Engine Sea Trial and NewHome for Pachuca

Today Bob Carroll and I took Pachuca out on a successful 4 hour engine sea trial.

We got off to a shaky start when after the engine had been idling for 5 minutes or so Bob noticed steam coming out of the exhaust and I immediately remembered that I had forgotten to open raw water cooling sea cock. I didn't want to risk cracking another head by introducing cooling water into the hot engine so we shut it down let it cool down for over an hour with the engine cover slid back and an electric fan directed to it. We then started the engine again and soon I was relieved to see generous amounts of cooling water being discharged from the normally running engine.

Bob guided me into the Mogote anchorage by turning left at the municipal pier and heading toward the fisherman's cross across the waterway on the peninsula. I got the hang of spotting the small cross and now know that there is a lot of good water to the north of the line between the pier and the cross.

We then turned south (southwest, actually) and motored about 4 miles to the head of the bay where Bob suggested that we take the long and very narrow but well marked channel to the small Marina Fonatur built by the Mexican government. It would be good experience for me in case I ever had to take shelter there from an advancing hurricane. We would have to deal with a cross wind of up to 10 knots and I asked Bob if he had enough confidence in the engine to make the passage. He said he did, so how could I fail to also support the SABB? We made it into the marina OK, with Bob commenting several times how everything seemed to have silted up in the last year. I told him that I had zero offset for my transducer which was at about the water line, and that I would check it later. (I did check it later and found that the transducer is about 0.5 meter or 20" below the waterline, meaning that the sounder was understating the depth by that amount. I have since set the offset to -0.4 meters.)

We did a U-turn at the marina and reversed our track down the channel then turned NE along the Mogote peninsula. As we approached Estelle I gave to short blasts of the horn and soon Bob emerged and we exchanged greetings. It was Bob's torque wrench that enabled me to bolt down the SABB's heads and I wanted him to see Pachuca on the move again.

We then went out of the Mogote anchorage into the south side of the sand bar and soon discovered that another boat had anchored near my position. After we stooged around for 20 minutes searching for another suitable anchoring spot Bob pointed out that anchoring on the other side of the bar in the Mogote anchorage would place me closer to the marina than the places we had been considering. I liked the idea because the Mogote offered prospects of better holding ground and less current, not to mention the groups of dolphins that regularly transit the area. So back to the Mogote we went and Bob directed me to a splendid position in less than 6 meters of water with plenty of space all around and directly across from the La Paz marina.

We spent an inordinate amount of time deploying the anchor mainly because the mechanism that releases the gypsy on the windless to release the chain was not working (I'll have a look at it tomorrow.) and I had to pay out the chain by hand which led to other problems. Bob thought that my estimated 105 ft of chain was not adequate to cover the risk of high winds so we added the spare rode and wound up with 140 ft (about 43 meters) off the roller. He showed me the trick of letting out 10 feet of spare chain hang off the snubber claw to help prevent it from jumping off the chain, with the additional advantage of adding more weight to the rode.

Bob seemed surprised that I rarely give a newly set anchor more than a cursory pull with the engine in reverse, mainly because I didn't know exactly how to do it; so I asked him to show me. The whole idea is to build up the pull slowly to avoid breaking out the anchor before it has had time to set. So we let the engine idle in reverse for a while, giving a gentle pull to the anchor chain. After a minute or so Bob signalled for me to increase the revolutions while we looked at land references to make sure that we were not dragging anchor. In this way we kept stepping up the revolutions until I had the engine at full throttle and we were firmly holding our ground.

Soon Bob was motoring back to his boat which is only 150 meters north of me and after letting the engine cool down at idle for 5 minutes I shut it down at just after 5 PM. It had been running for 4 hours - since 1 M. The engine pushed the boat through the water quite well, though it is doubtful that we did over 5 knots because we were towing two dingies that presented an amazing amount of resistance. At one point I fully opened the throttle and saw the revolutions reach 1600 rpm, with no smoke of any sort. However, we did see a bit of steam at times, which I don't think is a necessarily bad sign since I've been accustomed to seeing steam in the exhaust ever since I purchased the boat. To Bob and me it looked like more cooling water was being discharged when the engine was idle than when it was revved up, but this may have been an illusion. I did notice that whenever I dropped the revolutions to 1000 the emission of steam ceased. The engine definitely likes to chug along at 1000-1100 rpm.

The first photos are of Bob at the helm and the dingies in tow. The ketch in the background is Estelle. Then there is Bob's boat and happy home Adios, complete with Monitor wind steering.

Finally there is a chart plotter screen shot showing Pachuca's new position.