So last time I left you we were in Key Largo, fixing the raw water loop. I was able to complete that and only made one error. The holes on the heat exchanger go DOWN not up. Anyway I was able to resolve that with out having to lift the boat out again.
Previously I had noted the channel leading to the lift was narrow, and not a lot of markers. So the inevitable occurred, I grounded. Really did it this time. Managed to try to back myself out of the mud and just got stuck deeper. Had to call TowBoatUS again to get me off. They responded in a few hours and drug me out of the muck. Then finally we were off! A wonderful day, nice north breeze, 4 foot waves, with 2 feet of chop, so they would all line up occasionally and we would get a 6 footer out of the deal. Not really a bad day, till the wind kept freshening and the waves kept building, and they are all coming from directly behind me. We were headed to the nearest inlet, into Boca Raton Lake. Got to play with the giant container ships going past the Port of Miami, about 5 miles off shore. They stayed well away and never really got close to us at all. With wind and wave, and a nice boost from the Gulf Steam we were hitting some 10 knots when we would surf down a wave front, but for the most part we chugged along at 8 knots. No sails up, I was in a hurry trying to make a schedule. Only saw one other boat out there, and he was just flying along on engine power.
The only real worrisome part was making the inlet to Boca Raton Lake. Had to turn 90 degrees to wind and weather and puddle in cross ways to everything. That was a bit disconcerting, but I had faith in the boat as well as the autopilot. As we got nearer the inlet though it got a bit hairier. Not really sure how much they dredge these entrances and there are rocks piled on either side of the inlet, scary. Breaking waves coming across the beach area, more scary! So we got bounced around quite a lot till we made it across the bar and into the inlet. I was pretty happy I didn't end up surfing sideways down the breaking waves.
The time for the much dreaded first bascule bridge. I was having quite a bit of issue controlling the boat, wind behind, tide out going and was just fighting everything. Didn't seem to have much engine control either. Got sideways in the channel and just dropped anchor to give me some time to get it together and call the bridge. My information was the bridge was on a every half hour opening schedule. When things finally quit being scary I was able to call them for the next opening, which was on demand, so I asked, they raised, I upped anchor and got my first look at Boca Raton Lake. Place was jammed with boats and people. The edges of this lake are rather deep, but the center is full of spoil, rocks, sand, concrete, whatever. The center was shallow enough people were standing is less than waist deep water, drinking and playing with their kids. The deepest area was stuffed full of boats, and I'm still having issues controlling the boat. Pulled into one area, just to close to other boats, so I ended up heading to the southwestern most edge, right off the channel and dropping 125' of chain in 4 feet of water. Winds were up the 20 knots sustained and 30 knot gusts. Couldn't find a dinghy dock as we just settled down for a semi calm night. Well we would have had I taken the correct precaution of closing the side hatches prior to setting out in the morning. So the beds ended up a bit damp. Took that all apart and slept in the salon that night. John just moved into the spare room.
Next morning we just upped anchor and headed to the next bridge, opens every 1/2 hour. Got there a bit early and worked on station keeping. I'm going to have to learn this skill if I'm headed up the ICW after all. Again really having issues controlling the boat. This is all very low speed stuff so it's all engine control and no rudder work. It finally dawns on me that I am having more than not being able to steer the new boat issues. I get past that particular bridge and try at the next, same issues. I happen to be at a wide spot in the road so to speak and drop anchor. Figure I lost a propeller or something. So I dig out my dive gear, drop in the water and peek under the hull, no both props are there. The port side is folded, the starboard side is spread out. SO I try just the port engine, forward, reverse, huh no prop wash. Did the same to starboard and yeah, loads of wash and boat moves. Ok this is bad. Called TowboatUS again and started the long process of finding a yard with a lift to get me out of the water. Had to get towed all the way back to Fort Lauderdale at a charming place called LMC. Says they are the largest yard in the USA. Well they are certainly more expensive than any place I've used as of yet.
After about a 9 hour tow we arrived in the yard, place was closed, it's Friday night. Not great. Had to up my personal liability insurance to $1,000,000.00 so they would allow me access to their amenities. Got tied to the dock, put the wet sheets out on the lubber lines and settled in for an uneventful weekend.
