Our motor problem may possibly be easier to fix than first thought!

I had posted a request for help on the Nauticat owners bulletin board and several people responded with their suggestions. One did specifically address the oil coolers, of which there are two. One is for the engine, the other for the transmission. I also spoke to people at American Diesel, staffed with experts who do know the Ford Lehman diesel engine inside and out. They agreed that my symptoms point towards the cooler. I had my credit card handy. :-) ... and ordered replacements. I think the total parts bill comes to about $500.00, plus mechanic time for installation, plus marina transient slip fees. The marina mechanic agreed to install the oil coolers prior to the July 4 holiday weekend. WOO HOO! Perhaps, I can go sailing next weekend and possibly, sail South towards Boston for the July 4 fireworks. Stay tuned.

2009 Marion Bermuda Race Aftermath

Well, no fireworks reception for s/v Bremer Speck. As mentioned a couple of times already, we were forced to resign from this race due to extreme weather conditions in the form of a Nor'easter. Well, there is always the next time. So we are talking already about 2011 ... :-) ...!
From all accounts, the 2009 race was not much fun. There were a total of 46 yachts registered for this race.
19 yachts resigned from the race for the same or similar reasons as Bremer Speck.
19 yachts, that is the equivalent of 41% or close to half of all the yachts entered into the race! This must be the worst year ever.
The yachts who made it to Bermuda were greeted by bad weather as well. Unlike, the usually very sunny and warm Bermuda weather, they were greeted by rain squalls and cool temperatures.
The front runner, "Big Bear", who lead the race from the start, blew-out its headsail some 10-15 miles from Bermuda and was forced to motor the rest of the way! Instant disqualification! What a shame! I am sure, her crew worked very hard to maintain that first place position and then this happens. So close and yet, so far.
Looks like our 2 days stay on Block Island (referred to as the Bermuda of the Northeast) was a good idea because it was sunny and warm and we were able to relax for a while.
Now, I have to go and meet the mechanic to figure out what is wrong with our engine.
Keep your fingers' crossed for me!
Cheers,
Ronald Hiemann
Skipper s/v "Bremer Speck"
1989 Nauticat 40
www.bremerspeck.com

About the "Skipper 150" Inmarsat FleetBroadband Terminal

I have made repeated references to the "Skipper 150" in my posts and have been asked to elaborate on what exactly it is and does do for us on s/v "Bremer Speck". The Skipper 150 is an Inmarsat FleetBroadband terminal, which provides worldwide voice, SMS and Internet data connectivity at speeds of up to 150 kbps. While we were underway, we have had several Internet web sites open on an overhead monitor. We surfed the web for news etc. and researched a few things. At the same time, we also made phone calls. Domestic and International. All this while we had up to 3 PC running on a WiFi network. While having cable modem service at home is a lot faster than what I have here on Bremer Speck, the data speed throughput via the Skipper 150 terminal is surprisingly blazing fast, when compared to other solutions such as an Iridium or Globalstar satellite phone. I have attached 3 photos, showing the Skipper 150 antenna pod, which is mounted on an arch over the transom, as well as a product photo showing the brains, the "black-box", together with a corded handset. The black-box has another phone plug to connect a wireless telephone handset. I have a beta test unit on board, courtesy of Inmarsat and Addvalue Communications Pte Ltd, Singapore, the manufacturer. The Skipper 150 is going into production very soon and will be available sometime in mid July. Contact me if you would like to know more.

Safely tied-up in Newburyport

After a 48 miles tow from nearby Boston to Newburyport, we are now tied-up safely in a slip in Newburyport. Tomorrow morning, I shall talk to the mechanic about checking out the engine, to determine the reason for the tremendous oil loss. A post on the Nauticat bulletin board brought several responses. One very detailed response is pointing towards the oil cooler. The response indicates that we were basically pumping out all the oil together with the engine cooling water. The oil never quite made it inside the engine. I hope this is the correct diagnosis because it would be a relatively inexpensive repair. The weather here is miserable. It is Sunday afternoon, overcast and cool.

