Sister Rosy on the rocks
A birthday party afloat goes wrong
Most leisure sailors find their Spring being taken up by long hours in boat yards sanding, polishing and making fair a lady’s bottom. The lady in this case is Rival 41AC Rival Star, a former charter vessel I’ve owned since the dawn of the millennium, and so I stood on a cold day in March looking her over. My challenge was to get her seaworthy to a tight deadline without spending a load of money I didn’t have, at the same time drumming up support and making arrangements for a planned 80-stop circumnavigation of the UK.
The voyage is called Navigators of Faith, a series of talks all around the coast by myself and the Reverend Dr Howard Worsley, looking at modern society through the lens of the past, the Celtic Saints who set sail in their thousands and whose passion for the message they carried formed the nation we subsequently became.
Theirs was a seafaring culture that spanned many thousands of years stretching as far as the Russian steppes, into Turkey, the top of Africa and possibly beyond. Arguably one of the greatest cultures in history, its oral traditions were vanquished by the conquering might of Rome, proving that the victor writes history.
Our trip has strong links with the Christian faith and so a few days later, with the vessel planned to be lifted back in that week, Howard and I had offered to host Sister Rosy’s 70th birthday. This had been sold to me as being a good thing to do, despite concerns regarding the timing, so I had agreed to support. The fact that Sister Rosy’s party was blossoming into being three nuns, two vicars and five graduates (five people turning their lives around) added to the pressure, especially as the local press were showing interest.
So the week became one of very long hours, protracted phone calls regarding
parts and negotiations with engineers looking to get things refitted. Friends came and helped with the antifouling, gaining much needed time and slowly everything was coming together other than a working engine.
Our diesel injector pump was off for refurbishment and the local contact kept promising it would be fitted, and finally it was. Wednesday’s lift in came as planned and finally she settled on her berth but the engine wouldn’t start. Repeated phone calls and promises of the engineer being on their way led to northing, so eventually I took my spanners out and started bleeding the system myself. But no matter how much diesel collected in the drip tray, she wouldn’t fire.
The next day Jim, a cheerful and experienced diesel engineer, turned up and with some easy start we had her running perfectly but she wouldn’t restart. Sister Rosy’s birthday celebration was coming close to being cancelled. I felt awful.
Gaffe on the Taff
Finally I rang a friend to ask if he’d bring his converted lifeboat to Cardiff Bay Yacht Club the next day and take the nuns out for their jolly. He offered to do so without hesitation. With an alternative option in hand I went to the club office first thing on Friday and begged. Would they let a club room be used for Sister Rosy’s birthday? Nick Sawyer, the clubs chief instructor, just grinned and said of course. Sam Harding, the club office manager asked how they could help and suddenly the sun shone on Cardiff Bay despite it blowing 30 knots outside and lashing with rain.
The nuns arrived, the vicars arrived, the lifeboat arrived and coffee was served. A quick dash to get extra lifejackets and we soon had them on board. The wind dropped off, the rain ceased and I looked about to check there was nobody walking on water but we were the only folk afloat other than the ferries crossing the bay.
What followed was a lovely troll around Cardiff, over near the opera house and Welsh parliament building and then gently back towards the club. Lots of smiles, many happy faces and a beaming Sister Rosy. It was agreed that given the temperature we’d get ashore and then head in for warm drinks followed by a small and medicinal glass of Bollinger. Subconsciously I realised that wasn’t happening as we headed under a bridge and into the River Taff towards the principality stadium. Assuming our host must know the rapidly shoaling waters well and with a boat full of now sheltered and beaming nuns it seemed churlish to limit their adventure. Churlish that is until we suddenly came to a grinding halt under a bridge carrying both road and foot traffic!
Fast aground in non tidal waters with various members of the Welsh public offering advice of a nefarious nature to our passengers didn’t seem to offer the best resolution to the closing part of Sister Rosy’s celebration! Our skipper confessed to being at a loss as to what to do next and passing ferries politely declined our requests for a tow off.
What followed I can only compare to the TV series It’s a Knockout. I took the wheel before I realised that there was now a plethora of social media-orientated passers-by filming for all they were worth. My heart sank as I realised that no matter what I said later or what evidence I had, it would be me at the wheel of the grounded lifeboat and therefore fully responsible for her being there.
Suppressing my ego, I proceeded to try and encourage our guests to move to different parts of the vessel so we could alter our depth and potentially power off. This slowly worked but my abiding memory of the day will be the moment that I tried to get my crew to rock her bow to stern. Explaining I needed them all to move rapidly towards the bow and then come rapidly towards the stern seemed like a good idea. However upon the command to start I was met with nuns going in different directions to priests who were falling over the graduates who for some reason seemed determined to still run from side to side. Once the laughter died down we did manage to float off and finally regain the club’s marina berth.
Thankfully everybody had a great time and so with some relief I necked the proffered Bollinger and went off to worry about getting our engine started!
‘I looked to check there was nobody walking on water’