Sue & Charles Sail Ariel-: Bad Night TWO- Jacksonville to Lake Worth Inlet

We felt pretty good getting the furler back together. As the evening progressed we were both on deck for a sail adjustment. It was about midnight. I took the helm to turn into the wind. Charles was adjusting the main. He told me to switch from auto to standby. As I did that I tried to turn the wheel toward the wind and all of a sudden we were in irons. I felt and heard a snap and found the wheel nut pop into my hands.. I put the wheel back in it's place and put the nut back. The wheel would not respond but fortunately Charles figured out that the autopilot +10, +1 worked just fine. We knew we would have trouble docking though.

So we headed to Lake Worth inlet (ICW 1018.4) which we knew had a huge anchorage area where we could anchor and go either back on the ICW or outside. We got in about 7 am and waited to call Rybovich Marina ( refit, refresh, refuel, relax) (ICW 1019.7).

They were willing to do the steering repair, help us get into a side tie etc, A dock master came out with a boat but he did not need it as we came along side with Charles using the auxiliary tiller and I worked the engine then ran out to hand out dock lines. We have a center cockpit and the emergency tiller is located under our bunk. But if you try to steer you cannot reach the engine controls as they are inside the cockpit about five feet from the emergency tiller located at the back of the boat.

The floating dock was great. When we looked around we noticed Ariel was the smallest boat around. There were mega yachts everywhere. This place charges $3.50 per foot. They have "project managers" for everything that gets done. You tell them the PM's name and go on from there. PM's come with small armies to help them do the job at hand. All these yachts are being fixed or refitted, polished and primed for their owners. I have some interesting pictures of HUGE roller furlers from sailboats that I have no idea how long they were but they had "crew" all with the same special uniform shirts. It is another world. Most boats where from other countries. In fact one mega sailboat for sale specified that the purchase was not open to a US future owner. taxes.

A dock person came to us to ask what electrical hook up we needed. I said 30 amp. He did not look happy. He said most connectors were 200 amp. I suggested our 50 amp splitter might help. So we have a picture of how they dumbed down the 200 amps to 50 so our splitter could charge the boat. We were not able to get water as Ariel was too far from a "pod". No cable. I think the connectors were so different. Wireless was one bar, the end of their docks. We have our own wireless so no problem.

Two gentlemen from the repair department came to help us with our steering problem. They assessed that Charles could handle this by himself. By this time he had the binnacle apart and was trying to fish out the cable and chain which had one broken link. They very nicely offered to lend him tools from his shop if we got our own parts and did the work as they explained that they were too busy to take on our job, if that was OK with us. We got Edson Marine to ship us the parts overnight and by 9 am the next day we were installing new chain and cable. Fed Ex shipping had to be less expensive than another day in this slip.

We learned from Edson that your cable and chain should be replaced every seven years. Well Ariel was built in 1986 and we don't think her cable was ever replaced. They had special lubricant in a tube which we got for the install. After a few hours of fishing, clamping and greasing we had done the job! Time to have a nice lunch and take off. Since we did not have water on board we did a shower in their gym area. It was an incredible gorgeous shower with two heads, one rain shower and the other regular shower head. Nice tiles..so see the pictures.