What is this? Or what else can go wrong?

Have we not had enough, already? What do you think is shown in the photo? If your first guess is "this is a broken off bolt", then you guessed right! But, what did this bolt belong to? You can guess as much as you want. I would bet you $10 that you will not figure it out. So I will make it easy on everybody. THIS bolt was what held the head pump handle in place! You know, the one that pumps water in and everything else out! Now we have lost the toilet, too! I hope everyone is capable of sweating it out because there are few alternatives. During the early sailing days, the head on many ships was outside. Right on the bowsprit. No toilet paper required ... :-)
Google this and you will find this is true. Anyway, BoatUS is towing us now to Newburyport, where Bremer Speck will be hauled out next week. Then the fun begins. I better start printing some money now. I will need it.

Saturday Morning Sail Near Boston

I awoke at 0500 hours to blue skies and a light breeze and am sailing along the coast at about 2.1 knots. A nice and peaceful morning. It is now 0800 and I am watching one of these huge LNG tanker crossing our bow a mile or so ahead of us.
It will remain peacefully quiet because... our motor is more or less kaputt and sailing is all we can do! We had already noticed some excessive oil useage and that is why I had bought 5 gallons worth in Block Island. We have used about 4 of those 5 gallons since we have left BI 20 hours ago... !!! Scary, to say the least.
Early this morning, the engine pressure dropped again rapidly and I shut-down the engine. When I removed the oil filler cap, I noticed some brown, foamy sludge attached to the underside of the cap. Werner believes that the motor may have water in it. Not good, not good at all. This is probably also a result of the bashing we took during the storm. Unbeknown to me, because I was asleep at the time, Gabi told me of 2 near knock-downs, where the port or starboard rails where briefly below the waterline. I think it was breaking waves hitting the side of the boat because a knock-down would have been noticed by everyone, no doubt.
Rather than wasting another gallon of motor oil, which would probably not provide enough pressure for more than 1 hour, if that, I decided to take advantage of my 25 years of membership in BoatUS. I have called them 1 hour ago and they have arranged for a towboat out of Newburyport, which will tow us into port.
I will have to check what services are available. I know Windward Yacht Yard and believe they do engine repairs. It will be interesting to find out, if anybody answers the phone on this bright and sunny Saturday morning.
Well, I am afraid, that I will support the economy in a big way and very soon!
Stay tuned.

Block Island Retreat

After having hove-to for 2 nights and sailing under bare poles in between to cope with heavy, confused seas, we did eventually make it to Block Island. We went into the Old Harbor and tied-up in front of the Harbor Master's office. The sun came out, it was warm and life was good. Time to relax, dry and air out the boat and ... order 5 gallons of motor oil, to be delivered by ferry from the mainland, because the oil pressure alarm had sounded off a few times to alert us to low oil pressure. We found out that the engine was quickly losing oil. We do not know why. We added 2 of the 5 gallons and the pressure has returned to normal. I am watching, though. Our 2 days on Block Island were very relaxing. We ate out and stuffed ourselves with great seafood. I even managed to go to get a haircut... :-) ... We are motoring towards Marion \ Cape Cod Canal now, as I am typing this post. Not wanting to sound commercial, but the Internet connection via the "Skipper 150" is really great. I love it. Anyway, on leaving Block Island, as soon as we dropped the lines and begun to motor out of the harbor, the huge Cat Ferry blasted its horns and started to follow in our wake. What a sight! It almost felt like she was going to go right over us. The tunnel between the 2 hulls looked big enough. Well, no worries, as soon as there was enough room to pass, her captain "put the pedal to the metal", she rose out of the water and roared right past us, about 50 feet away. You can imagine the wake she left behind her. Very impressive, though. The captain even waved at us as he went by. Or, perhaps, he used his hand to give us a signal. :-) It was hard to see. I am sitting in the pilothouse typing away, watching our course on the big screen PC navigation system and the smaller chart plotter. Gabi and Werner are up on deck, steering and watching as the fog is creeping in and taking our visibility away.

