Natural Disaster Week!

Burley Creek, Annapolis

Well what a week, we are tied to the dock at Larry & Bev’s and had planned to potter around doing a few boat chores and then heading out for a few days on the boat to do some motoring to make sure all is working well with the new engine before we head south.  However Mother Nature has other plans and we have a far more eventful week than we hoped.

On Monday I am working away inside the boat while Linda pops up to the motor bikes to take some photos to stick on EBay.  I feel the boat shake as the piles bang against the hull but given it is flat calm can’t think why, there is then a lot of banging and the rig starts to shake. 

I run up on deck and see Larry coming out of his office saying that was an earthquake, we both head up to the house and find Linda and Bev both literally and metaphorically shaken.  Linda had been wheeling her motor bike into position when the ground began to tremble and the bike shake, she miraculously managed not to drop it, but was clearly taken aback by the whole thing.  We watch the news to find it is a 6.5 on the Richter scale quake – quite a shock.

The rest of the week passes watching the weather news as Hurricane Irene homes in on us, by Friday it is inevitable that it will pass right over us, so we move Matsu to one of the neighbours docks that is vacant (thank you Marvin and Judith) and start to tie ourselves up with a maze of long lines kept specifically for this purpose but obviously well stored away as you don’t need them very often!

The storm itself arrives on Saturday morning, initially with lots of rain and some wind, and then late afternoon and overnight Saturday (why does bad weather always come at night?) we get the bulk of the winds and rain.

Burley Creek is incredibly well protected, high banks on either side, no room for a fetch to develop and lots of mature trees to cut down the wind.  During the night we only saw 40 knots on the wind instruments, and that for a short time, the rest of the time it was 25-30 knots all very manageable.  The only scary bit was knowing that the wind at tree top height was 60-70 knots and wondering if a tree may fall on the boat.

During my frequent excursions outside to check lines, that was the scary bit, the sound of breaking branches making me flinch from time to time, but luckily all I got hit with were a few leaves!  By dawn on Sunday the worst was past, winds backing right off and even the endless rain starting to slow down.

After breakfast we head up to see the damage on land, there are lots of branches and trees down in the neighbourhood and obviously no power.  But miraculously not just Larry & Bev’s house but all the houses seem to have escaped damage.

We spend the day chopping wood and clearing up and by afternoon the sun is out, the branches are gone and it almost seems like a bad dream.

Ironically given how worried all the homeowners were about us on our boat in the storm, we are now fine and it is them that suffer.  We obviously still have electricity and water while they have neither for a week afterwards!

A big thank you from Linda and I to the local community for looking after us so well during the hurricane and indeed the whole summer.

Summer Travels

New England, Maine, Nova Scotia, Quebec

We still have the motor bikes we bought last year so as this will be the last chance we get to use them we decided on a grand tour of the NE corner of the Americas.

From Annapolis, we rode north through Pennsylvania into the mountains of Vermont and New Hampshire then back down to the coast again in Maine meeting up with Jan and Karyn on Bella who were having their summer cruise in the Mt Desert region.

We spent 4 days with them on board and had probably as good weather as you could ever have there, it was well into the high 30’s Celsius and even warm enough to swim off the boat in the anchorage provided you stayed in the top 4’ layer of warm water!  We climbed Cadillac mountain to stretch our aching motor cycle limbs, rewarded with stunning panoramic views of Acadia NP.

Another highlight was boiling up Maine lobster on the beach, it was my first taste of them after eating many Caribbean ones, and I will be controversial and say I couldn’t really tell the difference, especially once dipped in gorgeous garlic butter and washed down with sauvignon blanc!

Sad farewells with Bella and then we rode off to Nova Scotia, somewhere I have always wanted to go. 

By now the weather was less warm and sunny but we did get a couple of gorgeous days and taking in the tidal bores of the Bay of Fundy and the stunning coast south of Halifax, including the lovely Peggys Cove a traditional fishing village and Lunenberg the maritime capital of the area.  Both areas with moving memorials, the former to the Swiss Air flight that crashed here and the latter to the many fishermen lost over the years.

From NS we were faced with a very long ride back to Quebec, our amateur geography had somehow convinced us that Nova Scotia was “on the way” so we were somewhat surprised to ride back via Maine passing within about 50 miles of Jan & Karyn after a 1200 mile round trip!

Time in Quebec was spent with Linda’s family and friends, it was really great to catch up with everyone once more.

