The good, the bad and the sailing!

[rwthomas1]

Hello All,
If you have followed any of my posts you will know that I have had my share of issues this season with my "new" E38. Last Sunday my wife and I were out for a short cruise. Motoring out of the harbor something made a metallic shrieking, fairly loud for a few seconds. Then it was gone. Very strange. I looked but could not find any problems. Then again coming back in the same noise but much more brief, maybe a second. I checked again. Hmm, no issue. I removed the leaking hydraulic backstay adjuster for rebuilding and went home.

Last week I started thinking that maybe the transmission was going, etc. since I couldn't explain the noise. Fast forward to Friday evening. We return to the boat after not seeing her all week to prep for a full weekend of sailing in the perfect forecasted weather and to reinstall the newly rebuilt backstay adjuster. For some reason I felt I should investigate the noise one more time. I pulled the engine cover and there it was. Antifreeze leaking all down the front of my Universal 5432. The coolant pump had expired. Now I can't get mad anymore so I poured a drink and proceeded to remove the pump.

Saturday morning I started to work the phone and internet trying to scare up a coolant pump. Universal is a common engine so I figured it would be easy to find one. I couldn't be more wrong. Not only did no one have one, most couldn't get one. Finally my wife working on the other computer found a distributor in Marblehead, MA that had one in stock. Hansen Marine, the same outfit that helped "treilley" on a Saturday by getting a transmission for him had the part I needed. Check them out http://www.hansenmarine.com/ Kudos to them for actually having stock on hand! Marblehead is at least 2hrs from my home in southern RI and they closed at noon so the race was on! Jumped in my wifes Jetta and drove like a madman to Marblehead. The only complaint is where does Universal get off charging $350.00 for a coolant pump that is basically a farm tractor part?

Saturday afternoon about 5pm I got to installing the coolant pump and by 7pm after finishing that, loading up, etc. we were underway. We ended up sailing by moonlight to meet up with friends at an anchorage pretty late, dropping the hook at 9:45pm. Today we woke up, did the breakfast thing, met up with friends and then spend the afternoon sailing around Jamestown in 12kt breezes. As perfect as it can get. Thanks to Hansen for saving my weekend! Now I am suffering from a light sunburn and "dock rock" but it was the best weekend so far this summer.

RT

 

[CaptnNero]

Hang in there Rob

Rob, you're tenacious. Congrats on pulling that off and making it to the anchorage anyway.

You experience reminds me of Memorial Day weekend when I was still diagnosing an air intrusion problem with our fuel system on Sunday afternoon. We were supposed to be heading to an anchorage already. When the Racor filter bleed screw snapped off in my hand I at last knew the problem after a few weeks of it slowly failing. When I studied the nylon screw I instantly saw that someone had glued it before. Fortunately West Marine was in our marina so I had a new filter assembly installed within the hour. We met up with our friends well before sunset it and worked out. A margarita on anchor never tasted so good.

 

[Sean Engle]

'A+' for Keeping Your Chin Up!

Yeah, and I had my heat exchanger (original equipment) blow out on our way to the island - had to turn around and sail back to the dock - blowing the weekend and $350... This was after losing the engine to a blown exhaust nipple (original equipment - add a new mixing elbow $$ - after having just repainted my engine compartment)...but before my alternator started burning (again, original equipment), and well before my Espar died one night on the hook - in 33 degree weather...

Take heart, Rob - most new owners of old sailboats typically inherit maintenance that was long deferred by the PO. What will happen is that you will fix these things now - and then they'll be good for the rest of the time you have the boat - and then you'll sell her - and then they'll need to be replaced again by the new owner. That would happen on a 38 or a 28.

If you want to reduce some of the stress - once you're at a calm place again, start looking at your systems - and assess how old they are (original equipment? likely to fail in the next 1-5 years?) and start a list. Then take out the easier stuff that could cause more mayhem if you don't take care of it (say, like stuffing box that drip-drip-drips - causing your bilge pump to run frequently, or (from this weekend's stories) the old Racor filter that has developed an air leak, which, when combined with an old hardened fuel line, forces your fuel pump to work harder than it should have to - and it dies early - in the middle of a channel someplace) and push the other -cosmetic- stuff (like that stain on the cabin sole) to the bottom of the list.

Hang on - you'll get through this season yet!

//sse

 

[CaptnNero]

heat exchanger

Since Sean just hit on preventive maintenance I'll check in on something intereseting I saw last week. TorMar had a good post (steamy smoke and high running temperature) on how to clean the heat exchanger on an M25XP with a .22 caliber cleaning tool and some vinegar.

 

[Loren Beach]

Seeking the "Self Repairing" boat !?

