BLUEWATERCRUISING 09
Far left: April Fiesta in grey-skied Seville. Left: The beach at Mazagon. Right: Caravel in Magazon. Far right: Bethany and Bryn tuck into grilled sardines.
– a game of high seas, skulduggery, pirates friends trawling all known sources and in the UK (Volvo and otherwise) and the
and treasure. One of the ports on the we even searched on eBay. Eventually the engineer phoned every dealer he knew in
game board was Cadiz, which to an eight engineer suggested that a guy he knew Spain and The Netherlands – even driving
year-old me sounded remote, romantic who worked on vintage cars might be able around the breakers yards of Seville
and exotic. We took the ferry from Rota to rebuild our pump for us. looking for a compatible pump (apparently
to Cadiz, passing the dear old QEII on the While the vintage car man worked the water pump from the old Peugeot
way in to the port. on our pump, we carried on exploring XDP4/90 engine will do). Eventually we
The town, held captive on an island Rota, following baby conquistadors over managed to track down a complete pump
joined to the mainland by a narrow crushed rosemary in the wake of the assembly in Lagos (yes, the Lagos we
causeway, was a bigger, grander version Corpus Christi procession in the town and left behind in Portugal), so off we went to
of Rota with narrow streets, soaring stumbling on a family of kittens living hire a car to drive to Portugal to collect it.
towers and shady squares and was just as I under the bridge to pontoon B, as well as Roughly 600 miles and 13 hours later, we
had imagined it would be. It was, however, David and Nancy (friends from Portimão) arrived back in Rota with our prize.
missing the pirates brandishing swords loitering on pontoon G.
and Spaniards wearing ruffs, those daft
CABO TRAFALGAR
bloomer things and tights. We visited the
ALTIKA AND BEYOND
museum and had a great seafood lunch We spotted a very swish, Swiss-flagged While the engineer fitted the new pump
washed down with a crisp white wine to aluminium boat on pontoon C and we made use of the hire car, exploring
make up for the missing pirates. couldn’t resist taking a closer look and further down the coast. We drove through
introducing ourselves. Altika is a cutting hundreds of acres of sunflowers, forests
TECHNICAL HITCH
edge, 41ft hybrid diesel-electric, twin- of wind turbines and past scores of sherry
NO. 543
propeller monohull. Alongside many bodegas. Eventually we stumbled across
Having paid an extortionate amount of other extremely clever features, she has a Cabo Trafalgar and spent a couple of
postage to get our new expansion tank dinghy garage and daggerboards that help hours walking and lazing on the beach.
sent from Barcelona to Rota, we had it minimize heeling. We went out on her to We did school on the move – history
fitted, topped up the water and coolant, help owners Johan and Christine collect (The Battle of Trafalgar), art (Van Gogh’s
paid our marina bill and prepared to sail data on her systems for feedback for the Sunflowers and Turner’s The Fighting
southeast for Barbate. We had the butties architect and spent many a happy hour Temeraire), and geology (sandstone
made, the flask filled, the waypoints over the next week discussing films, IT, formation and erosion). I don’t know
entered in the chart plotter – and a new engines and Africa over fishcakes, spag about the kids, but I learned that the
knocking noise from the engine. Further bol and wine. Bethany and Bryn spread a most significant naval battle ever fought
investigation revealed water spraying bit of popcorn around to give Altika that in European history took place off Cape
around the engine room. We turned the lived-in look. Trafalgar when the English Fleet (led by
engine off, booked ourselves back into the Admiral Nelson) defeated the combined
marina and tried to find a Volvo service
THE SAGA OF THE
naval forces of Spain and France on 21
engineer. We eventually tracked down the
WATER PUMP
October 1805 and prevented Napoleon’s
main Volvo dealer in the area who took a Unfortunately, vintage car man who ‘can cunning plan to invade Britain. The
look and confirmed our suspicions that our fix it’, couldn’t. To be fair, to be able to fix Temeraire in Turner’s painting was one of
fresh water coolant pump was dead. He something, one needs to have something the ships in the British fleet at Trafalgar.
promised to order the part. Unfortunately, left to fix. In our case there was nothing We must have been daft to think that
it turned out that Volvo stopped making left of the pump, so we had a phone call anything to do with our engine would
this bit of our engine (for that read any bit from the engineer to say that the heat- be simple. It turned out that the heat
of our engine) about five years ago, which exchanger was fine and had been cleaned exchanger had been cleaned, but not
means that those obscure spares sitting and pressure tested, but that the pump was pressure tested. Did it leak? Of course it
on dusty storeroom shelves have now not salvageable. He offered to sell us a leaked – in this case it leaked €15 worth
all been snapped up and the part that we brand new engine, but being rather short of coolant from the freshwater system into
wanted was not available through Volvo of cash, we decided to carry on searching, the salt water system just for starters.
dealers in Spain, Italy, the UK and the so David carried on trawling the internet, As soon as the repaired heat exchanger
Netherlands for blood nor money. We had Mike (Tengy) carried on trawling dealers was fitted, we finally escaped from
September 09 Sailing Today 93
ST149
FamilyRTG.indd 105 15/7/09 16:44:00
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115 |
Page 116 |
Page 117 |
Page 118 |
Page 119 |
Page 120 |
Page 121 |
Page 122 |
Page 123 |
Page 124 |
Page 125 |
Page 126 |
Page 127 |
Page 128 |
Page 129 |
Page 130 |
Page 131 |
Page 132 |
Page 133 |
Page 134 |
Page 135 |
Page 136 |
Page 137 |
Page 138 |
Page 139 |
Page 140 |
Page 141 |
Page 142 |
Page 143 |
Page 144 |
Page 145 |
Page 146 |
Page 147 |
Page 148 |
Page 149 |
Page 150 |
Page 151 |
Page 152 |
Page 153 |
Page 154 |
Page 155 |
Page 156