Engine OK and Kingston for Christmas

This morning over coffee and toast I mulled over two immediate problems: my prepaid cell phone was down to $2.53 and the $60 that I had put in the day before had not been credited, and the engine would not start. A good omen was the fact that the weather in my corner of the world was cold but very clear, even though snow was reported in the California mountains, an Interstate highway, and Monterey further south. The feared torrential rains (with sand bags issued to parts of this region) had not happened.

I was resigned to dedicating half of the day to visiting Hilltop Mall to sort out the telephone issue. During week days the trip requires a bus change each way which adds to the travel time. Just before I began preparations for the trip to Hilltop I did one more check and found that the $60 had been credited, about 20 hours after the $60 had been keyed in. I figure that a server or router must have gone down on Sunday because these updates have been automated and I normally get a phone message confirming the account increase within minutes.

I then went over in my mind the engine wiring harness that I may have disturbed when replacing the oil filter and could not visualize the cause of the no-starter problem. Without sliding back the engine cover I turned on the key next to the navigation table then went topside to try starting the engine. In the cockpit I must flip down a toggle switch (Australia, possibly because everyone there is below the equator walking upside down, uses the convention where "down" is on, and "up" is off.) and then push the start button which is under a rubber cover to protect it from the weather. Nothing happened. So I pushed the button hard three times and the engine started on the the third thumb thrust. Trust the cockpit switch to hiccup after I've stressed the wiring harness below, just to confuse me. I ran the engine for 10 minutes then shut it down and checked the oil level which was Exactly at the top mark on the dip stick. I then restarted the engine and ran it for 20 minutes with the gear in reverse to stress it a bit and had a look at the fuel vacuum gauge which was pegged at the low end far, far below the yellow range which indicates a need to change the filter. (Mark had looked at the Racor primary fuel filter bowl and commented on how clean the fuel looked.) I looked down at the engine thumping along at 1000 rpm, thinking at the robust flow of cooling water, tight alternator belts, fresh crank case oil and filter, topped up transmission fluid, clean fuel filter, not-too-drippy stuffing box, and felt pretty good. The SABB diesel was running like - well - a well-oiled machine.

By then I had decided to accept brother Arnold and wife Sandra's invitation to spend Christmas and New Years with them at their Hacienda in Kingston, Washington. It wasn't a difficult decision since I greatly enjoy their company; they have a big, beautiful, comfortable, and warm home set in several acres of land; they have a great dog; and have cable TV (in that order). But it was a "game changer".

First of all, Arnold had reaffirmed his desire to accompany me in the Sea of Cortez for spear fishing and other delights of that part of Mexico. That meant that I would not depart from San Diego until after New Years so that Arnold could spend the holiday at home with Sandra So I figured that leaving Pachuca in Richmond until New Years would delay our arrival in Mexico only about two weeks (the few days to sail to San Diego plus a Fudge Factor.) Then there was the question of Pachuca. I could see that it was too risky to sail to San Diego on a schedule (never sail to a schedule!) to meet an airplane departure and also find a safe, affordable berth for Pachuca. The only practical solution was to leave Pachuca here at the marina in Richmond which I knew to be safe and watched over by Barry, Barry & Joyce, Jim, and other residents of the jetty whom I may not know formally but will know me. So after conferring with Arnold I booked Pachuca for another month at this Marina until 5 Jan 2010. I then visited "single" Barry (Barry Crandall is his name) and got his OK to use his secure wireless internet. On Barry's boat I booked a return flight with Alaska Airways for an all-up cost of $99 USD. By Australian standards that is really, Really cheap flying. I fly out of Oakland( which I didn't know existed until Mark told me by phone this morning) on Flt 341 at 12.40 PM on Tues 15 Dec and arrive at SeaTac at 2.45 PM. For the return to Richmond I fly out of SeaTac on Flt 344 at 12.50 PM on Mon, 4 Jan 2010 and arrive at Oakland at 2.56 PM.

After that I'm not sure. Arnold has indicated that he will sail will me from San Francisco, which will be of great comfort and assistance on the leg to San Diego. Assuming that he arrives in Richmond a day or two after I do it is likely that we will set sail from Richmond by maybe Jan 10. San Diego is only about 450 nm from San Francisco. If we sail "outside" and directly we should be there in about 5 days (15 Jan). But if we decide to take the coastal-hoping route the trip may take about 10 days, with arrival in San Diego of about 10 Jan.

