Keel Hairline Cracks

 In my blog post of 19 June I described how the prospective buyers' concerns about the hairline cracks along the hull-keel boundary at the extreme ends of the keel led to the termination of the purchase agreement and my withdrawal of the boat from the market.  The buyers were not satisfied with my contention that these cracks were normal and inconsequential because they were beyond the last keel bolts, nor with my providing the name of the well-known shipwright who had tightened the keel bolts and declared them OK during the boat's refit in 2015, nor the fact that no surveys of the boat had flagged this as a problem..

Last week I ran into Dean, who has owned the S&S 39 "Dr Jazz" for over 20 years.  He asked me how the boat sale was going and I explained the role of the hairline cracks in killing the sale.

Dean laughed in amazement because he said that his S&S 39 had always had those hairline cracks and had never been of any concern to him.  

Later I wondered why I had never thought of getting Dean's testimony to help allay the concerns of the buyers,  but then I though 'just as well' because by then I wanted to keep the boat.

Postscript on Battery Problem

I returned to the boat after a 10-day absence and was delighted to find all three battery banks at 14.2 volts.  I reported this to Bruce who opined that 14.2V was too high and might damage the batteries, and something around 13.6V would be preferable.  The only inputs to the batteries were from the wind generator and solar panels, so we suspected that one of the regulators was failing.  Because the solar panel's Victron MPPT controller is only a few years old the wind charger's controller dating from 2007 became the prime suspect.  

Bruce visited the boat two days ago to switch off the wind charger and found the batteries at a comfortable 13.7V.  Nevertheless he switched off the wind charger as planned to avoid the possibility of overcharging during the strong winds of the winter gales, and later in the year I'll try to run some experiments to determine if the controller is indeed faulty. 

The important thing is that the 5 large batteries on the boat appear to be fine.

Battery Charge Problem

 During my visit to re-install the ship's clock and barometer I discovered that the entire electrical power system of the boat was in disarray.

The boat has a serious 12v Battery setup as follows:

Mastervolt Mass 12/60-1 charger                       (located in electrical panel behind nav station)
Starter Bank: Century N120 MF, 900 CCA       ( Located under the starboard quarter berth)
House bank1: 2 x Century C12-270DA AGM   (One battery under each cabin berth)
House bank2: 1 x Century C12-270DA AGM, 1 x Fullriver DC210-12 AGM  (stbd quarter berth)
(Total of 1080 a/h rating for the house and 135 a/h for the starter) 

One of two batteries of House Bank 1

Two batteries of House Bank 1 below,  Starter Bank single battery above.  Note the firm strapping of the batteries to withstand a rollover.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 The house banks were reading 11v, the starter bank was at 7.1v, the VSR (Voltage Sensitive Relay) was off, and the solar panel and wind charger controllers were off. 

 I used the switches to combine the various battery banks somehow got the solar and wind chargers working again, but all of the battery bands went to 0 volts.

 Nothing made sense.

I remembered that the boat surveyor been careless about turning switches (such as to the power hungry refrigerator) off and had on closer examination realized that the switches in the sub panel at the front of the cabin were all "On", meaning that all of the mast lights had been on.  Worse, before leaving the boat I had for some reason combined the house and starter banks, meaning that they all went down together.

I then connected the boat to shore power and switched on the Mastervolt 60-amp charger which displayed a red "Charge Failure" light, which left me in a very difficult position. 

I left the boat with every switch off and the three battery banks isolated,  I remember looking at the Mastervolt charger wondering whether to turn it off or simply leave it on all night displaying its "charge failure" light.  I decided that there was no harm in leaving it on, which turned out to be a very fortunate decision.

The next morning I set off with with a plan to expose all of the batteries then telephone Brenda's son Stephen who would join me to connect one of his chargers directly onto the "starter" battery.  We would then use the starter battery to start the engine which would then charge the entire system with its 80-amp alternator.

