Guys, I am so tired! But I am super close to that moment when I’ll untie the lines! Everything was going smoothly and I was aiming to depart over the weekend. But on Saturday morning, I discovered a few issues with the engine (thanks to friends here) and so today was a rush to resolve them. What are these issues? Well, a hole through the boat with a valve on it (a seacock) has a pipe that sends saltwater to the engine to cool it. The seacock was stuck, and wouldn’t close. Trying to remove it bent a shaft on one end, and it still wouldn’t come out! There are legitimate reasons and a whole story behind why it was stuck, but the bottom line is: it has to be fixed and put back in before I go.
But that’s not all…there was a minor coolant leak from an upper reservoir, and the exhaust elbow appeared to have been installed BACKWARDS! To correct and resolve these, all of the coolant needed to be drained from the engine. And then I was told that my heat exchanger was too grimy and needed to be cleaned or replaced before I left, and I was due for an oil change (every 100 engine hours - can you believe it?! so much more frequent than a car). The heat exchanger is full of cleaning vinegar right now, I have more coolant, oil, and fresh gaskets. Tomorrow I will clean out the heat exchanger, reinstall it, reinstall the exhaust elbow (which turned out not to be backwards, just very unique…), fix the coolant leak on the external upper reservoir (a faulty hose clamp), fill the coolant, take the seacock part to a machinist to be fixed, reinstall it, run the engine until the oil is hot, drain the oil and replace the filter, and put in fresh oil. And save the world.
just kidding about that last part. :) thanks for all the love and support, my friends…
xo & fair winds,
elana, zia, and s/v windfola, 5 May 2019