Flooded while ashore
Looking forward to a serene cruising season on the Ionian Sea, John and Wendy Culley were horrified to discover that their boat, securely laid up in a Preveza boatyard, was in fact full of water...
Despite being laid up in a boatyard, a reader’s boat is found to be full of water
We flew out from Gatwick in May to begin our fourth season of sailing the Ionian Sea and exploring its islands. On arrival at Preveza Airport, we collected our hire car before driving 2km to the Ionian Marine boatyard across the water from the port of Preveza. We had already arranged with the yard that a ladder would be in place to access our boat Wild Thyme as she is a fin-keeled Westerly Falcon 34 drawing 1.5m (5ft), so when she’s ashore in her cradle it is a good climb to reach the cockpit.
Everything looked fine: we had left her as always with her fitted cockpit tent in place to keep out the windborne Sahara sands that find their way in everywhere over the spring. As was also the norm, we had shut down and isolated all electrics and mounted solar panels, and securely bunged all outlets/openings to prevent wasps getting in and building nests, which they are prone to do.
So, up the ladder went Wendy to open up the main hatch while I unloaded our bags and cases. Then I heard an anguished cry, and Wendy called down in a very shocked manner: ‘We have a very serious problem’. Climbing up to join her, I was appalled to find that the interior of Wild Thyme was flooded almost up to bunk level. The water looked black and oily, and the floorboards were seen to be floating.
It took us a while to gather our thoughts, after which I resolved to try pumping out some of the water. Only the manual bilge pump was usable, of course, so we set to work for several hours and also rigged up two hoses siphoning water.
It took at least four hours to detect any perceptible change in level: I just wanted to get it down sufficiently to enable me to enter the boat and get a closer look, and take some photographs. Eventually we managed to gain entry, but I found that I couldn’t take any photos yet as the lens fogged up immediately. However, after opening some hatches the air cleared a little, and I was then able to take the necessary photos. We could then see that we had an absolute disaster on our hands.
My initial feeling was that Wild Thyme was a write-off, at which stage I thought I had better contact my insurance company. I also got in touch with the surveyor who had carried out our initial survey, and who lived on a Westerly in nearby Lefkas Marina. He kindly came across and confirmed my initial thoughts, but with the boat still half-full of water and floating debris it was too early to properly assess the situation.
Fortunately we have a good policy with