The last straw

Or, I should say, the last metering stem has finally snapped on the diesel stove.

Actually, this happened last week but we weren't going to be spending the night in cold weather aboard so I didn't think to mention it. Mandy was reassembling the fuel metering assembly on our troublesome diesel stove when the long stem valve that controls the fuel flow into the burner snapped off... apparently (apparently! right!) it was already bent and when she attempted to re-insert it the stem just broke right off.

This was mixed news; I had long anticipated that our problems with fuel flow would only be solved with a replacement metering valve and this pretty much forced the issue. I had priced them out around $160, which is more than we really want to spend at the moment, but necessity is the mother of large credit card balances. My only question was which replacement metering assembly to purchase; the website at Fisheries Supply showed three, one for diesel, one for kerosene, and one labeled "stove." Well, we have a stove, and it burns both diesel and kerosene, so it wasn't clear which we would need.

Today after we got back from the peninsula, we had to go pick my truck up at Shilshole, so we decided to stop in at Fisheries and ask. We found a nice gentleman named Mike back in the galley department to help us. He was very friendly, warned us up front that he wasn't their stove expert, who was at lunch, but that if we could wait around fifteen minutes, the expert, Dwight, would be back to help. Despite claiming he didn't know much about it, Mike took some time while we were waiting and looked into it and thought he might have found the part we needed, available by itself, for only $15. That was welcome news, particularly since he informed us that the whole valve assembly would be around $180, not the $160 listed on the website. We decided at his recommendation to wait for Dwight and the expert perspective, however, so we did.

Dwight started off on the wrong foot when he showed up and told us it was impossible to be doing something that we had done quite succesfully for nearly five years already. We must have missed the memo. Things went downhill from there. He told us that the part was the wrong one anyway (we had called it the wrong name) and that he was no longer able to order those parts separately anyway and we'd have to buy the whole package. Leaving aside why they were all available in the system, with separate prices, even if they couldn't be ordered (systems can be wrong, I know as well as anyone), we tried to find out whether a dealership or repair center could still get them, and how we might at least try to get just the piece we needed, but Dwight didn't want to countenance the idea. "If you got the wrong thing and put it in and burned the boat down, who are you gonna sue?" he asked. I said it didn't matter much if it was a small part or the whole assembly, if it was the wrong one or got installed wrong, the boat was still going to burn, and the sort of person who would sue would still sue over it. But we at least got a phone number for Dickinson from Mike, and thanked them and left.

Dwight was a lot more interested in telling us what couldn't be done about the problem than what could, and showing off his expertise rather than listening to our needs and helping us with them. Consequently, Fisheries blew off $180 in sales today... I doubt they'll miss it, they cater to a more professional crowd anyway, and I have heard before that the way to get good service from them is simply to be there a lot and be in the business, get to know the staff. If that's what works for them, swell; on the other hand, Seattle Marine Supply also caters to professionals, and they've been nothing but helpful any time we have been in there, despite what must seem very piddly little boat problems compared to what the big crab boat crews come in with.

I am sure that this is an individual problem, since the first gentleman, Mike, was great; but it's a problem I've had with Fisheries before, too, so it seems there is something systemic about it as well. I don't understand it, frankly, particularly in this economic climate: why on earth is anyone making it more difficult for me to give them money? I was all set to drop $160 in there today, and would probably have gone up to $180 if someone had simply talked me through the options instead of shutting it all down with a blanket "Can't do it." Instead, if I do have to buy the whole assembly, I'm going to get it online from someone else for $150, all because of one blowhard. How many times does that happen a day, you wonder?

So that's my... let's see, what is the opposite of a plug? A slug? That's my slug for Fisheries Supply. Strike two!