Fortunately, from the car I was able to reach Greg, the marine electrician who had supported Pachuca since I had purchased her in 2005 and had totally rewired her during her refit.  He told me that using the alternator to charge a set of dead batteries would probably burn it out.  This was the reason why the Mastervolt was not charging: its logic would not allow it to charge until it sensed something out there to charge.  I visited Greg's home where loaned me a trickle charger and two larger 60am chargers.  The plan was to trickle charge each battery to 10 or 11 volts then apply a bigger charger.  I notified Stephen and I set off with the club with the plan that we would trickle chargetwo batteries at a time, a process that would take days.

The first thing that I checked after entering the boat was the Mastervolt charger and to my amazement instead of the red error light, all 5 "progress" lights were green.  I then checked the battery voltages and they were averaging 12.5v.  A thunderstorm was expected so I turned off the Mastervolt then disconnected to boat from shore power because I could not risk damage to the boat from a lightning strike.

This morning I returned to the boat, found that all batteries were still over 12v, checked the instrument, including the radar, and the lighting, and all was working OK.  I then started the engine and witnessed 35amps of current pouring into the batteries, which dropped down to 23amps after about 45 minutes. 

I then tidied up the boat, waited for a heavy shower to pass, and noted that the batteries were at 13V before I left the boat.

I had a talk with Greg about the "miracle" recovery when I visited him to return his chargers and we both agree that the wind charger and solar panels must have eventually provided just enough power to bring up one or more of the battery banks above the threshold that enabled the Mastervolt charger to kick in. 

 Greg told me that the week or two of low voltage would have introduced some sulfation on the battery plates, but I will not be able to determine the amount of degradation until I have done some load tests.  At this point I am not too concerned because there is enough battery power to tolerate some degradation.

Restoration Begins

 One of the tasks for preparing Pachuca for sale was to clean all of the storage compartments and strip them of personal materials, tools and equipment, much of which belonged in the garbage bin.

 An that I had found very very difficult to remove from the boat was the brass ship's clock and barometer set that felt to be part of the boat, yet I could not leave behind because the instruments were inscribed retirement gifts from 2005: the clock from my colleagues at work and the barometer from an elderly neighbor and friend who insisted in giving me the matching barometer.

One of the pleasures of reaffirming my ownership of Pachuca has been the re-mounting of the brass instruments after cleaning and polishing them.

Over the next few months I'll re equip the boat with my personal items, expecting to wind up with a cleaner and neater boat than before the sale effort.

Pachuca Withdrawn From Market

Pachuca has been on the market since last spring and my, what an adventure it has been.

After the early interest by dreamers who were disappointed to learn that living on a boat is not a viable solution to the problem of sky high house prices and rents in the Perth area, I kept dropping the price until I finally got some serious interest in the boat and eventually accepted an offer by a fine young couple who had done their research well, appreciated what the boat had to offer, and seem to have a good plan for eventually sailing the boat to UK.

But by then I was developing serious misgivings about parting with Pachuca. These misgivings grew with each tour of the boat that I gave to prospective buyers, where I marveled at all of improvements that I had made to the boat over the years from lessons learned during my circumnavigation. The pity was that it would be others rather than myself who would benefit from the many improvements that I had made, particularly during her 18 month refit in 2015/2016. Others would benefit from the small things such as the skylight in the head and great LED lighting particularly at the navigation station, to the big things such as a new anchor windlass where I could raise and lower the anchor from the steering station. 

And I could not help myself in that as far as the boat was concerned, for t it always had to be the best. A case in point is the replacement of my AIS transponder last year. The range of the AIS had been steadily decreasing until it could not see ships more than one nautical mile away, rendering it useless for avoiding collisions at sea. We tried moving the AIS antenna to the top of the mast with no improvement. At this point I knew that I would soon be putting the boat up for sale, and the unethical thing to do would have been to show prospective buyers the nearby ships reported by the AIS and leave it at that, but I try never to do unethical. 

I was given two options for the AIS replacement: a Navman  unit or a genuine Raymarine at twice the price. I asked the marine electrician why I should pay twice the price for a Raymarine unit and he replied simply 'better warranty, better reliability'. Common sense dictated that I install the cheaper Navman but like many boat owners who are loopy and irrational about their boat I selected the Raymarine product which incurred an extra cost of more than $1,000. But unfortunately the market does not seem to care, appreciate or even understand these arcane issues.

