Fixing the boat part II

 Key Largo, Sunny 68, windy

I've got that enormously annoying Beach Boys song running on continuous loop in my head. Frustrating. I mean it's a great song and all, but after a billion repetitions, nothing survives that...

We got into the yard a few days ago. After a difficult night out in the offing the yard owner called me on the phone and talked me down his hand cut channel. Just two poles used as range markers, basically line up the two poles and chug up his channel. As if. The poles are white, and the dock behind them is also white. Huge fun that. Anyway I managed to make it in, even in the crosswind without grounding. Score! We sat for quite a while as another smaller mono-hull was in the slings getting a nice pressure washing. I kind of think if boats were sentient it would be akin to having a long hot needle shower, scrub off all the gunk and get the skin nice and shiny. That took a while, then the lift slowly moved it to it's new location and the crew started blocking it. Little did I know the yard crew also took off for lunch. Come on guys! You could have told us so we knew we also could take off for the same. And a few beers. But a few hours later we hand walked the boat into the well, the straps went under, using the drawings provided in the owners manual. Important to have the slings in the right place. I've got transducers, sail drives and rudders under there, plus the hull is slightly rounded. Don't want the beastie to fall out of the slings, that would be very bad. However nothing bad happens, just a normal lift of 16,800 pounds. Junk and some sort of stinging red algae gets washed away, then we settle into our cradle for a bit of tear apart. We started the process at 11:00 or so and walked away around 5:30. It's island time here folks. Most of the time it is just to hot to move quickly. Unfortunately my instant inspection of the sail drives show the water inlet holes are clear.

So as I have noted I have some issue on the starboard (right) side with overheating, something with the raw water loop. Raw water is sea water that floods into the sail drive through 6 smallish holes, three per side. This cools the drive shaft and then because it is below the water line and there is a nifty hole in the top it is collected and sent to the impeller, which imparts a bit of pressure. This lifts it to the heat exchanger, that works like the radiator in your engine taking the heat from the coolant and then is ejected into the exhaust knuckle, cooling the hot exhaust gasses, which then mix in a canister which in turn is then ejected overboard. It really is a pretty simple set up that allows the use of heavy duty rubber hoses rather than the solid metal of a car exhaust. Usually this is a pretty easy fix, most of the time the the impeller, a small rubber wheel with fins that pressurizes and pumps the raw water, has lost some of it's fins and is not providing the right amount of water to the heat exchanger. That is easy to resolve and doesn't require a haul out. I have 5 replacements on board. However, simple this isn't. But there is no oil in the coolant, and no coolant in the oil, so I didn't blow a head gasket. I only have one of those on board. That is a major plus. So the only thing to do is take each piece of the loop out, inspect and replace until a problem is found. 

I feel bad for John as this is his stateroom and it is torn up once again. This time his bed is in the head and tools are scattered all over the place. When we bought the boat I was semi pleased with the tools the owner had left behind. However trying to actually accomplish anything with a plastic tub of rusty beat up tools is very time consuming. I had of course brought my trusty tool bag with me, however Volvo-Penta's are metric and all I have is American Standard. So after fighting with my tools, and taking three times as long to do anything I give up in frustration and call a Lyft to take me for a jaunt down to the auto parts store, then CVS for meds. 

Guy shows up and off we go. I try telling him what I need to do, however he speaks as little English as I do Spanish. He totally understands "Advanced Auto Parts", plus this key is very narrow, so we can point and chatter as it comes up. We literally walk from one side to the other here on a daily basis, takes like 15 minutes. We race into the store and load up on tools, wrenches, sockets, etc. And hope he is still there when we get back out. He is! Score! On to CVS while he is telling me stuff I don't understand, I got to get better at this communication thing. Anyway after spending way more than I wanted to on drugs to keep my lungs doing lung stuff we get back to the yard. Ok this is so much easier. I think I see ya nodding off over there, so the long and short of it is that after taking each piece apart we find nothing. This is not good. Everything I have done so far could have been done while bobbing about at anchor. I do not want to take the sail drive out of the boat and disassemble. I'm looking around for something else to take apart and look at the inlet valve from the drive and start the laborious task of taking that apart. It's just a little valve with an elbow on top, but it is of course in a difficult place to get tools into much less turn them. Take that apart and finally! There is a small piece of something hard jammed in the elbow. A good twenty minutes later I've managed to wiggle it out of the elbow and figure it stopped a good 50% of the water flow into the system. This is in keeping with the decreased water flow we noted as well as the obvious overheating. Thankfully I could not have removed this part had we not been on land. PHEW!

I am so happy. Obviously not thrilled with a unscheduled lift, but hey, it's part and parcel of boat life. Now we start replacing the stuff. None of this is particularly difficult, just the usual issues with clearances and what not anyone who has ever worked on an engine will tell you about. It's just that knees are old, my previous lifestyles exertion was on par with drifting plankton and I'm doing hours of engine space squats. My butt, if it doesn't fall off, will look fabulous! However with the way I'm dragging it around it'll probably have scrape marks on it as well.