Doggy Style, or, where's my chow?

Nobody seems to have noticed or was scared to ask. That is, to ask about the dog bowls shown prominently in one photo. Human beings eating out of dog bowls.
Yuk. Eek. Well, there is a very good reason for that. I learned this from an experienced delivery skipper, who introduced me to this practice several years ago. The reason is, that a dog bowl is a deep bowl. Thus, keeping your dinner from sloshing over and off the plate. You can grab the bowl and eat out of it quite easily, while holding it with one hand. Whatever food is on the menu, the dog bowl can handle it. During an offshore passage, when the seas can get rough, it is the ideal dinner plate. Woof, woof!

Conversation with the Helmsman, a v ideo clip upload via the "Skipper 150" Inmarsat terminal

I am attempting now to upload an 11.1 MB 720p high resolution video clip, a short 3-4 sentence exchange with my Helsman Werner Hofer. This is a big file. No concerns if you are on land and have cable modem service etc. but quite another, when you are out at sea, where such services have been very limited, or very costly (upwards of $15,000) until now. This is sort of a test to find out how long the upload will take via the "Skipper 150" Inmarsat FleetBroadband terminal, which I am beta testing. If you will be reading this post, then the video clip upload was a success. It looks like the upload went well. Between uploading and processing, it took 18 minutes.

Humbled by the seas!

After several nights of being bashed around by the Nor'Easter and having gotten very little sleep, finally, this morning, I awoke to sunny skies and flat seas. When you are in a storm, you find all the small leaks on a boat. Bremer Speck is a very solidly built Nauticat. But even the best boat has hidden leaks and we found some. There is some work ahead of me.
We endured a Nor'Easter for what felt like a verry long time. Unlike the other boats in the race, we were late exiting the bay and when we did, we were greeted by silence. No wind. We went in circles for about 12 hours. When we finally got going again, we were on the receiving end of the low and experienced the same to its fullest extent. Woo Hoo. Not.
We also experienced a couple of equipment related failures. With the exception of having to wrestle with the staysail in the storm on the foredeck, everything else was\is just an inconvenience.
At this time, we are motoring to Block Island with about 40 miles to go.

Cooking a meal at sea!

Cooking a meal at sea can be an adventure! The boat is moving all the time and you have to time your moves to assure the coffee goes into the cup and not on the floor. Cooking on a gimballed stove can be fun, too! The stoves stays level at all times but can swing wildly and that may be away fromn you, just when you tried to lift the pot off the stove. For that and many more reasons, it is very important to use a "butt belt" as shown in the photo. This device helps you staying in place. It does not guarantee that everything stays put. You still must be very careful when you work in the galley! A gimballed stove is great because it stays level but it does not save you from the coffee pot jumping out at you when the boat lurches sideways. This happened to me, yesterday, when I brewed some morning coffee. Luckily,I caught the pot and was able to keep it from shattering on the floor. My T-shirt got soaked with coffee, however, and it is now a working tee, when appearances do not matter.

Experiencing a Nor'Easter at sea!

Some people have gotten worried about us since they had not heard from us in about 48hours. One of our friends even called the Coast Guard to report us as potentially being in trouble. I found out when the sat phone (our brand new "Skipper 150" Inmarsat FleetBroadband terminal)rang earlier today. When I asked who is calling, the answer was "Your friends, the U.S. Coast Guard!) I was asked to confirm that everything was ok and that we were not in need of assistance. I happily confirmed this. Not that this is a joy ride. Being at the center of a Nor'Easter with gusting winds up to 60 knots is no fun. Especially not, when I had to crawl forward on the foredeck during the night to take down the staysail, which had blown out a block and was no longer controllable. I was doused by a couple of waves. At least, the water was warm. I wrestled down the staysail and lashed it to the rail. Well, if you have followed our progress on iboattrack.com you know, that we are no longer in the race. As skipper I had to make a decision. Continue on to Bermuda and get clobbered by the Gulf stream or make a hard decision. The prudent decision was to turn around to savely return the crew home and to keep the boat from being battered by the sea. I am not happy about the decision because all of us worked hard to get ready for this trip. But, as the saying goes, better be safe than sorry. There is always a next time. Incidentally, the Coast Guard agreed with my assessment. Things have improved a tiny little it. Given the very confused state of the seas, we are motoring very, very slowly back towards Marion. Our speed is less than 1 knot SOG.
By comparison, the "Skipper 150" speed is blazingly fast. It feels like the average WiFi connection. We have a big 19 inch overhead screen showing iboattrack right now (in addition to the Raymarine chartplotter, we also use the PC and this monitor for navigation with Coast Explorer software). I am typing this entry on my notebook, connected via WiFi. More to follow.

