What goes down must come up.

We sailed all the way to Tilos from Symi on a brisk North Westerly doing 6-7 knots hard on the wind the whole way. There were a couple of other boats on the same trajectory and I am pleased to say we acquitted ourselves very well.

Symi to Tilos to Kos

Tilos is a very attractive little place with purple bougainvillea cascading over the houses and walls in the approach. There were about a dozen boats anchored in the bay, but we motored into the harbour to take a look. Surprisingly it was very quiet with only four yachts moored there. However it is not a very attractive harbour made mostly of high concrete walls and black rubber rubbing strakes and tyres that can make a terrible mess of your hull if you come into contact with them.

Tilos harbour

So we went out to anchor.

We dropped the anchor and motored back on it to test the holding. M’s body language indicated all was not good. We were clearly dragging.

So up came the anchor with a clump of weed on it. Suddenly the windlass stopped lifting. M ran below to check the trip switch, which was fine. But the windlass was still dead.

Fortunately the anchor was was only a couple of metres from being fully up, so it was possible to stow it manually.

Mini elephants of Tilos. ? Left by Hannibal?

The only option was to go back to the harbour, Normally in harbours you still need to use your anchor but I wanted to see if we could squeeze in alongside a wall somewhere.

Fortunately there was a space, but a bit tight. A bit of gentle bow thrusting and using prop walk in reverse and a bit of Reginald Molehusband, (Google it) parking was achieved.

So a bit of a problem. We have 100m of 10mm chain plus a 20kg anchor. The chain weighs 2.2kg/m so hauling up the chain and anchor from even a 10 metre depth by hand would be a challenge. Our windlass has no effective manual mode.

There probably are ways of doing it using hooks and warp and winches, but effectively we cannot berth in harbours that need an anchor or in free swinging anchorages until it is sorted. In fact a functioning anchor system is pretty essential round here as there are few other options for berthing.

Anyway we were safe, so we consoled ourselves in the usual fashion. We went for a walk around Tilos. It is a very pretty little village with a nice atmosphere. We found a restaurant in the back streets that was just up our street and had a good menu of vegetarian choices.

Tilos is very interesting. They are high up the scale of Eco warriors and are the first community in Greece to be completely self sufficient in renewable energy. Presumably solar and wind. They also have a very advanced system of waste management and recycle 90+% of all their refuse. Islanders are given credits for sorting and recycling. Not sure what you do with the credits but it is all administered using bar code technology and a lady with a clipboard. M was in raptures, they actually wanted our rubbish!

The whole place certainly seemed a lot smarter than the last time we were here several years ago.

However there was no chance of getting hold of an engineer who might help us with the windlass. So I got my multimeter and started the diagnostic procedures. I was going to need more advanced equipment.

wiring aided memoire

The way my system is set up is that the windlass takes its power from three large “domestic” batteries situated around the engine. There is a trip switch located nearby that trips if too much current is being asked for by the system. My understanding is that electric motors, if they are overloaded, can draw enormous amounts of current which can combust the cables, so the trip switch is an essential safety device.

There are then are then two enormous positive and negative cables that go the whole length of the boat, and join onto two similar sized cables underneath the forward berth that then go to the windlass.

Some say a better system is to have a dedicated battery at the front to minimise the length of the heavy duty cables and the power loss along them. However there are also advantages to having the whole domestic battery suite available.

Whatever, I seemed to be getting varying voltages at various points along the electrical pathway and could not make sense of. I wondered if there was an internal short within the motor itself. I was going to need some help.

So we needed to get to a major town with engineers about. Kos was the obvious choice some 30 nautical miles to the N and there was a fairly sailing friendly NW breeze forecast, so next morning, off we went.

We had a cracking sail up past Knidos on the Turkish side, overtook a few boats and had an all round good time. So good in fact that I forgot to think about what we were going to do when we got there. There were two choices, Kos Island Marina, a full scale and somewhat posh affair that would be a bit eye watering if we had to spend a week there. Or the town harbour. We had been there before and that seemed the better option.

I phoned them to be told they were completely full! As we approached I radioed Kos Marina, the berthing RIB replied and stated they were full as well, and to go to the town harbour!

I explained we were in crisis, we could not anchor and required a safe berth. Nothing doing. This was getting desperate. So in full sneaky mode I phoned the Marina office to bypass the RIB guy, but the lady there had been listening in to the VHF conversation and was not having any of it. They advised me to try the town harbour on the VHF.