Monday while juggling way to many things, trying to find parts, worrying about a mechanic, I didn't put my wallet all the way into my front pocket. My wallet is a combo iPhone holder/wallet. Yes dumped it right in the water getting on the boat. The dive supervisor was nice enough to suit up and dive for it, and did actually retrieve it from it's watery grave, however my venerable iPhone 7 didn't remain waterproof and died. The diver refused payment, which was incredibly nice of him, as he stated "I did this just last month!". So I now have a nice new iPhone that lives in my pocket with Velcro over it.
They pulled me out of the water Wednesday morning, first opening in their lift schedule, meanwhile I spent Monday and Tuesday looking for a mechanic to help me diagnose the problems. Really got tired of hearing, "Nope we don't work on those." I have a Volvo Penta engine, transmission and sail drive leg. MD 2030 B engine, 102SD drive leg, and a M22? transmission. You'd think I had hand built these things with the help I was getting. I finally called the Volvo Distributor and they said they would send out a tech to look. They wanted to bill me 4 hours, which would have run me over $1,000.00. This includes travel time. However the tech was on site, told his boss he was just going to peek at it and there would be no charge. Nice guy! The diagnosis was that with water in the oil the shifter was unable to move the clutch cones though the complete cycle and so was slipping. Ok, how to fix? Pretty simple, just tear the bottom out of the drive leg, replace the seals, and put it all back together again. Really after it was done it wasn't to hard, just a problem of sourcing parts. Each of the seals is like $45 and from the drawing I saw came in a set of two. Well no they don't. I do have to have two, but they are not sold together. I got one from the distributor and ended up meeting some nameless guy in a parking lot in west Palm Beach for a clandestine parts exchange on a Sunday afternoon. Weird.
Anyway the tear down and rebuild, once I had the parts, and this skips over the billions of phone calls to various places try to track them down, was actually fairly simple. One of the mechanics that works at the yard helped with pressing a part that was jammed on the prop shaft, and generally was a pretty decent guy.
Monday rolls around and we are topped up with water, and ready to drop back in the river. I let the lift guy know I needed to test my port side engine before he dropped the straps off me and off we went. Long story short, yeah that didn't fix anything. No propeller spin, no wash, no move. Back onto the hard we go. I don't want to start the whole complaining of expenses for this sort of thing, because we signed up for this, and I knew everything about boating is not cheap. But honestly I'm burning $300.00 a day, $180.00 for the boat sitting and $120.00 for the hotel room as we aren't allowed to stay on the boat while it's out of the water, plus food, transportation, and parts.
So obviously I'm having an issue with the transmission. I took the top off of it and started poking around and trying to turn things and the main shaft that takes the power from the engine and links it to the drive leg just kind of comes out in my hand. Well this is not good. Look at the bottom of it and it's twisted off. Snapped, with a nice spiral crack running up through the hardened metal for one of the many bearings in there.
Well this is bad. First I need to find the part, then I need to fix the part, and this is way out of the scope of the manuals on the boat. My son in law came down Saturday to help take the thing apart, and frankly I couldn't have done it with out him. We located a guy that does rebuilds and he thought he might have one, in fact he was sure he did, just had to remember which shelf it was on. We drove over to his place Sunday after we finally managed to get the transmission out of the boat.
That's a car way back there for scale. Well he didn't have the correct one, I'll spare you the huge amount of searching and phone calls, but Volvo doesn't stock the busted shaft, it's been out of production so long the used ones are about gone and the one new replacement transmission, next version by 2, is in Sweden and costs about $12,000.00, when all is said and shipped. Includes an adapter plate! Woo. However my rebuild guy, owner of the pile, has a friend, who has an entire transmission, so the shaft is the same and he is getting it overnighted to him for delivery tomorrow. Says I'll have my rebuilt transmission Friday. I have a scheduled lift appointment at 7:30 AM Tuesday. Next opening isn't for another week.
Had to leave the boat this morning as the catamaran next to us is having epoxy coating applied, the fumes are deadly, and caused my lungs to go into immediate halt mode. Thank goodness for rescue inhalers.
I really had no idea this could be so difficult. Finding parts, getting competent mechanics, finding a yard with a lift wide enough. I mean if anything is going to destroy this dream Betty and I have had, it's going to be this.
As always comments are open should you wish to avail yourself. Thanks for reading!
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