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Turbo's Tub - The First Four Days



Day One:  For the first time ever we took The Tub's dock lines with us when we pushed away on Sunday morning. It was a strange feeling, but it meant that we were finally under way. It was a cold day in the ICW, or "the ditch" as it's often called. We got a few miles under our belt, but we have a long way to go to make it to Beaufort by our Wednesday night goal. The story is beginning to unfold. The storm added a new adventure. The dream of pulling The Tub into the islands is still off in the distance, but it feels good to know that we're on the water.

 

Day Two:  Sandy passed. Another system is predicted to hit the Carolina coast tomorrow. We found a "storm" or "adventure" in the middle. More to come later, but for now a few photos of the first 48 hours. For those worried out there, we are alive and kicking. We took a nice hit today, but after a long recovery, we are ready to press on...

 

Day Three:  Day two of sailing was flying along without incident. We were running 6-7 knots southbound on the intracoastal waterway. The Tub's destination Beaufort, NC and then out into open water to shoot south to Green Turtle Cay.

Our main and our jib sails were out wing on wing and the engine was gaining us an extra knot or two. We were all smiling and enjoying the sunshine out in the middle of the Albemarle Sound near Kitty Hawk, NC.

Suddenly we felt our keel grind on a sandbar and the boat pitched forward and then rolled to the side. The engine whined and the sails heeled the Tub over. Things got hairy fast...

The keel was pounding up and down with each wave and the boat was pitched so far to the side that the side rail was touching the water. The wind began to pick up and the waves were building into a 3+ feet size that kept picking up the boat and driving the keel into the sandbar below. We quickly became concerned that the keel would crack under the driving force of each wave.

To make matters worse the wind picked up to 30 knots and drove the boat further on its side. Suddenly the sunshiny day brought adventure to our front door! We hailed a nearby fishing vessel to haul us off the shoal, but we were in 2-3 feet of water and the wind and waves were moving us shallower with each gust of the wind and roll of the ocean.

Hutch and I had to unload the 11' dingy by hand and quickly donned life jackets and jumped over the rail into the dingy to chase down the rope the fishing vessel was throwing to us. We paddled 200 yards with wind and wave against us and were quickly soaked to the bone. We the rope from the fishing vessel to pull the Tub off the shoal and paddled back to the Tub.

Once aboard the Tub tied up the rope and all hung off the boom out over the water to free the buried keel from the sand. In the course of 2 hours of gnarly effort we broke free!

Unfortunately, in the mishap we damaged our steering quadrant and our prop got wrapped in a crab-pot line. We had to be towed into a marina after dark.

At dawn this morning we got up and MD went to work on the engine. Hutch became our grease monkey and lodged himself in the hold for the day. Hutch was crammed into a 3' x 18" x 10" space and had to remove the damage quadrant and fabricate a new one. MD did the fabrication out of PVC and Mike and Hutch attached the newly fashioned piece below deck. Hutch was the man of the hour with Mike assisting him in the engine compartment. When Hutch he emerged 8 hours later he was covered with grease and soaking wet.

Our trustee friend "Catfish" was rigged to dive under the boat and inspect the rudder, the hull, the keel, and the prop. Catfish was breathing off a Porter-Cable compressor. Apart from the repair to the steering quadrant we passed our safety inspection with flying colors!

The Tub is sound and ready to sail! We will set out for Beaufort, NC before dawn.

I LOVE THIS STUFF! And I love this crew!

 

Day Four:  We're anchored for the night in a creek in North Carolina. It was a cold but good day. All of the repairs held up nicely and we made some good mileage. We'll pull anchor before sunrise and finish our journey to Beaufort by lunchtime. Another boat, T’ai Chi, is waiting for us there, and together we'll head into deep water on Friday morning. One step closer...

 

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