Fri Jul 23 2021
Well, because there can be only one. John Malkovich, that is. What? You didn’t see that movie? Of course the other line is from one of my all time favorites, Highlander. Sean Connery was awesome in that flick.
The freakin’ geniuses from RV Lady Amber built us this badass bandaid for our starboard bow which has definitely provided a lot of protection to that collision bulkhead. Whether or not my bush league efforts at fiberglassing reinforcements on the backside of the collision bulkhead made any difference or not, they did give us peace of mind. The flood bulkhead I added had real functionality, and like the Jordan drogue, the Viking liferaft, the EPIRB and numerous other items on board, we never hope to need it.
On this passage numerous things have demanded attention to continue doing their jobs. When we impacted the submerged hard thing I was repairing the main halyard, frayed by a failing turning block. Stitching the outer sleeve to the inner core where it separated has kept the halyard intact enough to continue doing its job and we’ve reefed in and out lots of times.
The water maker decided to react rather negatively to the chilly climate with a failure of the overpressure relief valve, but fortunately Rich and Charlie at CruiseRO thought to include a part to enable a work around. Something is still going on with the low pressure boost pump but we’re still able to make very high quality water, albeit at 0.45 gpm rather than 0.50 gpm.
The starboard engine raw water pump and belt decided to take a hike a few days ago but in about 3 hours that task was completed using a new belt and rebuilt pump. That time included unloading everything off the bunk, getting out tools and spares, giving sailor swearing lessons and taking my required union breaks.
Our super duper bestie Mike Racine sent his thoughts and an exploded view drawing of the engine starter a couple days ago, and Joe Siudzinski and Spike Webb both sent ideas about troubleshooting. After Isabel had gone to bed after dinner yesterday I manifested the intestinal fortitude to dismantle the starter to see what I could see. Well why not, it was already broken?
Turned out the starter had a bunch of black powdery stuff in it. I’m pretty sure it was the remains of wearing brushes, but there were still serviceable brushes in place, just a bit shorter than they used to be. If that powder was bits of worn brushes it makes sense that a direct path to ground might have intermittently been available to cause starter problems. Nothing to do but clean it all up with either soap and water or handy dandy electrical parts cleaner then lubricate the little gears with synthetic grease, and reassemble. It took a little bit to figure out how to put the little forky thing in properly and mate it up to the solenoid, but pretty soon there was an assembled starter and no spare parts. It’s always best if there aren’t parts left over.
It’s amazing what can be accomplished on the dining table if Isabel isn’t watching. Maybe we’ll have a work bench on the next boat. I dearly want a vice so I can rebuild raw water pumps more easily,
Anyway, Joe had suggested a way to test the solenoid before reinstallation and I built up a fused lead and did that. It clicked so loudly it scared me but all seemed to work, so about 30 minutes of boat yoga later it was reinstalled. Spike thinks the lift pump on that engine is also failing so I pumped the little lever like a madman and bled a teeny amount of air out of the engine fuel filter, then tried starting her up. Then I pumped about another zillion times and tried again.
Yahtzee! Now we’ve got an operational port engine that makes electricity, heats the hot water tank, and provides propulsion! That means we can use that 150 liters of fuel in the port tank to motor about 2.5 days. We’ve still got about a day of run time in the starboard tank and 100 liters in jerry jugs.
Port Angeles or bust!
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