No parking please! The adventures of Gwawr...
As in previous years, Milford Marina berth holders Steve and Steph McGrath set off at the end of April in their Sigma 38 Gwawr, intending to sail down the Bay of Biscay. Their first port of call was Sainte-Evette, southern Brittany, just south of the much feared Raz de Sein...
On arrival we didn’t see a mooring rope floating just below the surface. There was a loud bang and the engine stopped. The rope had wrapped itself around the propeller and propeller shaft. The engine was pulled off its mountings and moved 105mm to the stern, stopped by the gearbox hitting the shaft water seal.
The Societe Nationale De Sauvetage En Mer (SNSM) towed Gwawr into the adjacent harbour of Audierne, and their diver removed the entangled rope.
Within three weeks the engine was back in place but we needed to replace the twisted prop shaft. The harbour said there was a trailer suitable to lift Gwawr.
We waited for six weeks and made many requests to moor the boat on a drying wall – all declined. The trailer arrived but Gwawr was too long and heavy to be lifted onto it. The harbour asked if we’d thought about mooring on a drying wall! So that’s what we did.
However, now the engineer had disappeared. As the prop shaft would work at low revs for short periods of time, and as the weather forecast was set fair, we decided to sail home.
But 10 minutes before departure I was sorting out the stern locker, when Steph shouted: “Car! Car!”
A driverless car was rolling backwards, heading for the harbour wall where Gwawr was moored. The elderly woman driver was behind the vehicle trying to stop it. I grabbed the woman out of the way; the car went over, landing on Gwawr’s stern.
The accident significantly damaged the liferaft and the stainless steel pushpit. The next day after going for a drink and exchanging details we set sail for home... without further incident. Steve McGrath, Milford Haven