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Sump Wars and Citiy Views

Professional mechanics are not cheap. Here in California you pay $100 per hour. But with tools such as a pump suck out the old oil from the sump while he attends to removing the old filter with a choice of wrenches for the job and and another pump for injecting the new oil a professional can do the job in less than an hour (plus travel, I guess). For my first solo oil change it was an all day job.

I started off the festivities by starting up the engine and putting a load on it by putting putting it in reverse at 1000 rpm. While this was going on I tightened up the stern gland and shot 25 squirts of grease into it, reducing the drip to about one drop per second. After running the engine for 30 minutes I turned my attention to the oil change.

The first problem was that the manual pump that I had purchased for $16 would suck out only dribbles of oil. Over and over I would position the thin tube down the dip stick hole to where by measurement I knew the bottom was, only to get a feeble dribble worthy of a ninety year old man. (Twenty years ago I would have said "a sixty year old man".) So what did this macho independent self sufficient world circumnavigator do? I asked for help!

Barry came over and try as we may we were not making much progress. Then I pointed out another tube further aft and I wondered if that may not be the place for extracting the oil. We looked at the tube and it curved down below the engine out of sight. I am terrified of doing things I know nothing about and that is where Barry came in. He said to unscrew the cap and have a look. I then mentioned a mysterious pumpy thing in my tools below the navigation seat and have a dim recollection of being presented with it by the mechanics at DeGroot Engineering in Fremantle after my request for an extraction pump. The memory was so dim that I wasn't sure if I was imagining it. The pump had no insertion rod or tube but merely a nut. I tried the nut on the tube on the engine and it fit. I started pumping, and before I knew it I extracted 6 liters of oil from the engine sump. Ever since Fremantle I have had the means of extracting oil from the engine sump and didn't quite know it.

We then looked at the oil I had purchased and realized that I needed two containers, not just the one that I had purchased. That meant a return to the shop for more oil and a solution to the problems of the funnels that I had purchased being two large for the small openings into the engine. Barry returned to his boat (I owe him a few beers.) and I decided to remove the oil filter. Oops, there was no room between the end of the filter and some sort of engine fitting to insert the band of the wrench. Also, my pre-pay telephone was down to less than $3 and only on weekends (today is Sunday) does the no. 74 bus go to the Hilltop Mall where I know there is a Verizon agent so I broke off my effort to modify the oil filter wrench to visit Hilltop for the telephone prepay and anything that I could find at Walmart.

The $1 bus ride got me to Hilltop, many miles away. At Verizon I paid $60 prepay and got a receipt. I then visited WalMart and found an oil filter wrench that fits over the filter like a thin pipe wrench for only $2.88. I also noticed cans of CRC "QD Electronic Cleaner" that Arnold had recommended and purchased that too. From there it was to Burger King for two Junior Whoppers at $1 each and that put me back at the bus stop for the next hourly no. 74 bus with 15 minutes to spare.

On entering the bus I asked for a transfer (at an extra 25C would you believe) and got off at the back of the
auto parts place where I purchased two more gallon containers of oil (giving me enough spare for another change further down the track) and a funnel with a small outlet. I used the transfer to get on the next no. 74 bus and soon after that I was back at the marina. The entire operation took about 3 hours and cost $2.25 in bus fares and $2 for lunch.

Using the new tool I was soon able to remove the old fuel filter and soon had the new filter on. Putting the new oil in turned out to be very time consuming (well over 30 minutes) but I managed to get 6 liters into the engine, bringing the level to just above the "full" mark. The manual states that 6.5 liters are required if you have changed the filter, but my plan was to run the engine for a while and see where the oil level would settle to.

Except that the engine would not start. It wouldn't even try to start. The starting circuit was on and the oil pressure alarm was screaming but when I pushed the button the solenoid would not be activated. I looked around for loose wiring but had no success. By then it was well after dark, it was raining, I was cold, so I slid the cover back over the engine, put the flooring back in the aft section over the stuffing box, put everything away, cleaned up the oily pumps and tools, then poured myself a stiff bourbon. After that I went for a shower in the rain.

