Out for a short sail this afternoon in N F4-5. We have no GPS plotter in the cockpit to show our position, only below at the Nav table, but I’d put in a route that kept us clear of shallows, rocks, etc. When we were well away from land and clear of other boats, John went below to pump out the tanks.
The shallow alarm does sometimes go off randomly, especially when reversing. So I wasn’t too concerned when it started beeping and the Depth read 0.7m. Our draft is 1.8m so, if true, that would’ve put us firmly aground. Still, it was a little disconcerting to then see that the speed showed 0 kts.
We were still sailing well – this was clearly electronic gremlins, probably in the form of weed round the speed impeller. At least I’ve now discovered how to silence the shallow alarm! The worry is, that I’ll ignore it when it’s giving me a real depth warning. I think I’ll call it Mathilda after Hilaire Belloc’s creation who told such dreadful lies and burned to death because
When Mathilda shouted ‘Fire!’
They only answered ‘Little Liar’
So, another job for the list – take out the impeller to see if that’s the problem.