Horror Story 

At the end of September we landed early in the morning at the airport in Nice and walked out of what reminded of a nice Danish summer day.

There is barely an 2 hour drive from Nice to Lavandou, where we had left Heron almost 3 months earlier.

But we took our time and drove along the coast for a couple of hours. From there we drove across the mountains on a road with many and quaint hairpin turns. They produced the images of a scene from the 'Saint' who, in the shape of Roger Moore, drives down towards Monaco unable to control the speed because a villain has sabotaged the brakes on his white Volvo P-1800.

Late in the afternoon we reached the boatyard in Lavandou.

The communication between us and the yard had evolved to be rather one-sided during our stay in Denmark. In an email we had on Google French asked for an offer of antifouling at the bottom. We had received an answer. Since then there had been total radio silence from the yard. Even an email translated by Sarah with that a guarantee that we now wrote in true French remained unanswered. Completely like our many phone calls.

Somewhere we were relieved when we learned that Heron stood almost as if we had left her.

Almost. . . .

Well, the only difference was that the bottom had been painted.

- Great right ? said the shipyard manager, while he was drying his forehead to pretend he was embarrassad. Smilingly he added - and we have also given the keel primer that you asked for.

The next day we replaced zinc anodes and checked sea valves. A couple of hours later Heron was lifted into the water by the large crane wagon operated by the boss himself.

For the next few days we were on a diet of vegetables, fruits and at least 3 liters of water every day. It had been prescribed by the city's chiropractor. For over an hour he had with a bubbling energy broken and bowed in Carl to cure what we all thought was a joint heel spur. He had finished the treatment with the prescription of the harsh cure - perhaps born of having an alternative education as a kinesiologist.

Well in the cure we started the preparation of Heron. A new check of the sea valves showed that a handle that could be turned suspiciously easily had no contact with the closure ball. This meant that the valve could not stop urgent seawater when and if necessary,

There were some swearing over why the those Seal valves had not been properly checked while Heron was on land. But swearing did not solve the problem. There was nothing else to do than pull Heron on the hard again and replace the valve.

We caught up with the shipyard manager.

"Rien de probleme, he smiled at the unexpected opportunity to capitalize on his crane.

A few hours later, Heron was again on land. A small workshop next to the yard immediately started replacing valves and throughhulls. The following afternoon, the Heron was back in the water.

On the Heron, as on many other boats, there is a bow thruster. The propeller is mounted below the waterline and is powered by a 3kw electric motor. Both are located in the bow and are operated with a control panel in the cockpit. As we backed out of the dock and into our seat, we used the bow thruster several times to keep Heron in the middle of the narrow stretch between the two bridges.

Suddenly nothing happened with the bow propeller when we pressed the button on the control panel.

The lack of response was not a problem in itself. We can easily maneuver the Heron without a bow propeller. The problem was that the electric motor could not be stopped. It just kept going and going and pressed the bow against the port at full throttle, regardless of how hard the button was pressed on the control panel.

Now it became difficult to maneuver.

The bow swung with a smash against the guard rail on a boat on our port side. We backed for full power. The runaway bow propel still pushed the bow to the port. Then we gave power forward. It went better, but it was still not us who decided where Heron was going in the narrow passage.

An electric motor of 3kw gives off heat and runs it too long it gives off so much that it can develop fire.

Now we suddenly got the benefit of the security course we had been on several years ago. As a reflex, we also remembered that there was a separate switch for the electric motor.

Pia rushed into the cabin , turned off the switch and the runaway engine stopped immediately.

Our subsequent review of the system revealed that the short-circuit was due to the fact that the control panel was defective.

It is not good to know how such a defect suddenly occurs. Whether the villain who sabotaged Helgenen's car has had a hand in the game, we must probably leave it in the dark.

PS
You can read about how wrong it can be with a runny bow propeller by clicking Here