Shaking down

Kintala is (mostly) a going proposition once again. The new alternator pumps 30+ amps into the batteries, so long as the RPM is bumped up a bit. Which works for us since we never use the WesterBeast as a stand alone generator. Unfortunately there is no clue as to what that RPM “bump” might be as the tach is utterly inert. It could be the thing has simply reached the end of its service life, though my guess is the new alternator has an output signal that is incomprehensible to the old tach. If there is a way to get the two talking the same language, that information seems to have been lost. The tach manufacturer went out of the tach manufacturing business ages ago, with little information from that bygone era finding its way onto the internet. We will likely figure out something but, in my humble opinion, whoever decided that using alternators for tach drive information was a good idea, should have been buying a better cut of weed. We will fix it if and when we can, but the boat will run without it. I do have to admit that this old airplane pilot/mechanic just shudders at the idea of ignoring broken things. Nothing good ever comes from ignoring broken things.

With the boat operable again, we are now looking for a weather window to head north. We almost had one. Unfortunately, by the time the alternator was installed and tested, and the inside of the boat was reassembled into a living - rather than working - area, it was too late to do the provisioning and boat prep needed to be on our way. Not sure that will turn out to be a bad thing, as it appears the weather would have kept us pinned in No Name Harbor for a while. We love No Name, but it is a long, long walk to the store. Given that Sub-tropical storm Alberto is heading in this general direction, laying low for a few more days seems like a good idea.

A good idea that is struggling to make headway against hearts that dearly want to be chasing down Blowin' In The Wind and then finding a place to park Kintala for a visit back to St. Louis. This particular chapter in our voyage has been a trial. After a year at the dock and a lot of work being done to the boat, we never expected this run around the Keys to be a parade of breakdowns. The Jabsco raw water pump, the Lavac head pump, and the Balmar alternator failure have left us missing several potential weather windows. At least this much can be said for the quality of marine industry manufacturing, it is consistently bad.

It is often said that, when it comes to marine items, you can get “cheap”, “fast”, and “good”, but only two at the same time. It seems more like “expensive”, “slow”, and “poor” are the real choices, but you do get all three at once. Recently I touched down on the blogs of good friends also out cruising. One had to replace a starting battery that is barely three years old. The other suffered a (relatively new Jabsco) water pump failure that put his water maker out of service. Both are out in the islands, so they were served an extra portion of “expensive”.

Like all chapters, this one will, eventually, close. Boats are always going to break, and the marine industry is not likely to improve in my lifetime. Fortunately these kinds of problems do tend to come in clusters. We did sit for a long time. This Key’s rounding is simply a shakedown cruse that shook out some problems. We still see sunsets from our cockpit, watch the dolphins and pelicans play, don’t have to please a crass or uncaring employer to keep food on the table, and live a life much more conducive to some basic sanity and humanity than what is often found on land.

Now, if it would just quit raining for a couple of days.

Limping in circles...

Kintala is still swinging to a mooring ball in Boot Key Harbor. We have been here a week or so, waiting out beam seas and headwinds in the Hawk Channel. This morning held promise of being the start of a marginal, but doable, two day weather window that would see us in No Name Harbor.

Ah, but then we did the engine checks…

Deb found the engine case around the Jabsco water pump completely encrusted in salt. That pump, now officially designated as a Papa-Oscar-Sierra so far as Kintala is concerned, has failed yet again. The good news is it didn’t start puking on the way from Marco Island to Shark River, rather waiting until we left Shark River to come to Marathon. Here we can borrow bikes to ride to West Marine, order up a new pump (again) and a rebuild kit (again) for the old pump. The old-old pump from the last time we did this doesn’t look like a good candidate for rebuild. The plan, from now on anyway, is to have a rebuilt pump always sitting on the shelf. In fact, we will likely have both a pump and a second rebuild kit on the shelf. That is how little we have come to trust this essential piece of equipment, particularly given our tendency to anchor out in places far from support facilities.

Some days I really, really hate the lack of quality control that seems endemic in the marine industry. This would be one of those days. It is the seal at the drive pulley that keeps failing and, yes, I know that often indicates too much tension on the belt. No, it isn’t the belt tension on Kintala causing the problem. (I've put on a few thousands belts.) A good friend of ours, also with a Tartan 42 / WesterBeast, had so much trouble with his Jabsco that he replaced it a different manufacturer’s pump. It turned out the replacement pump had issues of its own, specifically a drift key much too light for the loads placed on it. At least a leaking pump will still move enough water to get one to shore. A sheared drift key will bring the Beast to halt. So we will stay with the Jabsco.

Though this is a good place to get stuck with a mechanical, missing the weather window is now a pretty sure bet. As a result we are going to modify our cruising routine a bit. Back when I made  a living as an air ambulance pilot the procedure was to do a post flight inspection rather than a pre -flight. That way we could be airborne as quickly as possible when called. We still did a quick walk around when climbing aboard, mostly to ensure that no one had bumped into the aircraft with a fuel truck or something.  That was a routine I had established years before. A habit formed the night a fork truck driver at New York’s JFK managed to poke a window out of the Navajo I was flying, but didn’t bother to tell me about it. Fortunately I had duct tape on board…seriously. There are lots of stories in the airplane world you probably don’t want to hear. Anyway…

From now on, when Kintala drops a hook or picks up a ball somewhere where she is likely to be for a couple of days, we are going to do a post-sail deck and engine check. The deck check is sort of done just by putting the boat to sleep for the night or, more accurately, setting up the deck so we can sleep. But, from now on the engine checks are going to get done as well. If that had been our procedure last week, we could have fixed the WesterBeast while sitting, waiting on weather anyway.

We really can’t keep missing weather windows.

It is fair to say that I have been a life long wanderer, by airplanes big and small, cars, motorcycles, hiking boots and, late in my life, sailboats. If this particular trip was being done in any of the above (except a sailboat) the weather that has kept us stationary - and will likely keep us parked even after the Beast is repaired - would not be any consideration at all. It would not cause the least bit of discomfort while moving and certainly would not entail any additional risk. At the moment I am finding that to be a bit frustrating. I know, “The journey is the destination” but this doesn’t feel like journeying. Between trying to stay at least somewhat comfortable while under way, and nursing the mechanicals of a boat in a salt water environment, if feels like limping in endless circles.

But we will limp along knowing, eventually, some kind of wandering line will eventually be drawn on the chart. We will be somewhere else, and that much closer to catching up with Blowin' In The Wind.