Good ol' Gerty

by Mike
(UK)

It was a beautiful day down at the moorings on Saturday.

The sun was shining, a force 4 gusting 5 blowing, a perfect day for a sail.

But there I was hanging upside down with my fingers up that f’ing bitch Gerty’s back end.

Fiddling about trying to fined that illusive spot.

Gerty is Mignonne’s diesel engine by the way and the spot I was after way whatever was restricting the throttle linkages.

I like to think that I don’t need the engine, that I am agle to manage Mignonne under sail alone.
However, we have a 14 meter tidal range here on the Severn Estuary, which makes for fun and interesting sailing.

Fun is you time it right.

Interesting if you get it wrong.

Which is when the engine comes in as a stand by.

Anyway there I was upside down feeling around, I couldn’t get my head down far enough to look.

Eureka, eventually my fingers got to the heart of the matter (which my ex. would probably regard as a first).

As per usual getting to the heart of the problem meant removing half a dozen other bits.

Eventually I did fix it but before putting everything back I took my cranking battery ashore to put it on charge overnight.

Back on board I put everything back where I think it came from and didn’t have any bits left over.

By that time it was late and I was hungry so, washed the worst of the grease of my hands had something to eat and a glass of plonk then into my bunk.

Sunday morning bright early sun just peeping through the dawn mist after some lethally strong coffee I went ashore for the battery.

Battery connected up pressed the starter.

Nothing!

Ah I’d knocked a wiring connection off.

Try again.
She started!

Running fine again!

No longer the f’ing bitch, but lovely Gerty.

Good old Gerty!!!