We did finally escape from Buzzards Bay

After having sat idle with no winds for a good 10 hours, we are finally underway again with a course towards Bermuda. The fog cleared out mid morning and we did have sunny skies until the wind arrived... and new fog. But we are moving now, ever so slowly, which is better than doing donuts all night. We were literally drifting in circles all night. No fun. Especially not in thick fog.
While crossing the traffic separation lanes last night, we heard from a container barge, which was closing on us fast. We got out of the traffic lane real fast.
Meantime, my Hydrovane wind vane is working perfectly. Love it. Highly recommended.
Judge by what I have seen on iboattrack.com early this morning, the entire fleet has been dealing with no wind. While we were the last boat to exit the bay, I found all of the others, shown fairly close-by. I have added a photo of the nightview from last night.

We have crossed the starting line!

Now we are trying to escape Buzzards Bay. Luckily, the rain has stopped. Now it is just overcast and the sun is nowhere to be seen. Jockeying at the start line was very intense. But now the entire fleet is under way and spread out over the bay.
More to follow soon.

Race Day is here!

It is Friday morning, 0700 hours and in a couple of hours from now, we will be racing towards Bermuda. The weather is miserable. Rain all night and continuing on and off. Gray skies. Where is the sun? The weather cforecast is not exciting. We may encounter very strong winds. Depending on whose forecast you want to believe, we could be in for 25 to 30 knots of wind. Well, we are a sailboat. Stay tuned for more, later.

With 9 Volts to Bermuda... NOT

Found out last night that we have a charging problem. House battery bank was drained down to 9 volts and everything shut-down! Mechanic was on board this morning. He thinks he found the problem. Presently, we are running the engine and the batteries are taking a charge. Let us cross our fingers.....

Bremer Speck is now swinging on a mooring in Marion awaiting race day!

We left Maine on Saturday afternoon towards our destination in Marion on Cape Cod. We sailed for about 4 hours. Unfortunately, the wind was blowing from the wrong direction and our heading was more towards Africa than Cape Cod. After a few hours of tacking back and forth, we decided to switch on the engine and kept motoring towards our destination. Strangely enough, every time I try to reach Cape Cod, I have the wind on the nose and in order to get there, I end-up motoring most of the way. We arrived in Sippican Harbor about 10:00 hours on Sunday morning. A little mishap during the night meant, that I had to go up the mast. I spent an hour up there, wrestling the main sail out of the mast cavity, where it had gotten stuck, after I managed to furl the main, with the swing-batten in the horizontal position. Somehow, that straight piece of a batten did not like being wound-up into the mast.
Well, another lesson learned the hard way. $$$. I am now in Marion trying to tie-up a few loose ends. Stay tuned for more.

The Wallas Diesel Cooker is Kaput!

Only 14 more days to the race and I found out a couple of nights ago, that my Wallas diesel cooker has broken down and needs to be repaired. Nearest place of service is the importer\dealer in Seattle. Estimated cost of repairs is $1,000.00 but I have no time for that because the oven would have to be put on a pallet and shipped by truck to Seattle. So, I am supporting the economy and have ordered a Force 10 propane stove from West Marine with overnight delivery. They delivered, alright. But, after removing the packaging, it turns out the unit is damaged in more than one place! What else can go wrong? Called West to get it replaced. They will ship replacement today with Saturday delivery, at their cost. I am crossing my fingers.