There was no question of my reneging on the sale agreement that I had cosigned with those two prospective buyers who had put so much of themselves into making Pachuca a reality for themselves, but in the end they made it easy for me. There arose an issue of contention in the survey report regarding the integrity of the keel because of hairline cracks at the ends of the keel beyond the last bolts, which had always been a characteristic of this boat that had taken me safely around the world and had never been an issue either in survey reports or with insurance companies, and I reluctantly agreed to go to the expense of having the boat lifted out of the water for a "repair" at my expense even though I could not get a description of exactly what was to be repaired.  My condition that the boat survey report be provided to me before the lift-out was refused at the last minute and I therefore cancelled the lift-out, refused the request to extend the already generous settlement date by another four days,  the deal was dead, and the buyers were informed that their entire deposit would be returned. 

Later I realized that the issues of the hard-standing, "repair" and refusal to provide me with a copy of the survey report  had distracted us from the the fundamental fact was that the buyers were not satisfied with the survey result, which was one of the two conditions of purchase (the other being a sea trial), and were   immediately entitled to withdraw their offer to purchase with a full refund of their deposit.  We got there in the end, but only after a couple of difficult days that got us nowhere.

I have a university degree in economics and I respect the market and for me the fundamental situation is that the boat is much more valuable to me than it is to the market. My plan is to do what my boating neighbor in the adjacent pen does: enjoy pottering around in the boat and occasionally take the boat out and either motor or sail to a nearby anchorage for lunch and perhaps a swim. For me there is sheer pleasure in simply being on my well equipped and maintained boat. I can do the outings alone if I have to, but fortunately I have an old friend and sailing companion who presents the likelihood of longer sails further afield. It would be great to once again do a cruise of Geographe Bay without the stresses that I had to endure in organizing and managing the club's annual Bunbury Cruise. 

 I hope to speak with Jon Sanders regarding any integrity issues with his S&S 39 Perie Banou II on which he has sailed about five of his eleven circumnavigations.   In the meantime, keeping in mind that Pachuca's keel stainless steel bolts were tension-ed and declared to be OK by a shipwright in 2016, I have found some relevant information regarding bolted on keels such as the following:

How long do keel bolts last?

The good news is that if they do remain dry, they have proven to last for half a century or longer. The tops of stainless steel keel bolts are almost always encapsulated with resin to protect them from bilge water.22 Feb 2024   (The bold lettering is not mine.)

 

Pachuca Re-Rigged

All of Pachuca's standing rigging was replaced in April 2024 by Edgar Vitte, the well respected rigger. I had always regarded the 10-year limit on rigging an artifical one imposed by the insurance companies, and given the fact that I now do only occasional coastal sailing I had relied on my experience with rigging to decided when it was time to replace it. However, with Pachuca up for sale the broker and I decided that it was better to re-rig the boat now rather than to offer to do it on the sale of the boat.

Water Cooling Problems

 After a day sail two weeks ago Peter commented that he had noticed that the engine temperature although not at the overheating zone was a bit higher than he would have expected.  I thought that this presented an opportunity learn how to inspect and replace the engine's raw water pump impeller.  I am ashamed to state that after over 650 engine hours of operation spanning ten years of use I had never inspected, much less replaced, the impeller.  A search through my spares revealed that I had only one used impeller on board, and I suspect that the impeller had been replaced by the diesel mechanic who recommissioned the engine after the boat's refit in 2018.

We had returned to my pen relatively early in the afternoon and had a go at inspecting and replacing the impeller, but I lacked the the tools or know how to extricate the impeller and all that we could do was to look at the impeller from the side and see that it appeared to be in good condition. Sometime during the session Peter commented that he had removed the cover to the raw water filter and found it to be relatively clean.  I replaced the impeller plate, started the engine,  and we found that beyond some feeble sputtering of water during the first few seconds of operation, fundamentally there was no cooling water emerging from the exhaust.  We decided to put the matter into the hands of a real diesel mechanic.  I sent a message to Bruce who managed the refit of Pachuca and has become a personal friend, and soon he arranged for a visit on the following Tuesday by Kevin Woodham, a diesel engine mechanic whom he rated very highly.

