Sailing MackenSea Rudderless!

There are only two kinds of sailors, those who have run aground and liars!

After a hard day sailing we pulled into a cove in the Island of Fornelli. This was going to be our launching point for our crossing to Menorca. We planned to spend a couple of nights here before we crossed. Fornelli is a National park and access to the island is limited. There are mooring buoys in the bay, so this seemed like a good spot to spend a couple of days. Before coming in we had furled the jib and put a third reef in the main. When sailing we had two reefs in the main, so rather than trying to get it in the bag, I put a third reef in as it would be easier to bag once we were tied up to a mooring ball. I was using my B&G app as it showed the mooring buoys and Navionics charts did not. Well we hit bottom! The diagram below explains what happened. Note, the soundings are in feet and the mooring balls are about 80m apart.

We dropped the sail, and I tried to reverse off, but we were stuck. Fortunately, there wasn’t much swell, so we were sitting "comfortably" on a sandy bottom. After considering our options with Gabe, we initially wanted to set the anchor out on a long line and winch ourselves off. However, we couldn’t disconnect the anchor from the chain. Plan B was to use one of the mooring balls, but they looked far away! We tied together the mooring lines and one of the gennaker sheets. I took the dinghy out to the buoy as Gabe fed out the line. As I got closer to the buoy, the weight of the line behind me made it challenging to keep the dinghy on course while trying to keep the lines out of the prop, but eventually, we made it.

We then attached the tow line to the stern electric winch and carefully tensioned the line. Then, with the engines in reverse and the winch maintaining tension, we began to inch backward. Finally, we were free. We motored the boat out into deeper water and settled down for the night, feeling like we had dodged a bullet.

The next day, we took the boat for a 45-minute ride to Stintino to refuel. While motoring, I noticed that the steering felt off. After filling up, we returned to a nearby anchorage. I dove under the boat and saw that one of the rudders had been damaged. We weren’t completely lucky after all. Although it wasn’t structural, part of the fiberglass had peeled off.

I contacted the Maintenance Manager from our broker, who happened to be in La Rochelle, France, commissioning a Nautitech for another client. He confirmed that Nautitech had a rudder in stock.

At this point, Gabe and Leanne had to depart and fly to Menorca, as we couldn’t cross until we got the rudder fixed, and their flights were departing from Menorca on the 24th of September.

Cheryl and I took the boat to Porto Torres, the second-largest port in Sardinia, so I assumed we wouldn’t have trouble finding a yard to replace the rudder. By Friday, I had spoken to one of the owners (who didn’t speak English) with the help of a Dutch lady who had her boat on the hard. Everything seemed set for a Monday haul-out. However, when I returned to the yard on Monday, I met another owner who spoke good English. Unfortunately, he informed me that they couldn’t haul us out because his crane couldn’t accommodate our beam. Apparently, something had been lost in translation on Friday. I asked if they could remove the rudder while the boat was still in the water, but they said no (surprising, as it’s a straightforward procedure). Our Dutch friend suggested another nearby yard, so I contacted them as well as a large yard in Olbia (12 hours away by boat in the wrong direction). The Olbia yard responded that they were booked until April!

Fortunately, the CANTIERI NAVALI DEL GOLFO yard replied and said their lift could accommodate boats up to 7.6m (we’re 7.36m), and they offered to drive to Porto Torres to inspect the boat. After looking at it, they confirmed they could remove the rudder while it was still in the water and asked us to bring the boat to their marina at 10:00 the next day.

So today, we took the boat to their marina, where we were greeted by three people and a diver. They immediately got to work and had the rudder off within an hour.

The fiberglass was badly damaged on one side (it’s very fragile), the other side was slightly damaged, and there was a slight bend at the tapered end of the shaft. Luckily, there was no other damage to the boat.

They mentioned that they could repair it, but that would take about a week (mostly due to the fiberglass curing time).

A new one was ready to be shipped from La Rochelle, and that still seemed like the fastest option. So, we asked Nautitech to send it as quickly as possible. We haven’t received any tracking information yet—stay tuned.