By mid August we realise that our to do list on Matsu isn’t getting any shorter but the time until we leave is, so saddle up for the long ride home through the Adirondack’s getting back to Annapolis after a round trip of well over 3,000 miles.

A New Engine For Matsu

Bert Jabins Yacht Yard, Annapolis, MD

When we bought Matsu we had some concerns about the age and condition of the original Nanni Mercedes engine and after four more years of cruising it has now done 23,000 hours and is 24 years old.  In all that time it has never let us down (including motoring us most of the 1,000 miles back to Annapolis this year), but there is a growing list of issues that need to be addressed, corrosion, broken brackets that have been bush repaired, belching white smoke and a lack of power.

We realised we could either wait until it breaks down comprehensively and deal with it then, or be proactive and deal with it on our own terms, maybe earlier than strictly necessary but avoiding the potential problem of a destroyed engine in a remote location.

We decided that this summer would be when we did it on our own terms.  The first question was whether to recondition the existing engine or buy a new one.  A big part of the cost of either is removing and replacing the engine from the boat, and once we got a feel for the reconditioning costs we decided that the extra cost of a brand new modern engine with readily available spare parts worldwide was the better bet, as Nanni no longer support the old engine.

The Starting Point

Other than buying the engine the vast majority of the cost of repowering is labour (around 70% we estimated) so the even bigger decision was taken that I would draw on all my years of accounting experience and replace it myself – scary!!  Again the logic being that at over $100 an hour for a mechanic versus my time for free we could save a lot of cash even if it took me bit longer, plus of course I would 100% understand the engine installation and drive train for future maintenance.

We order a new Yanmar 110hp engine from Bay Shore Marine in Annapolis, they are used to working with DIY installations and provide great support to us throughout.  We also decide to do the work at Bert Jabins Yacht Yard, a great reputation, we can do the work with the boat in the water making life aboard much more pleasant, and bay Shore are based on site.  So on 25th May we pulled Matsu into a berth at Bert Jabins Boat yard in Annapolis and started work. 

The first task was fairly obvious, disconnect all the services and remove the old engine from the boat. 

One of the first problems I had thought of when we started this was how to get the engine out, a fellow Passport owner told me the great news that he “thought” there was a removable panel in the cockpit floor for the purpose. 

Given the alternative was to remove a lot of very nice teak wood work you can imagine our joy at finding out he was right!

While removing the various wires, cables, hoses etc from the engine we get to see more of it and the level of corrosion and decay is revealed, it shows how durable diesel engines are that it was still running. 

We also have our first cock up when draining the engine oil when we switch the drain pump from suck to blow and cover ourselves and the engine room in old oil!

Engine Comes Out VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

By June 1st we are ready for the crane to come and pull out the engine. 

It all goes incredibly smoothly, the guys from Jabins and Bay Shore doing great work and within 45 minutes we are engineless and the true state of the old engine is revealed.

 

 

The joy of seeing the old engine out was somewhat tempered by the vision of the engine room, we knew it was a mess underneath but perhaps weren’t braced for what it actually looked like!

The second stage was also now fairly obvious, and we embarked on the huge process of cleaning up and redesigning the engine room.  For 24 years owners and mechanics had been adding systems to Matsu and installing them  in or around the engine room in cramped spaces so not necessarily doing the job as well as it should have been done.  We now had a golden opportunity to set that straight and leave ourselves with good access to the new engine and a clean clutter free engine room.

Over the next 3 weeks we put in a huge number of man hours, turning the mess you see above into this:

Without too many boring details we cleaned huge amounts of oily waste from the bilge, removed the old battery boxes, sanded and painted the bilge with 4 coats of Bilgekote paint, replaced and moved the wiring, the engine plumbing, the control cables, the exhaust system, the Racor filters, the bilge pumps, the fresh water plumbing, new sound proofing etc etc etc.

		Rebuilding The Engine Room VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

Now time for stage 3: installing the new engine.

We were lucky that the new engine despite being smaller has a similar footprint so the only modifications required to the engine beds are minimal.

By installing an aluminium bar spacer and covering it with aluminium angle the engine would be perfectly aligned and the beds narrowed sufficiently to take the new feet.

This was one area I did leave to the professionals and Nick from Bay Shore did a great job in working with me to get everything  bolted down and ready for the new baby.

So on the 23rd June after an enormous amount of work the crane returned and the new engine arrived.

