Finally at sea and looking good, it seemed too good to be true. Unfortunately – for one weekend anyway – it was..! 

After many late nights and several early mornings by those willing to help, Endeavour finally left for the coast last Thursday morning. Boats Officer John Waterhouse met the transport in Southampton where Endeavour was craned into the water for the first time. On Saturday John, Richard Fraser and Maurice Elway took her around to Weymouth and onto our mooring for the first time.  

On Sunday morning a group of divers arrived to give their opinions, although not expecting too much in the way of diving with plans to stick close to home: within Portland Harbour or on Grove Point. After passing a jubilee flotilla on our way out of Weymouth Harbour, John showed us what Endeavour can do: 26 kn wasn’t bad for starters. Tight turns at speed. Manouvreability. And room for nearly all 8 to stand or sit somewhere in the dry as the spray kicked up. Great fun.

It was all looking good as we practised man-overboard drills and several crew-members got to grips with the controls. However, we then lost our power-steering through a broken drive belt and managed to damage the steering cable while trying to get back to port. This was something we could not fix at sea (or back in Weymouth as it turned out due to lack of stock at the chandleries).

Never in any real danger, we were still extremely thankful to the skipper of X-Dream (from the Old Harbour Dive Centre) for towing us expertly back to our moorning. Embarrassing maybe, but I think most of the divers on the charter boat were wondering just how a dive club managed to have similar quality vessel to the one they were on!

What’s Next?

The plan is now to make repairs and try again this weekend, so any understanding volunteers who might want to come down and possibly dive should make themselves known in the club to Alex Gibson or Steven Litchfield this week. Hopefully we will have a better report next week but we do need at least two divers to come along (and the wind to play along)!