Maybe I should have paid a mechanic to do the job. ... No ... Not really. I've got to learn how to do this myself and I'm sure that I'll be faster next time. Besides, I don't want to find myself in the future at the mercy of some questionable mechanic in some far away place who will put whatever he has at hand into my SABB engine.

My telephone still shows only $2.51. So where is the $60 that I put in? I know that it is Sunday, but I don't think that the Verizon computers will have been in church since 2 PM. If as I fear it is still $2.62 in the morning I'll have to find my way back to Hilltop tomorrow. (Remember that I said I got a receipt? :-)

On a brighter front is the view. I commented to Jim last night that I will always remember the view of San Francisco that I get whenever I emerge from my cabin into the cockpit. There it is: a million dollar view of the City of San Francisco perfectly framed between a small but high on the left and Ford Point on the right. I see the city during dawn, sunset, bright sun, rain, even thin fog. Sometimes she seems close and large, sometimes she seems distant and small. Sometimes she is clear and open, sometimes shrouded, mysterious and inscrutable. .. A bit like a woman - oops!, I mean person!

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The Pachuca Blog hitch

Hi All,

Stephen here !

Technical problems, no-one wants them!!

There may be a slight gap in Bob's blog postings.

Hitch A) The main Pachuca HF radio is down, so Bob can't post Blog updates from Pachuca

Hitch B) He may not be able to use onshore internet (to post on the Blog) because of bad weather. They're expecting flooding.

On the bright side (this is my very poor humour);
at least if it floods it's good to be on a boat, right?

Will keep things updated as they progress.
Stephen

Steady Preparations

This morning I took the bus to an auto parts store and managed to find everything I was looking for. I picked up two oil filters (Mobil M1-204) that were alleged to be equivalent to the Baldwin B229 I had asked for. I also purchased an oil filter wrench to fit the filters. They had two fan belts for the 160 amp alternator (Goodyear 13AV1080) which leaves me with two sets of belts for the 160 amp alternator and two spare belts for the single-belt 80 amp alternator.

"Single" Barry (to distinguish him from Barry and Joyce in the next boat) had loaned me a 12V electric pump for sucking the sump oil out of the engine but I took the opportunity to purchase a manual one for $16 that should do the job. The idea is to have my own so that I am able to change the oil whenever it is required.

Later in the morning I rode the bicycle to Whale Point hardware and got a refund on 5 courtesy flags that they had double ordered. I am left with the following courtesy flags: Mexico, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Panama, Ecuador, Chile, U.K., South Africa. The U.K. one is for the Falkland Islands. It is unlikely that I will visit all of those countries, but I must be prepared to show courtesy and respect wherever I may go. I also picked up some badly needed funnels for the engine and transmission oil work. The 2010 Nautical Almanac that I requested has not arrived yet.

After lunch I did some minor tasks to prepare the boat for sailing. I reinstated the mainsail reefing lines and extended the chest high "Dieter" perimeter line to the inner forestay so that I've got something to hold when crossing that dangerous gap between the mast and inner forestay.

I investigated a method for setting up a downhaul for the staysail that I said that I would not use again. It would be easy: snatch block on the turnbuckle at the base of the inner forestay, line from the peak of the sail around that block and fed through the section of the line organizer and rope clutch currently occupied by the spinnaker downhaul, which I will definitely not use when sailing alone. I had noticed that the staysail dropped very easily with its piston hanks on the wire. I figure that in a heavy wind I could drop the staysail from the cockpit and hold it down on the deck with the downhaul and sheets made fast. This may be worth doing because the staysail is very good in 30-35 kt winds and is superb for heaving to. I'm thinking of sailing the critical part of the Horn with the storm trysail and staysail permanently set up, rolling the headsail out for moderate winds.

The weather is definitely getting "winterish". Jim returned after only one week away and noticed the difference. Last night I dug out another blanket for my bed in the V berth at the forecastle. The city is expecting serious rain on Monday and there are preparations for flooding.

Tonight Jim and I will visit Single Barry's boat to watch "Double Jeopardy".

Tomorrow morning I'll have a go at changing the oil on the diesel if it isn't raining too hard.

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Fuzzy Departure Plan

It is already Dec 4 and time is racing on. This morning I woke up to a foggy and cold morning (It cleared up after a couple of hours.) which was a reminder of the warm weather waiting in San Diego and Mexico.

