Not the best of days...

"Of all the years I have been doing this, I've never seen that happen before." Hearing that is not a good way to start a day.

First thing this morning, we fired up First Light and moved to the Blue Line. We were number two for the lift. Before the 0900 start time for the lift a few other boats pulled up behind. The plan was to simply get through and then wait out the weather on the low side, riding to a town dock. The first boat went over the hill without difficulty. Then it was our turn.

We pulled into the straps and shut down. As per procedure, we closed all the thru-hulls: generator, A/C, deck wash, and engines. But the lift operator didn't like the way the boat was riding, so we opened up the engine thru-hulls, backed out, re-entered, shut down, closed the thru-hulls. Again the lift operator didn't like the way the boat was riding. He asked about our weight distribution. First Light's water tanks are in the very stern and, given that we were planning a few days away from support, full. I suggested that we empty them. The lift operator said that wouldn't be necessary but asked if we would back out and let them move another boat while he made a phone call. Thu-hulls opened, fired up, backed out.

We tried to take a floating dock near where the lift loads up. It was built for wave runners, not a 42 foot trawler. It had no cleats and sat very low in the water. After a few tries to land I insisted that we bail out of the attempt before someone (Deb) got hurt or we banged into the dock hard enough to do damage. We just hung out for a bit before a different (and obviously senior) operator called us over. Into the slings we went. Engines off, thru-hulls closed. He didn't like it. “Thru-hulls opened, fired up, backed out, pulled in, engines off, thru-hulls closed. “That's better” he said. "I like it." Finally!

Commands were given, the boat moved...then it moved some more...then the bow pitched for the sky while the boat rolled to starboard. More commands were given, this time loudly and with a purpose. The boat stopped moving, bow up, starboard side down. I was barely standing on the high side of the bow holding onto the rail. Deb was on the low side rail and thought she heard something crunch.  But no one was hurt. Something that could have easily gone badly the other way.  Another 10 degree or so of pitch and roll and there is no telling where on, or under what, Deb and I would have landed. Almost for certain First Light would have been totaled. 

They got the boat leveled off.  With the thru-hulls opened, we fired up and backed out of the slip. We searched but couldn't find anything that crunched. There was no shaft or prop vibration with power. The rudders worked and there doesn't appear to be any leaks around prop or rudder shafts. But I have yet to be convinced that no damage was done. 

We hung around for a while more. The (more senior) lift operator called us in and asked if we could empty the water tanks. He was sure that would take care of the problem. Of course we could, glad you thought of it. 

We motored back over to the dock we spent the night on and started to off load the water. Being the smart person that I am I fired up the generator so as not to kill the batteries pumping off a few hundred gallons of wet stuff. Yep, you got it, THAT thru-hull was still closed. In all the excitement I simply forgot about it. A few minutes later the gen auto-shut down due to over temp. I let it cool, reset the fault breaker, and fired it up. No water came out the exhaust. No water? No power. Time for a whole new plan. 

I had us move to the Big Chute Marina for the night so we could regroup with electricity and had water available. Clearly we were not going any further this day. Unfortunately, the forecast storms had the wind picking up just as we tried to get into the too-small slip we had been assigned. One that already had a small boat in it. I shouldn't have even tried. Within seconds it was clear that it wouldn't work, but I completely botched the attempted go around. I did manage to miss the little boat. I didn't manage to miss the dock with Fist Light's port stern.  I also didn't manage to miss the bow pulpit of the boat the next slip over. Why didn't I back up a little more? Because the wind was swinging my stern faster than I had anticipated and into a work barge tied downwind and behind us. I was sure the swim platform wouldn't take the hit.

We moved to a different slip, and this time with a little on-shore help, I managed to get us  parked without bouncing off of anything else. We have shore power, access to water and, I hope, the dock is stout enough to take the incoming weather. In the meantime I am waiting for the gen to cool off enough for me to try and figure out why no water. Hopefully it is just the impeller. But the way this day has gone? I am expecting the worst...and I can't even guess what that might be.

So, here we are. No matter what happens next, the Big Chute is going to cost us time and money. We nearly lost the boat. We are very lucky no one got hurt. I did managed to throw in some damage anyway, and I can't make any call as to when we will be moving again. It may be tomorrow. It may be a week from tomorrow. Will we be able to get into the lift in a way that is safe? No way to know.  If not, it is a long, long way to St. Louis from here going back the way we came. More the puzzle? This is not First Light's first time around the loop. She has been through this very lift before. There was no reason to think this would be any kind of a problem. I thought it anyway and, unfortunately, I was right. 

