Hi everyone - it's been a couple of years since I blogged here, and sometimes, as any writer will tell you, you need to break away, get a fresh vision, and that's something I've been working on.
Now that I've got that, I've been looking for a good place, a suitable "event", to start writing this blog again. This current event ought to get us off and running!
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All good things must come to an end... now before anyone panics, I'm not buying a trawler! Relax, let me tell you what's going on.
Fortunately, there was a cell signal, so I call my insurance company to send out a towboat. Because of the distance to the nearest marina, they asked me to sail further north to meet the towboat .... leaving me to explain the realities of sailing on the ICW on a completely wind-less day.
Let me check with management about that, Anna (the gal on the phone with me) says. Ten minutes later, it's organized.
The problem now is to find a marina. Every Charleston marina is full up, and even if they weren't, they won't accept a boat arriving under tow.
At this point, I actually thought my problem was with the starter. I didn't realize until yesterday that the engine had seized up. So I explained to the dockmaster at Bohicket Marina, about 14 miles away, that I would only be there for one to two days depending on how fast the new starter arrived.
"Nope", says he, not a chance. So - although I've actually been to Bohicket Marina before and it's nice, they are off my list of recommended stops because they showed no courtesy to a boater in need.
Another marina, one who was more polite about things, suggested checking with Ross Marine (https://www.rossmarine.com/), a boatyard a few miles to the south of Charleston, and that's where we went, to my great good fortune. It's a boatyard, and they've just decided to accept DIY boaters at their facility. More about this later, but if you need to know now, contact them and ask for Tom.
So the lovely lady at the other end of the phone at DB Electrical, who I admit I sweet-talked something awful, got my starter to me the next day, despite taking the order at 4:30. Astounding service!
I installed the starter, and got the same problem - CLUNK-click - but no "whirrrr" and then the sound of the diesel firing up. Clearly, something else was wrong.... I went below, cleaned up the grounds and connections, hit the button - CLUNK-click again.
Went below, had a wild thought, pushed the decompression levers down and tried to spin the engine, which should have been easily done by hand.
Nothing. Wouldn't budge. That meant my problem was much worse than I had thought. That clanking noise I heard when the engine shut down was not the starter self destructing at all. I wasn't leaving this place in the immediate future, at least, not in Gypsy Wind.
So, to fast forward to now, I've put out feelers for a new engine and have several good possibilities turn up in the last 24 hours.
I plan to remove this engine over the next few days while I decide on the new one, clean up the engine bay, tidy up wires and plumbing, install new soundproofing, redo the engine mounts to correct mistakes I made on the original installation and then fit in the new engine.
Shouldn't take more than a few hours, maybe a day? Sure, that sounds good.
So stay tuned here, I'll keep everyone up to date on this latest adventure.
In the meantime, one of the engines I came across, which won't work for me because I want to go to a more modern, lighter and smaller engine, belongs to Kimberly House, in central Florida.
It's a Yanmar 2QM20 and it's too big for her boat's engine space. She needs to sell this engine before she can get a different one, so if you can help her out here, please do so.
I will say this for the 2QM20 - they are a fabulous engine and as long as you're ok with the size and weight of it compared to a more modern engine, they will go virtually forever. Mine has easily over 15,000 hours on it and has only ever needed to have a fuel line repaired in 16 years.
That's because they were originally built as a tractor and industrial engine, so they were built to be bulletproof. Someone will buy my old engine to rebuild it and likely get another 15k hours of adventuring out of it.
There's a part of me that says, yes, just put in another one, and that's tempting because it would be so easy to do it that way. But getting more space in the engine room and losing about 100 pounds from the back of the boat is a strong incentive to switch. Besides, as anyone who knows me will tell you, I never do things the easy way! That would be, well... too easy!
Stay tuned to this space for updates on the new Yanni Jr. installation. And someone please buy Kim's engine from her! Contact me via email or messenger for details.