On-Going Maintenance, or "Dipping into the Time Stream"

So much of our time seems to be spent (invested?) in fixing stuff that was about to break when we bought our boats. If not then, it happens within the first few years.
Sometimes we have a good "road map" in the form of an expert survey when we take on the ownership of a used boat. Sometimes that initial survey is incomplete in scope or just flat out overlooks something important.

I got to thinking about all this after reading the recent maint. threads on this site and contemplating the recent surprise vacuum leak in our '88 vintage Racor filter while on our vacation.

At first it seems like the way of Least Stress is to be rich and buy a new boat and just start fresh. However, I know of waaaaay too many sailors that did this over the years and spent large chunks of their first year on the water fixing a wildly-varying list of ills that either slipped through the QC process at the builder or came from the vendors with problems. And then there were the problems from the dealer-installed stuff. No assumed Joy in the "new boat" method, either!

What I now would call it is a sort of ongoing maint. "time stream" of needed upgrades and fixes. Some of this stuff gets put off due to relative invisibility, like rebedding deck fittings. Some, like a deceased engine or toilet, demand to be fixed pronto. From the hull-to-deck joint to the keel attachment to the invisible corrosion in the rigging swages, it ALL has a place in the time stream. Some of the stream markers might be a the 30 years point, and some every 10 years, and some every 50 hours. Considered at a dispassionate distance, it is no more or less than Entropy at work in a sea water environment... and Entropy Never Sleeps (apologies to Neal Young!). Every time I fix something in my decades-old land home, I see a version of this, also. The good news is that my land home is unlikely to "sink."

In a better world, we would all have a sort of linear maintenance chart, like that little chart in the back of your auto owners' manual that tells you when to do oil changes, and "minor" and "major" maintenance work based on miles and months.

After over a decade owning a 34 footer, with ALL the rigging, aux. engine, and interior living (second home) utilities contained therein.... I see where procrastination leads, and it ain't a pretty place.

I note that some of my friends go through major investments of time and money for their boats based on their immediate cruising or racing plans. After the two-month cruise or the big race (think "Swiftsure" or similar category one event) the spending goes back into hiatus... Then after another 5 or 10 years of dimmished usage, they put the boat up for sale and a new owner soon finds him/her self with a backlog of stuff to fix within the first couple of years. And so it goes to another generation...

"Exceptions" are said to prove rules, and so of course there are folks that systematically maintain their boats every year and their craft are always "ready to go" on a cruise or even a race. In that vein, I know personally of sailors that have kept up their boats well and have cruised every three-month summer for the last 15 years to the wilder West Side of Vancouver Island, BC. And then, there are the other 3/4 of the boats in our YC that almost never leave the moorage, and some of that group do not look capable of leaving, either.

Gotta go now... Got filters to replace and some new wire to route.
Entropy is sitting in the cockpit, drinking my microbrew and conspiring with Murphy about new ways to occupy my time.
:jollyroge

Jolly good thing I really like "messing about with boats!"

Loren in PDX

 

[u079721]

Some great points here about new vs old and the work involved. New boats sure aren't trouble free, as a few of my friends can attest. And unless you keep your boat at the dealer where you bought it, that first season can be a loss spending all your time travelling to and fighting with the dealer over minor repairs.

We were fairly lucky, in that the used 38 that we bought was just 5 years old. Everything except the hatch hinges still worked like new, and there was nothing deferred expect the teak.

Eleven years later when we sold her, in spite of extensive work on my part, everything plastic was beginning to show her age. The boat looked great on the surface, but it was getting to the point that I didn't trust the systems. I expected things like the holding tank, the water tanks, the water pipes, the muffler - you name it - to begin failing at the worse possible moment.

I do enjoy working on boats, and I don't mind preventative maintenance. But I really hate it when things unexpectedly break and foul up weekends and vacations. In the course of eleven month-long wilderness cruises we only had one break down that mattered (a broken gear shift control cable at the very end of the cruise). I am sure that had I kept the boat longer things would have begun to break for which I didn't carry spares.

But remember guys - as bad as things can get - just imagine how much worse things would be if we still all had WOODEN boats.

 

[Sean Engle]

Ouch!

...But remember guys - as bad as things can get - just imagine how much worse things would be if...

I thought you were going to say something about our bodies - which, of course, are also beyond their 'warranty period' (for most of us, anyhow...)! Eventually, I'll have to get a hip replacement, which seems like a bit more bother than ripping out a junked-up fuel line!

//sse

 

[Chris Miller]

Tractor parts...

Rob brings up a great point. Don't forget that Universals are Kubota motors. Find a good local Kubota dealer and bring the shop a box of doughnuts once in a while. Mine gets me correct good parts cheap. Your Kubota motor number is right over by the fuel injection ports.

