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.