09/02/08

An eventful day on the Solent aboard ‘Bright Flyer’.

I’m embarrassed to admit that in three years of sailing Bright Flyer regularly around the south coast, I have never made any attempt to find out how, if I run out of fuel, to bleed the air from the fuel system! You’d think that someone who’s about to head off into the world’s oceans would arm himself with this basic knowledge. But no, Bright Flyer uses such a ridiculously small amount of fuel that complacency and a lack of a fuel gauge resulted in the inevitable. I had a spare can of diesel on board but, as most of you will know, it’s not as simple as just filling her up and re-starting the engine. So, with more than a little help from a ‘Sea Start’ Engineer on the other end of the mobile phone, I finally managed to get her going again and safely back onto her birth at Deacons. A poignant lesson learnt!

In fact, my dad and I had been sailing that day with a couple from Wiltshire who were potentially interested in buying her. We’d already dropped them off at Southampton Ocean Village when we had our little adventure but they appeared to enjoy the sail and I’m hopeful that they’ll make an offer before I put her into brokerage on April 1st. I’ll be sad to see her go.