Speaking of which... who wants to play with starters this weekend?

Nice one on getting it done and still going out to play. It really does make all this stuff worth the fun.
Chris

 

[CaptnNero]

starters, starters everywhere

Fixed my starter problem with Tom Metzger's excellent re-wiring mod this spring, but then the problem jumped into my '94 Town and Country minivan starter...

...
Speaking of which... who wants to play with starters this weekend?
...
Chris

 

[Galley_Slave]

May I interject here, from a woman's perspective. I watch Neal (Cpt Nero) sweating while struggling with gizmo this, or whatsit that. I'm sure at the time he's none too happy to be having to lift 80 lbs out of the bottom of a locker, which normally never seems big enough, but at times like that resembles the Grand Canyon. I have sat in on a project or two myself wondering will it ever be done and will the gods look favorably down on us mere mortals trying to keep up with our aging boat. But then, the project comes to a conclusion and the boat feels safer, looks better, sounds better, whatever.

The cycle repeats itself often. It's the nature of the boat beast to need TLC periodically. It's a boat thing, and dare I say, a guy thing. Once you familiarize yourself with the components that are a guaranteed fixer upper, then it seems to me it's just a matter of becoming confident in your repair skills. Okay, and a deep enough pocket to pay for the darned repairs.

Then the job is done, and maybe you've reached your anchorage by sunset and that margarita or beer never tasted so good, and the music from the cd player sounds a little more melodic except for that pesky speaker that STILL isn't fixed - one of those low priority, won't sink the boat, manana projects.........

 

[footrope]

Look! There's a light in the tunnel!

In the "tunnel" of boat ownership, there are lights, but no end. The tunnel reportedly dissipates when the boat is sold - not sure if that's true yet.

The enroute failures I hate most are those that can't be adequately jury-rigged, or outright repaired, while staying out. They challenge our ability to appreciate these contraptions. But, if we carried a spare for everything the boat would still find a way to sink our fun.

We've had a few (can't say we've had "our share") fail-stop and fail-continue events. Without helpful cruising pals, sympathetic boating strangers, parts guys of all kinds (including at NAPA Auto Parts), or our own lucky spares choices, the fail-continues would be too few.

We just returned from a two-week trip in the Gulf Islands of Canada (BC) and the San Juans that was filled with "light." Great weather, met some great new people, ran across a couple we knew, and a few Ericsons, too. Our little gray patch was the failure of the fresh water pressure pump. For reasons yet to be determined it started to run continuously after the first week. Easily enough repaired after being lucky enough to find a suitable replacement at the Friday Harbor West Marine Express(?). We had to stop there anyway to pumpout, re-water, and add provisions. We rafted there with a cruising couple in a similar predicament. They had to wait a day or two for a new Force-10 BBQ grill regulator to come in. Their's was a much more serious failure ... really.

Our workaround was for the non-showering person to manually flip the pump on to give the showering person enough pressure to rinse.

The attached picture demonstrates that marina owners not only have to deal with us sometimes cranky boaters, but when they emulate the people they serve, they also invite Entropy and Murphy aboard. The Ganges Marina office sits on a wooden barge which is sitting on the bottom of Ganges Harbor (Saltspring Island, BC). Last Tuesday these industrious salvagers were to attempt to re-float it. We sincerely hope they were as successful as we were with our water pump replacement.

 

[Loren Beach]

Another view of ongoing maint.

I found this nice maintenance write up by some blue water cruisers, posted at the Cruising World site. While the boat is a different make, it is instructive to see how much fixin' is required on a per-mile and per-year basis. They speak to the point of the (often unanticipated...) need for time, money, and developing personal repair skills.
While 98% of us stick to occasional use in protected waters and thereby somewhat extend the "life" of most of the systems on board, it is interesting to note just how much still needs fixing/replacing.
Their experience with the real cost of fixing vs. replacing complex systems like engines or AP's mirrors my thoughts after dealing with this stuff for 20 years, too.
I should also note that at first read, I thought their "big boat" experiences were too far removed from my tasks on a lightweight 34... I mean, golly they say have 12 pumps total...
Then I added up the number of pumps on my boat: engine raw and coolant, pressure drinking water, bilge -- two electrical and one manual, and one sewage pump for overboard transfer. That's 7... no small number after all.
He makes some thoughtful points.
(Of course that could be just my self-serving admiration for any argument that confirms my prejudices!)

Anyway, here it is, albeit slightly reduced in file size, reformatted into text to fit our U/L requirements.

Fair winds and a minimum of barked knuckles to you all,

Loren in PDX
Olson 34 #8

 

[SingPilot]

No matter how challenging our old boats can be, I have never been happier than when I have overcome some flaw and made it to the anchorage.

It's what keeps us young.