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Larry and Loren Hall foolishly signed up as crew
with an unproven vessel and novice skipper for the first leg north from
Seattle. We departed May 20th, 2001 after some great last minute
rigging adjustment from the fine folks at Sound Rigging. Expecting a Club Med style vacation, Larry imposed a
strenuous 11AM to 4PM traveling schedule upon us (perhaps
reflecting his normal working hours as a lawyer).
Fortunately, the weather was sunny and hot for the first week, so
much time was spent motoring, tanning, and reading. The
trip almost ended prematurely in Comox B.C. when the idiot captain
(er, me) forgot to reopen the engine cooling seacock after
cleaning the raw water strainer. After idling for
about 5 minutes, we experienced the horror of finding smoke
suddenly pouring from the engine compartment while engine RPM
simultaneously took a nosedive. Fortunately,
the damage turned out to be minor. The Vetus Waterlock,
a 3 gallon plastic box which cools the exhaust by mixing it with
seawater, melted slightly from the heat. This failure
allowed exhaust gases to fill the engine compartment, robbing the
diesel of oxygen which accounted for the loss of RPM.
I have no idea if the use of plastic in this particular
application is intentional, so that the fairly inexpensive plastic
box will fail and shut down the engine before major damage occurs
from heat build up, but it worked in this case.
After
changing oil and replacing the apparently undamaged raw
water impeller, we fashioned a temporary bypass for the Vetus by
making a large loop of 2" exhaust hose. This seemed to
work fine for the next few days until we could obtain a
replacement.
 Leg Highlights:
Orcas near San Juan Island, smooth
waters in Johnstone Strait, Crease Island anchorage. |
