Waiouru: 300 yards and a hell of a bang!

Saturday, 6 April 2013

300 yards and a hell of a bang!

Last night Waiouru bounced around on her mooring in the centre of Newbury so we decided to move above Newbury Lock today.

The journey was all of 300 yards but took some planning as we needed to develop a plan where we could both be present to cast off the bow and stern moorings but also have the lock prepared in advance of the movement. In the end we opted to go forward and set up the lock before returning to Waiouru where Jan released the bow rope allowing me to cruise up through the ‘narrows’ and under the town bridge into the lock.

The river is quite constricted through this narrow section and runs rather fast. Consequentially I had to apply more and more revs until the engine was doing 3000. It’s the hardest we have asked the engine to work since she was launched. About 20 yards short of the bridge the stern bounced upwards and there was a loud grinding sound as something scrapped along the baseplate. Waiouru had obviously hit an obstruction on the riverbed and it was something quite substantial. We did make it into the lock but I’ll have to go down the weed hatch in clearer water to see if there has been any damage to the propeller. I walked back to the section of the river and could see something large and pale below the surface. It’s right in the middle of the flow.

I’ll email the incident and photos to CaRT

Waiouru is currently well down at the stern with both diesel tanks full and the toilet tank ¾ full. The water tank in the bow isn’t full which will lower the stern even more.

We’ve now on the 24 hour moorings above the lock.