 Boats are wonderfully engineered ventilation machines, when swinging at anchor most of the time you are faced directly into the wind and all the hatches are designed to act as wind scoops. However in the yard you point where ever the lift drops you. So it's hot and stuffy down there. Cramped, just the usual stuff. We are waiting for parts and can then complete the rebuild. I have also got a bit of an electrical issue on the port side. Seems that engine is not producing power out of the alternator. This is not a make or break thing, the starboard engine also has the same alternator and regulator, plus as I've replaced the start battery on the generator we can run that for charging the house batteries. And the starboard engine also produces hot water! And a nice warm rinse off after a sweaty day sailing is always nice. As I do not want to unpickle the water maker and only carry 100 gallons of water showers are a very quick thing.

We are currently room hopping at the hotel I mentioned previously. The people here have been very nice, friendly and very helpful. Frankly trying to live on a boat that is not in the water is pretty darn uncomfortable. Can't run the generator, or the engines, and of course no air conditioning. Which frankly I'm learning to live with out. But having the staterooms torn apart while fixing this bit or that makes it a bit of a challenge. So yeah we're glamping. Having a flush toilet and unlimited hot water has it's advantages. Beats the porta-potty and garden hose in the yard.

Winds today were from the northeast, 20 - 25 knots. Which is of course the direction we want to travel in, so hanging here in the yard is pretty sweet, much better than bashing into the wind and waves endlessly tacking while making little forward progress. Catamarans are not known for being able to sail close to the wind, so tacking back and forth is the only way to make progress, but it is slow, I mean even slower than our normal cruising speed. If you want to know what sailing on one of these wind machines is like, go out to your car, start it and put in in drive, then just idle your way to where ever you want to go. It is a very slow process. Of course until you get close to stuff that is hard. Then it's slow but inevitable. Not much in the way of brakes on these things. 

That's it for todays thrilling update, thanks for reading, comments are enabled if you should so choose.

Boat ownership, fixing your boat in exotic locations

 On the hard, Boatyard, Key Largo , FL 64, sunny

Well we made it this far. Seems to be a major activity to just get the boat a couple miles. We upped anchor in Marathon a few days ago and took off for the next leg of The Big Float 2021. We were headed for Key Largo but wanted to do it in two easy bites. Usually boaters do it in one 18 - 20 hour day, but John and I have decided that we don't want to do any more overnights or late night arrivals. So we headed for channel 5 bridge, the area behind is supposed to be good holding for our anchor and easily done. So I got out in Hawk Channel and raised sail! OMG!~ Finally the sails came out of the bags and up the mast. Again my sail handling skills are not the best, but this boat makes it stupid easy. I had wind over the starboard rail about 60 degrees off the nose pretty variable at 8 to 16 knots. Not the best point of sail, but pretty good. Have to watch the jib tell tales and adjust frequently, but we were able to turn off the engines and just let the wind take us. Started to show my friend John who is accompanying me on this trip how to do the sails. Or at least what I keep doing. Work the tell tales, tell tales are little 6" strings of yarn, red and green, that are affixed on the trailing edge of the mainsail, if they are all streaming back we are using the sail properly. The jib tell tales are a little different, they are set more in the body of the sail and I have a little plastic window so I can compare the two. Sails are not parachutes you launch into the wind and just let them pull you along. The sails are built to resemble wings when they are properly filled, and work exactly like airplane wings. So because they are made of fabric rather than metal you have to make sure they stay wing shaped to get the best usage. Except when you are running straight down wind, then they are just big sheets capturing the wind. Anyway, I quickly got the hang of working the tall tales, it's a bit fussy to get the high ones and the lower ones to both fly properly on the jib, but just making small adjustments to the jib sheet, the jib sheet is the line that controls the angle to the wind of that big sail, I am able to trim the sail to it's best shape. So that's what we did. We were making 4 to 5 knots in the highest winds. This is why we have this thing. A floating 3 bedroom 2 bath condo, that the wind will blow us around the world on while relaxing in luxury. There has been very little of the luxury part as of yet. 

We get to Channel five bridge and I decide to go under the bridge to check out the supposedly great anchorage behind an island. Instant panic! Neither engine will start! This is a major worry. So leaving the boat just bobbing around in the water I marshal my resources and start troubleshooting. Batteries are charged and in fact are receiving charge, no lines are disconnected. Lots of rushing to and fro, both staterooms are torn up as the engines live under the beds. About 30 minutes later John points out that I have the throttles locked in full reverse. I do this as Volvo Penta says that allows the props to fold in and reduce drag while sailing. So dumbass lesson 300? Put engines in neutral, both fire right up. Under the bridge we go babying Ole Smokey. There are so many crab pots. We get behind an old ruined hotel I think it was, or someone's failed mega mansion, and drop the anchor, get it set in a 4 knot tidal flow. I set my little anchor app and shut off the engines. YAY! End of the first of hopefully many such days. I put out about 175' of anchor chain in 6' of water. Way more than called for, but I'm being cautious. Celebratory beers are drank and we look forward to a mostly restful nights sleep. Around 2AM my anchor alarm goes off, I hate that little beep beep beep. I get up go on deck and the wind has picked up some and we have turned in the tide. And the anchor is dragging. Ok nothing around but the innumerable crab pots, so I just let out all 300' of chain. Reset the alarm and watch. Seems to be doing better. Go back to bed, not much sleep after that little excitement. Up around 6 for a quick coffee and then push on to Key Largo! Got the engines started, T-handles down, throttles in neutral, preheat, bam! Start! Woo!