Two uncertainties remain: (1) getting the engine oil changed (2) the weather. Once the engine oil has been changed I'll probably go on "weather watch" for an exit. In the meantime I'll do some minor preparation tasks such as topping up the LPG cylinder.

Even though the coastal hopping route to San Diego has attractions, and I've gone to the expense of purchasing the cruising guide for Southern California, my inclination at present is to swing out and make San Diego in one loop, passing outside of the Channel Islands. I know that there are advantages of coastal hopping, including great sight seeing. However, because I am sailing solo I'd like to minimize the dock work. Also, Pyewacket reported many cray pots along the coast. I don't want be caught at night near the shore with little wind and unable to motor because of the crab pots. It would also be nice to avoid the ship congestion in the Santa Barbara Channel.

I expect to spend 10 days at the "Police" dock in San Diego. In order to get certain things done (e.g. spear gun) I want to avoid being there during the Christmas-New Years holiday. To complicate things, there may be a reason (that I'll explain later) why I might want to depart from San Diego after New Years.

What does this add up to? Dunno. Fuzzy Future.

Instrospection and Getting On With It

I had gone to bed a bit depressed. My comfortable world of Pachuca ready to sail had been somewhat jolted by Mark's revelations about the mechanical risks with the throttle cable and the prop shaft. (That bloody engine again!)

After some reflection I realized that my difficulty was very clearly articulated in Robert Pirsig's gem "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance". I like the superficial "romantic" view of Pachuca: strong, fast, great lines, well equipped. This is the view that vendors try to project and buyers accept at their peril. I avoid to a fault the "realistic" (not sure if that is the term that he used) view of Pachuca's inner workings and her grubby little secrets, e.g. the world of leaky decks, blocked toilets, propulsion problems, etc. But there I was again, dragged kicking and screaming by reality.

I started with the pluses. I had had the good fortune of Mark doing an 850-mile house call to re tension the cylinder head bolt tension - a very important task that must be done correctly. I was fortunate too in learning from him of maintenance issues and mechanical weaknesses in the propulsion system. (Don't shoot the messenger, praise him!)

Then I told myself that if I had wanted a large and well-equipped boat with near zero risks of failure I should have spent $400,000 on a brand new boat.

As fate would have it, I am re reading "My Old Man and the Sea", the story of father and son team David and Daniel Hays rounding the Horn in a 25-ft boat that they mostly built themselves. Their enumeration of the advantages of a small boat (e.g. simpler, more reliable, easier to handle, shallower draft) strongly resonated with me who had seen those same advantages when I was planning this circumnavigation in my 27-ft boat Angie. I have no doubt that a circumnavigation with Angie would have been mind-bogglingly cheaper than with Pachuca. I'm pretty sure that the sails and rigging would have gone the distance, and there would have been no refrigerator, engine, autopilot, etc to fail. She was so dry that the bilge had never had salt water in it and I used to sweep it with a brush and pan. But it would have been a much slower and much harder (frequent sail changes) boat. And it would have been riskier too, with no radar, chart plotter, AIS, HF radio, life raft, etc. It is all about tradeoffs.

At this point of life there are so many forks on the road of life to look back on that it is pointless to dwell too much on what ifs. Things have happened as they have happened and that's the way it is.

On balance I think that the Pachuca Way has been best for me, at 66 years of age and comfortably cashed up. The Angie Way would have been more suitable to Robert Morales, Lone Sailor, aged 45. The "lone" part is important. Pachuca has enabled me to sail in the company of good crew and to get to know great people and places that would not have been otherwise likely. The clincher is that Pachuca led me to the community of the Fremantle Sailing Club, which as become surprisingly important to my life in Western Australia.

That's the way it is.

That resolved I got moving. I spent a lot of time clearing out the port quarter berth so that I could look for the part number of the throttle cable at its cockpit end. As Mark had said, there it was in white lettering: Morse 330 4.25M. While I was at it I cleaned off the area with bleach and took an inventory of the storage area below the bunk. I then did the same thing on the starboard quarter berth, this time to find the transmission oil.

Mark confirmed by telephone that the automatic transmission oil that I had found was indeed the correct one for the transmission. I used it to top up the transmission. While I had the engine cover off I tensioned the belts on the 160-amp alternator. Seth at Shoreline in Port Townsend told me by telephone that the oil filter is a Baldwin B229 (which can be cross matched to another brand) and the engine oil is Delo 400 - 1540. I then checked my stock of fan belts and decided to purchase another pair, noting their part number. I had plenty of fuel filters (2 microns).

