You will of course remember (and will perhaps still be anxious about) the cliff-hanging end to our 2016 Epic Adventure.
What indeed, was the sinister reason for our engine's enfeablement?
You last heard of Albatross while she was resting ashore at Plymouth Yacht Haven Quay.
On close inspection we had found little to explain her problems. Some barnacles on her bottom (but who hasn't?) and many on her prop.
Jean duly pollished the prop and I painted her bottom.
A nice man who normally fixes car engines extracted and re-threaded Albatross' broken exhaust stud (£26) and our favourite motor factor sold me 4 new studs for a couple of quid. Eat your heart out Yanmar.
A marine engineer said we needed her back in the water to test the engine.
We put her back in the water. We tested the engine. The engine is fine !
So it was just a dirty prop.
We had sailed from Spain to Plymouth, enduring the near-death experiences of electrical storms, sterngear entangements, chronic sleep depravation and channel shipping (not to mention wanton hyperbole) ... just because of a DIRTY PROP.
Sorry Martin.
A dirty prop.
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