…took us from summer holiday sailing to summer holiday alternatives.
On a small “let’s go bathing” in-and-out trip just around the corner from our harbour, MY Cava acted up.
You become quite sensitive to “not normal” sounds and frequencies. In a fraction of a second, the engine pitch changed, we lost power to the propeller, and we knew: now we are in trouble. We did not panic—but Il Capitano got quite busy.
We managed to drop anchor before running aground (the weather was calm). We were lucky to be close to our own harbour, hailed another boat, and were towed back.
The Chief Stewardess—at that time a.k.a. our designated rescue swimmer—had to swim to the other boat to get a line to them, as we were in shallow waters where they couldn’t reach us.
Very, very long story short: after almost eight weeks of trying many alternatives to get that one tiny broken piece fixed or replaced, we finally have the engine running again. (you cannot – we learned – get spareparts for our gearbox anymore).
Consequently, new plans were made for the summer holidays.