I then got on my bike and headed for the KKMI chandlery at the Richmand Boat Yard. That was my first visit to KKMI and it turned out to be a very productive one. They don't stock Morse cable because they and their customers prefer Volvo ones. The man showed me how easy the cable slides. 5.25 meters equals 17.2 ft and they had an 18-ft cable in stock (part number VOP3851052). He said that the end points and cable diameters are all standard. So my biggest worry, a spare throttle cable, had been resolved. I also purchased the engine oil and before I left I got the name of an independent mechanic who may visit the boat to change the engine oil (My big problem is sucking the oil out.) and filter and possibly repack the stuffing box.

I then left for Whalepoint hardware, where I picked up my southern California cruising guide, Spanish for Cruisers, and a lot of flags - more than I had expected. That night on the boat I found that I had about 6 duplicate flags and I think I know how that happened and hope to resolve it with them.

At the end of the day I felt better: I had the spare throttle cable, had retensioned the fan belts, topped up the transmission oil, and had taken the first step to have the oil changed. And besides, Barry and Joyce had invited me for dinner at their boat the following evening.

My game plan with the engine is to go as easy on it as I can until I return to Fremantle. I have confidence in the engine itself but am concerned about the propeller shaft, its bearings, and the stuffing box. In Fremantle I will have all of this looked at.

Mainsail Back Up and Head Bolts Tensioned

On Wednesday Barry told me that he had completed his work on my "stack pack" sail cover. Together we put the cover, which is attached to the boom with slides, on. Then we bent on the full batten loose-footed mainsail and tied on the lazy jacks.

Barry had done more than simply repairing chaffed areas of the cloth. He strengthened the corners of the openings for the mast steps, added cloth on each side of the zipper near the mast, and added a flap that covers the peak of the sail. Zipping up the sail cover near the mast where the sail stack goes up was always difficult. However, the problem became worse when a second slide was added at the peak of the sail back at Port Townsend. This was an excellent measure that I support, but it had the unforeseen effect of raising the height of the stack, making it extremely difficult to fully zip up the sail cover and leaving the peak of the sail exposed to the sun.

Barry, a self-taught canvas man, has solved these problems.

At about 5 PM Mark Jochems, Principal of Shoreline Marine Diesel in Port Townsend, arrived with his tools to tension the head bolts on the SABB diesel. It was good timing because my records show that I had put 45 hours of running on the engine since the heads had been fitted. Mark got to work and soon that job was done, with at least 2 of the head bolts turning for their proper tension.

Mark gave me a mild scolding for not having checked the transmission oil. ("I'm not lazy, I'm just terrified of screwing it up" I replied.) He patiently showed me what to do and we found that the oil level was at the bottom of the stick.

He noted that I had a very drippy stern gland. I told him that Zee and I had noticed a lot of play in the propeller shaft during our sea trial and Mark said that it would have been a good idea to at least re-pack the stuffing box while the boat was out of the water in Port Townsend.

He wasn't happy about a bend in the throttle cable. I told him that I hadn't been able to get full revs out of the engine lately. I gave him the OK to straighten out the cable, even though it might weaken it, and all of a sudden the throttle was easier to move and I could take the engine up to 1700 rpm instead of the 1200 before. Mark didn't think that the cable would go the distance and advised me to get a spare. He told me to look for some numbers in white lettering at the other end of the cable. He also gave me a potentially very important advice to go easy on the throttle and to not use the lever to exceed the cable travel. (So from now on, instead of stopping the engine by pulling back hard on the throttle lever I will use the proper shut off cable which I had replaced in Fremantle and rarely used.)

He also thought that an oil and filter change would be a good idea, given the recent work on the engine.

Afterward we drove to the nearby Italian restaurant and had a couple of good meals (chicken breast for him, veal for me). The house red (merlot) was surprisingly good. It was good to sit and chat in the warmth and comfort of the restaurant.

Before I got out of his car back at the marina I thanked him again for taking the trouble of making the drive to Richmond through heavy traffic and doing the head tension work after a full day of class with Volvo. I really appreciated it.

The photo is shows Mark holding the work light over the engine, which he's just put back together.