Saturday Oct 1 was not a good day for Gentle Wind... We had been tied up to the wharf here in Rarotonga, but we had to move to make room for an inbound container ship. The harbormaster gave us a couple options, including tying stern-to a rock wall between two other boats. While we were placing our stern lines onto the rock wall, one of the other boats decided to move, right into the space we were going. That didn't leave us much choice, so we had to retrieve our line and proceed with option 2. Rafting up to the mini-freighter turned out not to be much of an option. We would've ended up with our lines being nearly vertical, and no way (other than dinghy) to get on and off the boat. On to option 3. Rafting up as #3 to a steel catamaran was no longer possible, either, as a fishing vessel Gypsy Trader had already come in and taken that spot. So we contacted the harbormaster who advised us that we could take the spot that had previously been reserved for Gypsy Trader, along the sea wall. Gee, that sounded like a good deal. Except when we got there, an ugly swell from the north started kicking up, pushing us right into the concrete. While we were rigging hold-off lines from one of the other boats (the mini-freighter in option #2), we heard a smoke alarm go off. A quick peek in the engine room resulted in a slammed door and a loud yell - all hands immediately grabbed fire extinguishers. We put the fire out in fairly short order, but the swell had already done its damage, slamming us into the wall where the tractor tires had caught on and ripped up the forward part of our cap rail, as well as removing most of the rubber strips mounted on the rub rails. (These strips were held on with screws which also got torn out of the rub rails, leaving ugly holes and chunks of paint missing.) It looks like the starter had never disengaged, so it continued to draw hundreds of amps; this much current just completely fried our 1-2-Both battery select switch. Some other wiring is also destroyed, including engine instrumentation - even though all keys are turned OFF we still have a "low oil pressure" alarm condition! And when we had tried to turn the engines off, the shutoff solenoid wouldn't work - I had to enter the smoke-filled engine room to activate the manual fuel shut-off on the injection pump. (Thank goodness I had them installed!) I'll try to keep you all updated, but I suspect I am going to be very busy for a while. So, for now the travels of Gentle Wind are up in the air. We need to work with the insurance company to see how much they'll cover, and then we need to figure out how to get this kind of work done in this kind of location. As far as I can tell there are no on-island repair facilities, and the nearest qualified boatyard is 600 miles away, back in Raiatea. _________________________________________ Check your Email accounts at MyEmail.com Login from home, work, school. Anywhere!