And I'll put in another plug for Second Wave while I am at it. We stopped there after Fisheries, and they had a whole replacement stove for less than Fisheries wanted for the metering valve. It would be cheaper to buy and strip the parts we need and re-sell the rest. We're still holding out on a conversation with Dickinson, however, or any authorized repairmen or installers we can find in the area. I didn't look at it but Mandy said it looks like the stem simply unscrews; if that's the case then surely we can find a used one or a repairman with a spare that will be cheaper. Failling that, there is a rebuild kit for $50 available online at several chandleries, and I might spring for that just to see if it includes the part (it might be worthwhile for the other spares involved anyway).

The Curse or Not?

So the charity daysail itself went off without a hitch yesterday;
light rain and dark, threatening clouds gave way to clear skies and
sunshine, our guests arrived on time, the engine worked, the sails
raised, and we enjoyed a warm and fairly gentle sail down into Elliot
Bay past cruise ships and racing sailboats for a nicely framed
portrait of the downtown Seattle skyline. Our guests, three of them
from Arizona and one from Federal Way, seemed to enjoy the trip and
the perspective, despite some pretty bumpy moments. Winds were brisk;
we changed down to the #1 jib before we left the dock and raised the
main with the first reef already tied in it in order to keep the ride
as sedate as possible... with three non-sailors and a five-year old
along, we think those were probably wise decisions.

We got them back to Shilshole right at the planned time of 1400 and
elected to head north immediately for Hadlock. Winds, of course, were
from the north, and were blowing fairly briskly north of West Point...
10-15 knots, which can turn into 20 when you add five knots or so of
boat speed to them. They'd been going since early morning, so there
was a good bit of chop built up as well, 1-2 feet of whitecaps
blanketing the Sound. The current was against us but only slightly,
and we didn't really have a time limit so I thought we might as well
just crack on and we would get there when we got there. We've made
the trip at night before and the wind was not supposed to drop until
late, so it seemed we may as well take advantage of it.

It turned into a pretty long day. With the chop, which increased to 3 foot and more north of Kingston, you can't really do a lot other than
sail or sit there. There's only one person at the wheel at a time, so
the other one is mostly sitting there.

Mandy did well with the rough stuff until her first turn at the wheel
ended, after which she got a little queasy. I was able to hug the
shore just south of Point No Point however to put us into a slight
counter-current for better speed and less choppy conditions, which
allowed her to recover without actually getting to the point of
spewing.

It was around this time, out of boredom, that I tried to fire up the
radar and discovered I was back to the old "No Data" problem again
that I thought I had fixed a couple months ago by repairing a shoddy
connector. Making matters more complicated, from time to time the
radome would report in and show as available to the display, which
allowed me to run built-in diagnostics (all of which reported that it
was in fine shape, thank you very much), but as soon as I would switch
it into scan mode, it would almost immediately fail. Once I got about
half a sweep out of it, but that was it before the "No Data" message
came back.

This didn't bode well with darkness falling, and it was too rough to
troubleshoot much beyond resetting the system and checking connections
(neither of which worked) so we pulled the sail down just off Double
Bluff and motored straight north the rest of the way across Oak Bay
and through the canal to the mooring ball at Hadlock. It was only
about an hour run, but it was safer than trying to sail it sans radar
(and since that was dead upwind, it would have taken more than an hour
under sail to get there).

Curiously, however, with the engine running, the radar came back to
life! That was my first clue as to the nature of the problem but I
still couldn't check on it at the time, I just gave thanks for the
pink returns painted on the plotter and plugged on. I also learned
that the radar is almost worthless in any sort of head's up mode if
your system compass is whacky... apparently, it orients itself to the
display based on your reported heading, and if that is off, so is the
picture. There is a magnetic anomaly north of Hansville that we have
run into before, and it rendered the autopilot compass useless, which
in turn affected the radar. Something to file away for future
reference if you happen to use an integrated Raymarine system like we
do.

A little poking this morning seems to indicate that it's a power
problem; the house battery bank showed a voltage level indicating a
nearly full discharge. That's bad news, since we didn't use nearly
that much power yesterday (or, I should say, I don't think we used
that much power yesterday... there may be a short or something in the
system I don't know about, or some item left on I wasn't aware of) and
the shore power connection should have allowed our charger to keep the
batteries topped up completely while at the dock.

