Sparendipity
Webster’s dictionary defines serendipity as “the faculty or phenomenon of finding valuable or agreeable things not sought for”. Good luck, in other words. In the realm of boating, and especially cruising in remote locations, making your own luck is an active process. Maintenance of critical gear is a continuous project. There are no hardware stores or chandleries at sea. We have found that the longer a yacht has been cruising the deeper their spares locker is. Having the right spares brings good luck, because weird things happen and stuff breaks.
Last Friday was bright and sunny, with light winds and calm seas. It was a perfect day to take the dinghy north a couple of miles to Toucari Bay for a snorkeling expedition and a beer at the Reef Bar. Toucari is a sleepy, idyllic village with a crescent black sand beach and cliffs coming down to the water at the edges. Andreas and Cordulla from SV Aphrodite and Tim and Diane on SV Skylark were also game for the expedition. The outbound journey was easy and seeing the steep coastline from the water was spectacular. When we arrived in Dominica a month ago the clouds and rain obscured the island.
We found a mooring near a promising cliff and swam for awhile. There were few fish and not much coral. The highlight was a lobster hiding in one of the cone shaped corals. Dominica has not based their tourist economy on diving for a good reason. Their rain forests are where the wildlife is. Nevertheless, it was an enjoyable time and we decided to head for Toucari to have a couple of beers at the bright yellow Reef Bar.
A strong swell necessitated a stern anchor to keep the dinghy from getting swept under the dock. Tim had the bad luck of getting his stern rode wrapped around his propeller. As we walked up the dock to the beach he said he might have “spun his prop”. I had never heard this term before so he explained. The propeller of an outboard fits onto a splined horizontal shaft. Power from the engine is transferred vertically down another shaft which meets the prop shaft via a bevel gear. This gear is rather delicate so the hub of the propellor incorporates a sacrificial rubber connection between the prop and the spline. If the prop gets stalled hard for some reason ( a line wrapped, for instance) the rubber will slip inside the hub, sort of like a clutch. Unlike a clutch, however, this is usually only a one-time safety. After a prop is spun it no longer has enough friction between the rubber and metal to transfer the full torque of the engine to the prop and the shaft/rubber part then spins inside the prop hub. It is possible with the correct tool to press a new rubber spline assembly into the prop hub, but it is not a field operation. Tim said he had several repaired props onboard Skylark and thought that one of them might work as a replacement. Unfazed, we went and had our ice cold Kabulis.
Several hundred yards after we left the dock to return home Tim slowed to a stop and motioned us to come alongside. “I did spin the prop” he shouted and asked us to stay with him and Diane as they motored slowly back to Prince Rupert Bay at one quarter throttle. As we started to follow Tim I told Helen that having a spare outboard prop sounded like a good idea. She was nodding her head in agreement when BAM, our engine died-we had hit something in the water! I tilted the 8 hp Tohatsu out of the water to find a damn coconut husk wedged between the prop and the frame. I easily pulled it loose and restarted the engine. When I gave it throttle to accelerate the engine roared but the boat stayed stationary. We had spun our prop! I called out to Tim to stop but hey were out of range. Helen and I sat there agog, absorbing the situation. This was just too strange, from never having heard of this issue to experiencing it in an awkward spot in under an hour. Meanwhile, Tim and Diane were happily motoring away…and the wind around the point had picked up.
Fortunately we still had some power and were able to creep homewards. We sat as low as possible to minimize windage and continued to shake our heads in disbelief at this odd coincidence. We discussed various ways of fixing the prop, from epoxy to machine screws. Soon we were in sight of Skylark and Aphrodite waiting for us at the edge of the anchorage. Cordulla had looked back at some point and realized we were missing. We related the crazy story to them and Andreas said simply, “ I have a spare onboard that should fit.” He roared off to Aphrodite and by the time we had tied up to Helacious and tilted the engine he was back, spare prop in hand. He was eager to do the swap so I handed him the tools : 17mm socket wrench and needle nose pliers for the cotter pin. In five minutes we were fixed good as new. Tim and Diane also had a spare for theirs, so we are all mobile once again.
Thank you, Andreas and Cordulla. Your twenty years of cruising experience and generosity created our serendipity.