So, as always, plans have changed.  At some point in the next few hours we will see what we see and do what we can do. Off in some future yet to be experienced, this will all be just be another part of the story, another memory. I will get over doing the dumb things I did. They weren't  the first, and certainly will not be that last dumb things I will do. As the old saying goes, if I was perfect they would have to pay me more. Or, at least, agree when I suggest we take the water off the boat.

LATER: A new impeller (that we had in ship's stock) and the Generator is back on line. In fact it is spitting more water out of the exhaust than we remember it ever doing. So, though I'm sure my dumb move with the thru-hull trashed the old one, it may well have been on its last little flapper thing legs already. (Oh, and for those who are curious, I sucked a bunch of little rubber bits out of the system before putting in the new impeller. Except for one tiny bit, all missing rubber flapper parts are accounted for.) There is some light cosmetic damage to First Light. Add it to the list of things I'll take care of in St. Louis. I can't find any damage on the boat I thumped, but we will wait to see what the marina mechanic has to say. If he finds something we will certainly step up and take care of it.

The sky is lighting up and the thunder is near. This is as good a place as any to ride out whatever is coming. With the generator back in service and the weather forecast in our favor, the current plan is to leave in the morning. Though things are not as bad as it seemed a few hours ago, it still hasn't been the best of days.  But, you know what? It hasn't been the worst of days either. And I still hear Kato in the background—"Boy, you gotta look at the good side 'till you're sure you can't do that no more."

Subtle shoves

Yesterday's first look at the impeller gave rise to the thought of just leaving it alone. It looked new. Even as good as Oak Harbor has been to us we have been in this place for far too many weeks. The boat is in the water. The summer is rushing by. There are other tasks that need finished before we can go. Why waste a day doing something that doesn't need done? But changing the impeller is routine maintenance, this one was at least a couple of years old, and the cover was already off. So I grabbed it with the recommended pliers and pulled, which is when I discovered it was stuck. After rejecting the first thought of just letting it be, I pulled the pump out, set it on the bench, and let it soak in PB Blaster over night. (Not the whole pump, just where the impeller goes on the shaft.)

This morning Deb scrounged up the recommended JABSCO impeller puller which only managed to rip the rubber blade assembly off of its bronze insert. After some very esoteric attempts at making the puller work, then disassembling the pump from the wrong end backwards (I'm not sure how else to describe it) with the aid of a 12 ton press, the offending impeller insert was finally freed from the exposed shaft with the adroit ministrations of a disk grinder. None of this falls under the heading of “routine maintenance” and the disassembled parts now cover my work bench.

The 5320-0011 guts with which we are becoming all to familiar

Along the way I also discovered that the seals were dry and cracking and the wear plate is badly worn. As it the cover plate. We are looking for a parts kit to rebuild the pump, though it may be that getting a new one will be the better choice. The price is a bit scary though, so we will see.

The odd thing is I almost just let it be, and am not entirely sure why I didn't. The pump was working fine. The Beast, ever since the heat exchanger overhaul, runs at a content 178 degrees and spits plenty of water. There was no evidence that the pump was leaking and no compelling reason to do anything with it, particularly with the other tasks that are still hanging. But a subtle shove had me tripping over the impeller, and the rest unfolded like it was scripted. Had the impeller not been frozen I would never have noticed the other, impending, failures. It is hard to say how before they would have happened, but this time around we hope to be in the water for nearly three years without a major maintenance stop. We hope to be in some places where a pump failure could be a very big deal indeed. There is very little chance it would have gone that long, and a reasonable chance that it would have failed in one of those places. I don't know why I got tangled up with this pump, but I'm glad I did.

Maybe its left over from my aviation days. The best mechanics I worked with always wanted to know the “why” of a failure. Why did this wheel bearing fail inspection while the other nine passed? Why this crack in this place? What is that noise, that odd color, that strange odor? Needing to understand was a habit, nearly an obsession. They didn't miss much and I always felt comfortable flying the airplanes they maintained.

It appears to be a good habit to practice around boats as well.

The impeller was stuck. It isn't a particularly good design and looks susceptible to just such a failure. As it turns out (long story) the impeller puller would never work as advertised on this particular unit. If the impeller gets jammed, there is no getting it free short of taking the pump apart wrong way backwards. But I understand the “why” of it now, and learned that the pump was deep into its service life.  When we leave here that will not be the case.

I'll take that kind of shove any day.