I radioed them and got a nice lady from the Kos Port Authority who understood our predicament. She gave some instructions that there was a berth on a wall outside the entrance to the harbour. Having been there before I thought I knew where she meant, just next to the Coast Guard boat with the big guns.

We entered the port area leading to the inner harbour. My memory was correct, that on the port hand side was the Coast Guard Cutter with the big guns. There was an area just before it that we might be able to berth at, but it was surrounded by fences and barbed wire. The guy on the gunship was giving us the evil eye as we approached. Was this really what she meant us to go. I did not think it likely so we went into the harbour.

A`Marinero shouted to us that if we did not have a reservation we could go ----- ourselves. For the next half an hour we slowly circled round while both M and I had several radio conversations with the lady in the Port Authority.

She gave us a variety of instructions which made no sense, “there a are two catamarans in front of the police station”, well we could not see a police station and there were catamarans everywhere. “Can you see the Port Authority Jeep”? Well there were a few jeeps about but I did not know who owned them. 

We tried to communicate with her as to where we were and what we could see to aid the identification of where we should berth, “We are doing circles within the harbour, the castle is on our right hand side and the gun boat is ahead of us”. Throughout this she kept very calm and the closest she got to losing patience with us was to tell us to try to speak more clearly and to ‘use your eyes !!. Being Scots abroad has pros and cons!

It eventually became clear that we were in the wrong place entirely and we motored back out of the harbour and turned back the way we had come.

Eventually we spotted a very nice pontoon, with two catamarans berthed to it just outside a very splendid building, and indeed a jeep sat there flashing it’s lights for us. 

This was the Police Station, originally built in the 1920s by the Italian fascists as an Officers quarters when they were in charge of Kos.

Kos Police station at dusk. Those fascists knew the value of a police station.

We moored up to the end of the pontoon side on and breathed a sigh of relief. But only very briefly, it soon became clear that this pontoon was exposed to the huge wash of the multiple ferries that zip past Kos doing 30 knots.

Well fendered

We were soon crashing against the black rubber rubbing strakes on the pontoon and were clearly going to come to serious harm if we stayed there. So we left stage right pronto and moved further round the pontoon to the down wind side and moored up there. Unfortunately this was not any better and we were surging and biffing against the concrete pontoon. We burst one fender and there was only one outcome if we stayed as we were. Not good.

I delved into the bottom of my box of mooring tactics. We have a kedge anchor which we have never used. Kedge anchors are usually deployed from the stern of a boat and in previous eras it was very popular for boats in the Med to anchor with the bows towards the pontoon or harbour wall using a kedge anchor off the stern to hold the position.

However because of our lack of a main anchor we were moored side on to the pontoon and this was the main problem. What we needed was a mechanism of holding ourselves off the pontoon so we did not get damaged by the ferry wash.

Beam anchor.  Honest

So I got the kedge anchor into the dinghy and set it about 30m off our beam. It was attached to the midship cleat on the boat and when tensioned up, and loosening the shore lines we were securely held off the pontoon and safe from further harm. Just the job. In fact it was the ideal way to dampen the surging and felt secure.

We went round to harbour to visit the Port Police/ Harbour Master/ Coast Guard/ Port Authority office to have our transit log stamped.

Kos sunset.  Aaaaaah

Our guide and saviour was there. As we said ‘ Summertime’ everyone present broke into a smile and eye rolling was definitely witnessed. We thanked her and I think she was a bit tickled by it. I think we had made their day.

We then stopped at the booth for the harbour marineros. These guys are the key to happy berthing, they direct the whole show. I remembered the chief marinero from before, said hello and explained our windlass problem. He was immediately on his phone and arranged for a colleague/mate/subcontractor to come and give us a hand.

Dead windlass autopsy

Later that night Petro turned up. He was an interesting character who worked as an engineer on a charter boat fleet, so he knew a thing or two. He was a man of few words, but all his words had great meaning.

Within ten minutes had ripped apart the front cabin and the aft cabin to expose all the cabling. I had already partly dismantled the windlass housing to expose the wiring there. His English was quite good but he was obviously a bit baffled by the voltages at the various junctions changing from time to time. He was sitting muttering “impossible, impossible.”

