Electrical Villians

We received a callout to a 10.6m launch with mechanical trouble, right up on the northwestern end of Great Barrier Island, a little before 5pm.

As it was a beautiful day on the water, the pain from those of the Duty Crew who were still at work, stuck in traffic, or in the airport bar and couldn't attend was impressive!

Airberth Al had KR ready and waiting for us in the water, so we could step aboard and get underway - thanks Al. As we headed across the bay, Ops advised us that a nearby vessel was taking the launch under tow, but asked us to keep going.

After a very smooth crossing, we met up with the launch and their tow boat in Port Abercrombie then set about coming up with "Plan B" for the folks on the launch.

As fate would have it, the engine then started....#@$.! After running it for a few minutes, then shutting it down, it promptly it refused to start again, so we suspect some electrical issues were at play. A bit more investigation, adding the jump pack and squirting some CRC around got the engine started again, however confidence in it's reliability was not high!

Plan B was fr them to head across the Gulf to Bon Accord, following us, with the hope that either the engine would play the game for the next few days and the holiday could be salvaged, or if not, it was closer to a sparkie and its home port, in Auckland.

We had another leisurely crossing of the Gulf, albeit a little slower this time and guided the boat onto a mooring in Bon Accord, as their anchor winch was not ruled out of the "electrical villain" role and maybe could not be trusted!

Three very grateful boaties could then settle down and have dinner, while we headed home to do the same.

Thanks to Len, Glenn and Marcus, who managed only a few pangs of regret when we motored past the boil-ups and didn't stop for a fish!