An incident at sea - of gearsticks and throttles

You were due a explanation of our electronics but instead I want to explain why these two fine upstanding engineers - John (left) and Darron (right) - from the excellent Mooney Boats in Killybegs were onboard. And what the piece of wood in the header was for.

Background - the combined throttle and gear change lever is mounted on the binnacle in front of the wheel. It has always posed something of an issue - when we were motoring it was possible for someone crossing in front of the binnacle or coming out of the doghouse to accidentally brush the throttle lever and cause us to lose revs.

A few days a go, in rolling seas, one of our number fell heavily onto the throttle lever. The result was a rapid increase in revs and then complete loss of response of the engine to either throttle or gear change. Investigation revealed a sheared shaft on the lever. This meant no way of controlling engine or gearbox from the helm. Enter your correspondent…

I knew that we could control the engine start/stop end engine revs from the control panel in the engine room. One hold down of the start switch put engine revs up and another hold down of the same switch lowered engine revs (and yes - you can imagine there was some confusion to start with). Controlling the gearbox took a bit more head-scratching. The answer was to disconnect the gear cable and change gear manually - to avoid having to lean into the engine compartment too far a gearstick was fashioned out of a piece of ply and fitted. Some shot cord held it in position to prevent it falling into reverse accidentally in heavy weather.

From there it was a case of your correspondent standing in the companion way with the engine hatch removed looking to the skipper for the appropriate signals as we anchored or came along-side or vice-versa. Changing gear involved dropping revs to idling, leaping around to the stern cabin and changing gear then leaping back to pick up the revs again.

It got us through a couple of days well enough until we were alongside in Killybegs. In advance we got in contact with Barry from Mooney Boats to order a new control and set up the work to be done on Wednesday.

In the event we also needed a new gear change cable as the previous one had seized in the original incident.

But now we have a smart new control on the binnacle and moreover one where the lever can be adjusted so that when we are in forward gear with normal revs the lever is not going to be brushed or fallen on.

We leave for Burton Port later this morning and thence to the Faroes. Winds appear to be fair and astern for the next few days. So you may yet get the electronics engineering update.

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