Luckily Mike knows how to pull start the engine, and we were motoring away from the pontoon by 0420. Victoria was well ahead of us, and we could hardly see her in the distance, but there was enough light in the sky to see well, and none of it felt like sailing in the dark. We were well wrapped up though, with plenty of layers, sea boots, and oilskins.
We had a double reefed main on leaving, but had full sail up by 0630, and were motor sailing to try to catch Victoria. We were through the now un-buoyed Foulgers Gat before we caught sight of her with her spinnaker up....
We had a little chat then bore away and put our spinnaker up at 1000. By 1100 there was not enough wind to fill it and the motor went on again, as did the autohelm. Hand steering while motoring in a flat calm is to be avoided if there is any alternative! We overtook Victoria soon after that, but despite making a steady 5 knots the Thanet Wind Farm stayed in view to starboard for a very long time. I could see the Galloper wind farm way to the north as well. In weather like this it was almost possible to navigate by wind farm....
The tide took us down Channel so we crossed the shipping lanes close to the Foxtrot 3 LtV, where ferries cut across. We had little waltz with a ferry who seemed very aware of us and tried to keep away; good, but unexpected. The tide was still sweeping us down, and we passed close to the Hinder 1 safe water mark just before 1500. We relaxed a little once we were in the separation zone there, but Mike suddenly bolted down the companionway and turned off the engine. He'd heard a change in the exhaust note (I didn't) and realised something was blowing.
There were several large ships around, but nothing to threaten us.... yet. We were at a confluence of 3 shipping lanes in a narrow safe zone with a 2 knot tide sweeping us out of it (in the direction we wanted to go now, but not without power!) and virtually no wind. Mike turned off the autohelm (which can't work without steerage way) and asked me to try to sail Elfreda while he fixed the engine. The main just flogged so I had to sheet it in tight again, but there was just enough wind to fill the genoa and let me point the bows at the safe water mark to try to keep us in the separation zone. We managed to make 0.5 knot towards the mark while the tide kept sweeping us away. We were actually moving at 1.5 knots backwards while sailing .5 knot forward.
Meanwhile Mike threw water on the engine, which turned to steam immediately. The engine was horribly close to blowing up and setting fire to Elfreda. The overheat alarm had failed to work, so superhot steam coming out of the engine and melting the first plastic fitting it met was the first sign of something wrong.
The initial problem was the belt driving the cooling water pump. It had slipped off its fitting due to age, and Mike easily fitted his spare once the engine was cool enough to touch. The melted plastic exhaust elbow was more of a problem since the spare was in Maldon. Fortunately Mike had been talked into buying some NASA developed tape, guaranteed not to melt at under 8000C. He wrapped what was left of the plastic elbow in this, and turned over the engine. Success! There was no other damage to the engine! Mike then turned the engine off again and checked all the other exhaust connections for damage, primed the water pump, and off we went. The only obvious problem was a trickle of water from the just mended joint, but wrapping it in what was left of the roll of tape reduced this to an occasional drip.
We had lost sight of Victoria before we reached the shipping lanes, but she was in sight now, passing the Hinder buoy, so we motored back to give her an extra 10 litres of petrol.
She only carried just enough fuel for a motor crossing and if Elfreda had more problems we wanted her back up...
10 nm from Ostend Mike made me a Pimms and had a beer to celebrate the crossing and we had a substantial snack. We entered Ostend harbour with enough light to see by, and were approaching the Royal Ostend Yacht Club by 2115. The friendly harbour master called across to take any vacant finger pontoon, and once we were tied up came and told us the security code so we could head up to the Club house. The kitchen was closed (this being 2230 Belgium time), but Mike had kept us well fed during the crossing so it did not matter so long as the bar was open.
After about half an hour Mike thought he saw Victoria coming in, and went down to help her dock. He decided he'd been mistaken and came back to the bar, only to be followed in 5 minutes later by Sue and Howard, who mentioned this familiar figure on the dock who walked away just before he could take their lines....
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