His view was that the shorter cables at the windlass end must have been damaged in some way by chain building up inside the locker. I could not really see how that was feasible and thought it more likely the motor was the problem. However the motor and all it’s connections looked good and there was no smell of burning or signs of discolouration on it.

Eventually we agreed he would return the following day with a portable battery and cables to test the motor itself independently of the boat’s electrical setup.

True to his word he arrived the next morning and we tested the motor. It clearly was not right although it did turn over a bit. So off it came and it immediately became clear that there was a problem. The inside of the motor had a significant amount of oil in it. The oil seal between the gear box and the motor had failed.

Without really explaining his plan Petro bundled the injured motor up in a towel and more or less leapt off the boat, laid it gently on the floor of his car like a new born baby, and was off. Communicating his plan to others was not his strong suite.

I presumed he was taking it to his workshop to strip it down and clean it up. Indeed the following day he returned with a beautifully clean motor with new connections and brushes. He beamed as he presented it.

I left him fitting it, and then the moment of testing it arrived. Full voltage had by this time appeared at the cable ends, optimism shone forth. Petro pressed the button in full anticipation of a musical whirring ……… nothing. Nada.

He was crestfallen, but had now run his course and had had enough. It was Sunday. His family was complaining and he had to get home proto.

He demonstrated that the motor worked with the separate battery system. He charged me 350 Euros for his time (gulp) and refurbishment of the motor. and was off. It was my problem again.

It was at this point that I had an epiphany sort of thing. You know the cartoons of a little angel or devil appears on the character’s shoulder giving advice. Well suddenly my Brother in Law, Ross popped up on my shoulder with the sage words “It is always a duff earth connection, Colin, always a duff earth.”

The culprit

I dashed down to the aft cabin and traced through the spaghetti in the deep dark hole where the cables join the main switches. And there it was, a loose connection of the main earth cable. I took it all apart, cleaned it all up and re-assembled it and hey presto, we had a fully functioning windlass.

So in the end there were two faults that probably exacerbated each other. There had probably been a duff connection forever, but it was the oil in the motor that had added a greater power requirement on the electric system that exposed the fault. My theory anyway.

So we were free to leave. We rested up for another day and did a few boat jobs. I fixed the connections on the navigation light, and then attended to the dreaded problem of the flooding heads.

Pretty much since we have had the boat there has been an occasional and intermittent problem with the forward heads.

Every now and again sea water floods in and can fill the whole shower compartment before it is noticed. This is potentially dangerous and we had taken to shutting off the sea-cocks when under way to reduce the risk of sinking. I had also fitted water alarms in the bilges.

However now was the time to address the issue. The chandlers in the marina had a replacement valve system for the pump, so I took it apart.

The mechanism consists of brass valve seats fitted on a rubber gasket. The seats are held in place by backing washers. What had happened was that one of the washers had come adrift and was sitting bent over the edge of the valve preventing it from shutting properly. In fact I was surprised that it ever sealed at all. Well worth the 17 Euros for the parts.

Another little project was a failed solar panel. The wires emerging from the panel had corroded through previously and I had tried to re-solder them. But this had failed again. I took it all apart, exposed more of the flat cabling by cutting back the plastic. Soldered the joints again that had corroded through again, some advanced hot glue and cable ties and a much more robust repair.

This pair of 100w panels are now producing a steady output of 7-9 amps for most of the day and seems sufficient to run our fridge, autopilot and electrics when under way and at anchor.

Juicy amps going to battery

So we were free to leave, able to drop and lift our anchor and free of the worry of going down by the heads.

Pulling up the kedge anchor off our beam was a bit of an experiment. We ran it through the bow roller to the couch roof winch and all was well.

We headed N. The wind position was ideal to sail up the E coast of Mythonos to Leros. There were a couple of lulls in the lee of the island but otherwise we had a really nice sail all the way.

We anchored up in the bay of Xerokambos on the S of the island, which is beautifully protected from all directions apart from S. Lovely.

The windlass is whirring away better than it has ever done!

M Whilst Colin was manfully taking the pain of these projects I had time to wander round Kos. We’ve been here before so had already been to the Roman Villa [splendid] and looked at the castle. Its definitely a tourist hub and has its fair share of tacky pubs selling overpriced beer and bizarre cocktails.

It has had various serious earthquakes over the centuries and much of the centre was rebuilt in the 1920s with interesting Italian architecture.

Indeed since we were last here the town quay has been re built following the most recent damage.