Saturday morning, we found an engineer to look at the engine, and he suspected water in the fuel had caused the problem, although he couldn’t eliminate a plastic bag blocking the cooling water intake. So a diver was called to inspect the sail drive and it was clear.
So off we went, now 15 hours behind the schedule, to go to Hamble in one passage.
After 3 hours punching against the tide (again) we had to strain the water out of the fuel/water separator again. We were now inspecting this every hour.
Then we turned the corner at Dover. Agreed with Dover port control to stay 1 mile away from the port entrances. And as we were between the 2 entrances, the engine failed again. Ferries going past in front and behind. Interesting.
Fortunately it restarted straight away, but Hobbs manfully picked up the microphone again, and in we went into Dover Harbour. He wasn’t going to start a 20+ hour passage to Hamble against the prevailing SW wind of 21-25 knots without an engine. And possibly get towed back again. Too embarrassing.
So Concorde needs some Tender Loving Care from the Bosun’s. And then she will be flitting around the Solent again soon!
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