That night I realized that we had not primed the hose leading from the raw water filter to the impeller, and I decided to have another go.  I prepared myself by viewing some informative Youtube clips on changing impellers which gave me confidence, and armed with a pair of good needle nose pliers and 240-grit sandpaper I returned to the boat a couple of days later.  On the way I stopped off at Seapower, which after many years has moved on from being a Volvo agent and picked up their last impeller in stock for my Volvo D2-40.  I had discussed my plan with Bruce and we both agreed that regardless of the outcome it would be prudent to have Kevin visit the boat and have a look at the engine.  I also purchased a new anti-siphon valve along the way.

Replacing the anti-siphon valve and priming the inlet  hose did not solve the problem but I think that I did a pretty good job of swapping out the impeller.  I managed to tease out the impeller which was in such good shape that I have kept it as a spare, then cleaned the impeller housing with gentle use of 240-grit  sandpaper and mentholated spirits.  I gave the cover plate a similar treatment.  I then used the trick of using a cable tie to bend over the ends of the new impeller to facilitate its insertion into the pump then coated everything, including the gasket, with the supplied glycerine grease.  I then inserted the new impeller, screwed on the plate, primed the inlet hose, started the engine, and still got no water from the exhaust. At this point I realized that the impeller had never been the problem.

Pump Plate

Pump After Cleaning

New Raw Water Filter, Top Left

On Tuesday morning I met Kevin the mechanic in front of the club house and as we made the long walk to my pen at D81 I recounted the work that Peter and I had done.   At the boat Kevin found the engine in plain view with the cover well out of the way, with the engine and bilge as clean as I could make them.  

Kevin immediate got to work with no interest in the impeller.  His primary suspect was an anode fitted at the rear of the engine behind the heat exchanger that I didn't even know existed.  He told me that the anodes hang down inside of the housing and are prone to blocking flow of incoming raw water when they break up and drop.  He unscrewed the plug holding the anode and sure enough there was a big remnant of it blocking the water inlet.  He then used a screw driver to break up the remains of the anode, informing me that the fragments would be carried off and dumped overboard by the exhaust system.

 At this point I commented that anodes are termed sacrificial because they are supposed to degenerate, so wasn't it a maintenance issue?   A careful search through the engine owner's manual confirmed to me that there is no mention anywhere of even the existence of the anode, let alone its listing in the maintenance schedule.

I then started the engine and although there was a bit more water sputtering out Kevin was not happy and said that air was getting into the system.  I told him that the only sources of air that I could think of were the anti-siphon valve that I had just replaced and the raw water filter.

He then had a look at the raw water filter and what a mess he saw!  There was a crucial rubber seal missing from the bolt used to screw down the lid, and the lid had several hairline cracks.  Worst of all, after thinking that the rubber seal for the lid was missing, he dug out of the channel the remains of the seal which had become rock hard and brittle.  I told Kevin that I was ashamed of letting it get to that state and he replied that these things happen.

We agreed that I would replace the raw water filter and he would use the spare key to enter the cabin and replace the anode at a later time.  I purchased a beautiful new filter from Yacht Grot and the next morning I fitted it then fired up the engine 

Soon I has happy to see big globs of water being belched out of the exhaust every few seconds, an amount of water that I had not seen in years.  I put the engine into gear so that the boat was tugging at the pen lines and took the engine up to 1400rpm while I watched the needle on the temperature gauge slowly climb.  It finally settled at about 197F, under the 200F final mark of the gauge, and well bellow the excessive temperature range starting at about 210F.

Peter commented that he had made things worse by disturbing the raw water filter and I assured him that he had done us all a favor first by pointing out the heating problem in the first place, then by drawing attention to the deteriorated state of the raw water filter, which was under-performing and doomed  to completely fail before too long.

As for me I could not complain, since I had (finally) learned  how to manage the engine's impeller and anode.