It's going to take further testing to determine whether or not the
batteries simply won't hold a charge, or if the charger itself is
busted. The lights on it work, anyway; but my new multi-meter is crap
and I haven't been regularly checking performance as I used to.
Another argument for a dedicated battery monitor, I suppose.

I wouldn't be entirely surprised if it's the batteries gone bad.
Normally they should last longer than this (they've been in for three
years now, I think) but a mislabeling problem early in their career
had the house bank used to start the engine regularly, and they
weren't designed for such high-amp loading and may have been trashed
in the process.

At any rate, I hooked up our solar panel and there are no appreciable
drains while the boat is on the mooring here, so we'll see if it can
stick a charge on them after a week or so of sunshine. That should
eliminate the charger as a point of failure, since the solar setup
uses its own independent charge controller. Real testing will have to
wait until we are tied up alongside a float with real shore power
again, though, and that probably won't be until after the wedding
(Mandy is already thrilled at the prospect of a honeymoon spent
hunched over a multi-meter, let me tell you) at our first planned
stop, Victoria.

What I am having trouble deciding, though, is whether or not this fits
in with the Charity Day Sail Curse. Does it count if the problem was
pre-existing but simply didn't reveal itself until the day of the
sail? What if it happens on the day of the sail, but doesn't actually
come up during or affect the sail itself? Hard questions, best
debated by more philosophical minds than my own... I leave it to you,
dear readers, to debate and decide whether the curse has been broken
or merely adopted a more chimerical form with this year's event.

Trepidation

Mandy moved out here from Wisconsin to join an Americorp team working in Federal Way public schools. If you haven't heard of Americorp before, check them out... they do some good work (and hey, it's your tax dollars, you should keep an eye on them). One of the things that Mandy's team does is hold an annual charity auction to raise funds for underprivileged kids to purchase equipment for extracurricular school activities... instruments, uniforms, and so forth that are necessary to participate but which many families in that district are unable to afford. Businesses and individuals donate items or services to auction off and the money goes to buying equipment for those kids who would otherwise be unable to participate in those school programs.

After she bought the boat, Mandy decided to put a day sailing trip up in the auction. Though she is no longer with Americorp, we've donated a trip every year, and it's always done pretty well, giving us warm fuzzies in addition to providing another opportunity to go out sailing. This year's winner has picked this Sunday for her trip, bringing her family along, and we expect they'll have a fine time and it's more money in the bank for the kids. But I have come to view the annual event with some trepidation and all I can think about today is what is going to go wrong tomorrow.

The annual charity day sail, you see, appears to be cursed. The first year, a banjo bolt sheared off in the fuel filter assembly as I was bleeding the lines, just as the lucky winners arrived at the dock. We had to cancel and reschedule. The second year, it was some other engine related problem, though it only delayed our departure instead of cancelling it altogether. The third time, it wasn't our boat, but the Ballard Bridge that broke, stranding us and our hapless passengers on the wrong side for an extra hour and a half. Last year, our starter died. I may not be the sharpest knife in the drawer, but even I can see a pattern developing here.

We both worked on the boat most of yesterday and I couldn't find anything ready to give out, but I am sure it is hiding there somewhere. I changed the secondary fuel filter, fiddled with the transmission (took a little fluid out, it seems to be shifting easier now... apparently too much is worse than not enough) and extracted the problematic pin on the anchor roller, all with suspicious ease. We pumped out and fueled up, and Mandy painted the foredeck hatch and touched up some spots on the mast, and she is back there again today cleaning up. Maybe she'll come home with some tale of woe, I'm not sure. I suspect whatever it is will only reveal itself after our passengers show up, however, as that seems to be the point at which maximum stress can be inflicted.

