Preparing to depart for Mexico (still)

I am writing this on Friday, September 20th, which was to be our departure date for heading down the Pacific Coast to California and then on to Mexico with the 2019 CUBAR Rally. Well, things have not gone quite according to plan, and it is kind of a long story, so go grab a beverage, sit back and relax (or go read something more interesting).

I am sure that many wise and experienced boat owners have said something along the lines of “Never have major boat work done just before a big trip”… I think we now know why. As I mentioned in an earlier post, we put Miss Miranda in the yard right after returning from Alaska with what somehow became a lengthy project list. The good news is that the vast majority of the work was executed flawlessly and we are very happy with the improvements. The bad news is that a couple of items were not quite right, and they are critical. I know those same wise boat owners also said “Make sure you do a sea trial with the yard before leaving to ensure that EVERYTHING was completed to your satisfaction”. Good advice. Why didn’t I think of that?

The biggest issue that we discovered was a problem with the newly installed fuel flow monitoring system. This is intended to display the engine’s fuel usage and economy while underway. On diesel engines, fuel passes through the engine and about 20% is actually burned. The system uses sensors that measure fuel flow to the engine and back from the engine and from that computes fuel usage. While on our way back to Anacortes, we noticed that the fuel burn readings were very erratic while we were running at a constant RPM, and that the engine RPM was varying slightly… but enough to be a concern, as it had never happened before. To make a long story short, the sensors installed were undersized for the engine.

We found another issue as we were fueling up for the trip. We let the fuel level on the boat get really low on the way back from Alaska so that we could have the tanks inspected. They were in great shape, and the fuel was polished and returned to the boat. We measured the remaining fuel to calculate how much we needed to take on using our “tank tender” system. All went well until we came to the starboard aft tank, which measured as empty. We started filling the tanks and almost immediately got fuel flowing back from the vents. That is obviously not what is supposed to happen. I crawled into the lazarette and discovered that the sender from that tank had been broken off. The empty reading was false, and the tank was actually full (or very close).

The yard’s response to these issues was great – they arranged to have a technician come to us in Anacortes to do the repairs. Fortunately, I was able to secure a pair of the proper fuel flow sensors locally, because they were on back order from the Maretron factory. So far, all good with our tech scheduled to arrive on Wednesday morning.

Then I made a very unpleasant discovery in the engince room. There was a line of red fluid across the floor which seemed to be coming from the wing engine. It turned out to be Automatic Transmission Fluid from the gearbox. Not good.

The mechanic arrived on Wednesday and took care of the fuel flow sensors and the tank tender, and then turned his attention to the fluid from the wing engine. The diagnosis was bad main seals (that go around the propeller shaft), and the bad news was that it was not possible to replace the seals or rebuild the transmission. We had to either buy a new transmission or put a drip tray under the transmission, keep a large supply of fluid on hand, and hope for the best. Lenny, our technician, had replaced these units before, and assured us that he could replace ours pretty quickly. It turned out that a shop down in Everett had one in stock, so off went Gwen for a little ride to pick it up. It was late in the day by the time she got back, so we planned for an early start the next morning.

Of course, nothing goes quite as planned… the old transmission did not want to come off, and in the struggle to remove it, Lenny cracked one of the mounting plates. Furthermore, I was told that Lenny needed to get back to his regular clients and would have to leave, finished or not, at the end of the day. Some discussion with the transmission shop led to a solution for removing the old transmission, but involved yet another trip to Everett for Gwen.

Lenny was finally able to remove the old transmission and got the new one painted while we waited for Gwen to return. Amazingly, he was able to install the new transmission, align the prop shaft, and test the wing (at the dock) and still make his 4 PM ferry back home. Lenny is an outstanding marine technician, and we greatly appreciate his mechanical wizardry.

As all of this was happening, we had a call with our weather router, who suggested that we delay our departure until (at least) Sunday to avoid a frontal system moving across the Washington offshore waters. We were not unhappy about this, as all of the unexpected repairs had put us behind schedule in loading up the boat.

We got out on the boat for another sea trial on Friday 9/20. It was all good news. The wing engine worked flawlessly, and the fuel monitoring was much more consistent, with no more RPM variation.

Now we are busy with the final preparations and waiting on the weather window. We have another call with our weather router today (9/21) to determine if we are still on for a Sunday departure.