Head back towards the bridge dodging crab pots. I've got like 300 yards till I'm in the restricted area next to the bridge when disaster strikes. While turning the boat to miss the next upcoming rows I don't allow enough time for the aft end to clear the current row. Boats don't turn like cars do. In the car your front end pivots on the rear wheels. We've all been doing this for so many years we don't even think about it. Boats pivot on the center of their keels, this is an important thing to keep in mind while maneuvering. I hear banging noises from the port side and the port engine dies. I know instantly what has occurred. Go get the dive gear I got in Marathon and over the side I go. It's a mess. I've got three floats and accompanying line firmly wrapped around the propeller and shaft. Trusty knife in hand I start the laborious task of cutting all this away. I rigged a line from the starboard sugar scoop to the port side so I don't get swept away from the boat in the tide and start cutting. What seems like hours of diving later I get most of the mass cleaned off or at least two of three floats chopped away. There is a chunk of line with float firmly wedged between the back of the prop assembly and the fairing for the sail drive that I just can't get out. It's important to note here my lungs are crap. 45 years of smoking has taken it's toll and is making a hard job extremely difficult. I have barely enough wind to blow my snorkel free of water, so I keep swallowing sea water, which makes me puke. Yeah that's a fun thing. During a break to get what little wind I have back John suggests running the engine in reverse to dislodge the line. Seems like a great thing to try. So we do. Remember that line I had strung from port to starboard? Yeah me neither. Fired up the engine and in reverse we go, float pops free and floats away, but the engine dies again. WTH? Over the side I see my rescue line has now taken the place of the float that now headed to sea. Can't yank it out and it is firmly in the same spot. I'm defeated by my own line. Yet another self own. 

I get out of the water and do a quick rinse while trying to rest for the next herculean effort while mentally berating myself for doing another stupid thing. Finally a light bulb appears over my head. I have a TowBoatUS membership I bought in conjunction with my boat insurance. I call them and they say they will send a boat and if a diver is handy will include that. Score! While we wait I made some breakfast burritos and am happily munching on one when the boat appears a while later. Really nice guy, young and competent, reminds me that I am old and not so competent. Tows me over to a little protected beachy area a mile or so away. He wanted to tow me to the nearest resort and then let me handle the issue, because that's what they do, tow. However that resort doesn't take catamarans. So he gets on his to small shorty dive suit, that doesn't fit, and over the side he goes. 30 - 40 minutes later he manages to clear the port engine and goes to start on the starboard engine. That just has a mass of nylon line on it. 5 minutes later we are done, and I've got a mass of junk on my deck. Yay!

Engines started and props flailing away we are off. Manage to clear the deadly crap traps and we are back in Hawk Channel, turn into the wind and raise sail. Wind over the starboard beam about 170 degrees 7 to 8 knots and I try to go wing and wing for a sweet downwind bash to Key Largo. We have found a yard there that has the equipment large enough to straddle Steal Breeze and get her out of the water so I can safely work on the cooling system for Ole Smokey. We have lost about 4 hours so we really need to get going. I figure I'll set the sails and then run the engine to give a bit of speed boost and we might make it. Except the sails absolutely will not hold in this lite wind. Tons of banging, swinging booms, flapping sails, and I just give up. Fire the engines into the wind, drop sails and then take off. About 5:30 we pull in behind Rodriguez Key, a lump of nothing sticking out of the water by the yard. The anchorage which is usually pretty full is almost empty, high winds are predicted in a few days and currently everyone is running for better shelter. Currently the winds are sweeping from land out to sea and there really is no good place to lay protected. Put out every inch of chain again and hope for the best. Not much sleep, we drug another 150' in the night, big wind, tidal flows, just not going to stay. Anyway we made it to the yard the next morning, spent 5 hours getting the boat out of the water, blocked and set. There is a story there as well but I have to get to work. High winds forecast for the next couple days so we are tucked in a nice 50's hotel across from the yard. Thank you Betty for finding this for us. It's nice. I'm not feeling well, not taking care of myself properly. I'm exhausted after 12 hours sleep, stiff and sore and grumbling. But the yard is calling, boat work never stops. 

Later all y'all. Love to Betty and all that are following. Hoping for better news on the stupid engine.