		The New Engine Arrives VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

From there it really was all quite straightforward.  Nick helped me get the alignment spot on and bolt the engine down.  This is critical to the way the engine will perform in the future, and even though we have a flexible drive there is no harm in getting at as close as possible.  Nick being a perfectionist meant we probably don’t even need the flexible drive now it is so well done!

After that I have a busy 2-3 days connecting all the things an engine needs to work.  Electricity, cooling water, diesel, control cables, and an exhaust system were all joined up and then the big moment:  On June 27th almost exactly 1 month later we press the starter and vroom!  off she goes purring away and doing all that a diesel engine should.

We head out for a sea trial and she passes all the tests with flying colours, Matsu hits hull speed nice and early in the rev range, the engine hits the target maximum RPM and unbelievably we have done it, installed a new engine!

The End Result

 

By way of a PS, if any fellow Passport owners or fellow yachties are thinking of doing a similar thing, feel free to get in touch via email if you have any questions or would like some more detailed information.

Back In Annapolis

Back Creek, Annapolis

Well we’re back, 3.5 weeks, 1,266 miles, a lot of sailing and even more motoring and we have made it back to Annapolis our summer base.

The journey back was fairly uneventful, we stopped in the Berry Islands for a few days, anchored by ourselves at Fish Market Cays, saying a sad farewell to the wonderful Bahamas. 

We hadn’t been to this anchorage before and hadn’t intended to this time, but Devil Hoffmans was rolling like mad in the strong NE winds so we had a change of plan and found a great little spot to wind down before hitting the USA.

The sail to Palm Beach was great, we had good winds and made great time arriving early morning in time to do customs and have lunch at the marina restaurant (Rib special on a Tuesday, great timing!) and then collapse for a well earned sleep in the afternoon.

We had 5 days there waiting for some wind we could sail on and finally with still none forecast and having exhausted all West Palm has to offer gave up and decided to motor overnight out of Florida hoping for better winds further north.

The motor ran all day and then around midnight the wind filled in north of Cape Canaveral and suddenly we could sail.  As the next morning progressed the wind went more NE so we were sailing straight at Charleston so decided to give St Mary’s a miss and go straight through. 

Charlie slept through an offshore bird attack, later waking to kill it, and with the wind dying at sunset we got a peaceful nights sleep ourselves motoring in the flat calm. 

Next day more chugging along until we finally got into Charleston around 5pm on day 3.  We were tired but happy to have got that far (less happy when we paid for the diesel we had used!).

More weather waiting meant we could take advantage of the excellent Charleston restaurants and also take day trips to Savannah and one of the old plantations on the Ashley River.    It is really quite chilling to see the prosperous house and gardens, the river boats and the crops they transported and then the little slave shacks to really bring home how this wealth was created.

We finally left Charleston on 16th for the most tiring leg of our trip, the wind is excellent and we have a rollicking sail with the genoa poled out, averaging 8 knots for the first 12 hours.  Then the wind dies and constantly shifts, so constant course changes to stay downwind, rolling from the seas as they now don’t match the waves and general crash banging of sails, etc make for a very sleepless night.

By the following morning we are exhausted and now have no wind but 6’ seas so end up motoring all day to Cape Lookout feeling grumpy!  Luckily we get a few dolphin visits to keep us amused but we are very happy to finally drop the anchor in Lookout Bight, in calm water.  We have a beer and go straight to bed for 14 hours sleep!

We are now in the same situation as Florida, no wind forecast for the next 10 days, so as we need to get back and get started on our projects, we decide to motor again, it’s flat calm so we can sleep well and we chug along all day.  It’s so calm at Cape Hatteras, “Graveyard of the Atlantic” that we get photos as we round the shoal buoy (on the way south it was pitch black and we had 25 knots of wind!).

Amazingly that evening the wind filled in from the NW and we had a great sail tight reaching up the North Carolina and Virginia coasts, making good boat speed, but in flat seas.  We did have one major excitement on my watch when a large fishing boat heading in to Oregon Inlet just completely failed to pick us up on radar, hear our VHF call or see our Nav lights, or for that matter my spreader lights and torches on sails – so a swift crash tack from the stand on vessel avoided a collision and a somewhat terse VHF call later he was vaguely apologetic and we carried on our way!

By the following morning the wind had died and the motor was back on for the long motor into Chesapeake Bay, dodging the 15 ships at the entrance and then finally through the Bay Bridge Tunnel and on to Deltaville.

Two more days up the Bay and then, hooray we are back “home” and drinking beer with Dave & Donna on Meander, with Bella and Chandelle who had both  beaten us back.

Projects await, but that’s another post!