Location 29° 48S, 152° 00W
Thursday 12:00, 07.26.2007

The Schooner Maggie B was at 29° 48S, 152° 00W at noon on July 26th. We have 8-15 knot breeze from the SE to move us along on our course of about 030 to Raivavae at six or seven knots. The seas have calmed down nicely and, as of this writing, the 2/3 moon is guiding us along. We have about 440 NM to go to Raivavae.

Much of the day, however, was spent mostly stopped or going the wrong way due to systems problems. We hooked a fish at about ten o’clock this morning and went to Fishing Stations. When we tried to start the engine to be ready to maneuver, it wouldn’t start. It wouldn’t even turn over. The fish spat out the hook and we got to diagnosing our problem. Hmmm — plenty of battery power, and it’s trying to turn her over and it’s not going anywhere? OMG - waterlock!

Waterlock is when water gets in the engine, all the way to the cylinders. A diesel can compress air, but not water and if a cylinder is full of water, it isn’t going anywhere, unless the starter is strong enough to break things. How does water get in? Through the exhaust. Why don’t you have something to stop it? We do, a nice Vetus Air/water separator. But it must have been overwhelmed by six days of going hull speed (the primary wave when you are going fast “climbs up” the stern, submerging the engine exhaust) and we also had big following waves pushing the water in. Isn’t there anything you can do? Yes, run the engine every day to keep up the back pressure to help the air/water separator keep the South Pacific out. I forgot to do it.

So, how do you recover? First thing is to stop the water coming in. When I pulled off one of the injectors, lots of water came gurgling out. Lots, like an open tap to the sea. So we tacked over to port tack (the engine exhaust is on the port side) and slowed the boat down. The I cracked the low point in the exhaust system and let out perhaps 10 gallons into the bilge. Then off come the four fuel injectors (shaped sort of like spark plugs, but more complicated to remove). That opened up the cylinders. We turned over the engine a few revolutions with the starter which blew out the water from the cylinders. Then reinstalled the injectors. Then changed the oil (water in the oil not good). Then prayed that nothing was bent or broken. Then started it! Yea! after a splutter or two, she (?) started right up. We ran it for a few minutes and shut down to change the oil again and tighten up the injectors. Now it is running fine. We will change the oil a third time tomorrow morning.

This took about six hours.

Happily, we were able to call the Service Manager at Yanmar in Nelson, NZ and John Steele at Covey Island in Nova Scotia for advice, which was hugely important. And we had all the maintenance manuals.

In the midst of things, Ben was able to cook a tasty lunch, which was perhaps underappreciated in the stress, Hannah kept the boat in control and safe, and Theresa became expert at extracting and re-filling the oil system, which requires both strength and flexibility (read: contortionist).

But the weather is good, we all learned lots of lessons and Raivavae is only a few days away. Maybe we’ll land that fish tomorrow.

All is well.