Making things more fraught is our plan to head north for Port Hadlock immediately after finishing the day sail. Since we're going to be gone for most of July and most of August, we went ahead and sublet our slip out for the whole of both months, so we need to get the boat out of there and up to Hadlock before July 1st. This seemed as good a time as any. The currents will make things slightly complicated, though; if we actually head north as soon as we drop the passengers off, we'll be bucking a head wind and a flood current. We could wait around until 2300 or so for more favorable currents, but then it's dark, and we'd still have the head winds, which would have us tacking back and forth through the shipping lanes with limited visibility. Or, we could hang out until 0400 or so and get both light and ebb current, but then we might not make the Hadlock canal before slack.

Haven't decided entirely what to do yet, but I'm not putting a lot of thought into it as I expect any decision made today will be rendered moot by tomorrow's impending but unspecified failure.

Uncharted Hazards to Navigation

Floating shipping containers, whales, undiscovered sea mounts... all these things have been on my radar (so to speak... none of them would actually show up on radar, unfortunately) as things one might possibly run into without warning out on the water.

Cars, I hadn't really considered.

One thing leading to another

It's always one thing leading to another... I had a few free hours today so I decided to run by Second Wave to see if I could find a replacement clevis pin for our anchor roller at the bow, the original having been bent and fractured by whatever unholy forces ripped the boat from its mooring last fall. I have been meaning to do this for a while but the day I usually have available for boat stuff is Sunday, which also happens to be the day Second Wave is closed.

Since I don't have any of the original documentation or the brand name of the roller, I decided to go to the boat first to retrieve the pin first so as to be able to compare the size directly to potential replacements (ever mindful of the water pump hose adapter fiasco).

It developed, however, that despite it's damaged state, the pin was in no mood to come the rest of the way out. A clever design impeded it from being pulled out entirely after insertion; the manner in which it was bent prevented it from being pushed completely through the other side... and yet it was not bent enough to simply pull it out without going through the opposite hole.

"Well, it's already bent up pretty good," I said to myself. "I'll just bend it a little more, and voila, as the French sailors say... it will pop right out!"

Nuh-uh. My vise grips and pliers wouldn't budge it. In fact, the roller assembly started to flex before the pin showed any sign of bending further, deepening the mystery of what the heck actually happened to the boat last fall all the more.

"Well, then," I said to myself. "I'll just unbolt the roller itself, which should allow me to flex the roller assembly enough to drop the pin out."

But here is where the predicament of my position checked me; the anchor roller, necessarily, is the furthest forward object on the boat, out over the water, and if there is a sure and certain law of the sea, more dire in consequence than setting sail on a Friday, more inevitable than poor weather after red sky in the morning, it is that if you go mucking about with nuts, bolts, tools, or other small objects over the side, you're going to drop one or more of them into the soup.

A good rule in these situations is to solicit the assistance of others... but at 10AM on a Friday morning, the dock was deserted. I wasn't ready to quit yet, though, so I decided I'd put together my own fail-safe system: I would lash the roller to the forestay, so even if it dropped unexpectedly it would simply dangle.

That done, I hauled out a crescent wrench and a ratchet and went to work. But not for long--the ratchet was broken, and simply spun around aimlessly without gripping the socket. Time to buy a new ratchet.

I considered going at it with two crescent wrenches but that was just tempting things too much... I'd lose a nut for certain. So I put everything away and scratched the clevis pin plan for the moment.

I did swing by Second Wave anyway, though, and I wanted to plug them again... it's a great place to look for anything nautical. I needed some other stuff for a mooring pennant I am also putting together, and I wanted to see if they had any outboards in our size range. They had a 2.5 horse Tohatsu which would probably have been fine, but it was already sold. I picked up a length of 5/8" mooring line, and when I went to check out, the guy at the counter said, "That looks a little pricey, doesn't it?"

I told him that everything looked pretty pricey to me these days, and he said, "Well, let's fix that," and knocked 30% right off! There's no way he could have known that I just recommended the store to someone last week, but he made me glad that I had, and confident in the referral.