We have decided that Shoreline Marine Diesel will lift the head of Pachuca's SABB engine next week as soon as some parts arrive. They will inspect the internals of the engine and decide if a rebuild is necessary. If I am lucky the new head gasket will be fitted and I'll be good to go to California. If I'm not lucky they we will have to order a big set of parts. Some of the heavier parts would have to be sourced out of Norway.
Mark has commented twice on one big win that I've had. Pachuca is fitted with a model of SABB engine that has an external and totally separate non-SABB gear box that can be totally replaced at a reasonable price. The point is that I can fund an engine rebuild that will be good for many years in the knowledge that a failing gear box will not jeapordize the investment.
The mechanics, by the way, like the SABB diesels. They say that the engines solidly built with good bearings and they like the "splash" type oil lubrication which to me seems crude but to them is much more reliable than pressure lubrication through narrow ducts.
Today we got help from Janet who lives in her beautiful wooden boat next to us and got a ride in her car to take the Mercury 3.3 hp engine to a dealer for a full service. The engine had been acting sluggish and occasionally cutting out. On the way she took us to SOS Printing where I picked up 200 new Pachuca "business" cards. I got tired of writing Pachuca's blog address for interested people and it seemed more sensible to just hand out cards. The card looks good, with Pachuca's boat stamp giving her name, ship number and home port on the left side of the card and my name, call sign, email address, and blog URL on the right side.
I managed to contact Doug Roth about the failing refrigerator. He asked if we had tried to restart it. When I replied "no" he said to start it up again and it might work. When coils lose their gas they can take in moisture that can create ice inside the tubing which can jam up the works. It is possible that a restart will be successful. If that does not work he'll pay another visit to see what the problem is. If there is a leak in the repair work that he did then it will be time to replace those coils. Otherwise he'll try to fix whatever has gone wrong. That man never gives up, bless him.
Brenda helped me buy a badly-needed pair of sports shoes today. For some reason my $15 shoes did not last very long. With prodding from her and Shannon I crashed through the $20 barrier and paid about $45 for this pair. I think nothing of paying $340 for a new halyard for Pachuca but balk an spending more than $20 for my feet. Go figure.
Yesterday we got the mainsail to Pt Townsend Sails. Shanon at Pt Townsend Rigging loaned us the company pickup truck and Janet helped Brenda and mysellf to carry the sail to the truck. I left the battens in the sail and roped it up to a tight bundle which greatly helped with the transport. At the sail loft I had another discussion with Kelsey about what will be done to the mainsail and I expect to pick it back up on the 18th. I picked up Pachuca's first-line laminated genoa which had been worked on while we were cruising the San Juan and Gulf islands. Sometime in the next few days I'll remove the spare light jib from the headstay, pack it away, take the opportunity to tighten up the headstay, then mount the genoa on the headstay. The accompanying photo shows the mainsail ready to be taken into the loft.
Tomorrow the fabled Port Townsend Wooden Boat Show begins. It will run for three days, from Friday thu Sunday. I've been told that the place will be jammed with cars, people, and boats. Brenda and I plan to spend one full day at the show.
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