Ups, downs, engines and rudder parts in Central Florida
We’re Back!!
Back in Sarasota, and excited to get the adventure started. But WHOA, there are some serious shortcomings to our Bubista II. Left to fend for herself over the last two months, she experienced several mishaps which will most likely delay our planned departure of April 10-11. Let's start with the enablers to all the problems - the house batteries.
As you may remember, our house batteries were weak on the entire trip from St. Thomas to Sarasota. Carlos' trip in January confirmed that, so we know we would be faced with pursuing new house batteries when we got here. True enough, the house batteries were completely dead when we boarded the boat on Sunday March 28th. OK, we'll get the engines going and charge them up, so we can move the boat as planned on April 1. The port engine started OK, and the house batteries started receiving charge.
A Nasty Surprise
The starboard engine wouldn't start.....Surprise! When we looked into the locker, the starboard engine compartment was about 1/2 full of water. ARRGH! Of course, the immediate task was to drain the compartment, with a convenient boom handle, the float was knocked and it started running with the charging from the port engine. With the house batteries dead and the solar charger not operating, the bilge pump didn't come on and water that got in there was not removed for the better part of 60 days. But how did the water get in there, you might ask?
That fun fact will be revealed in a second part of this story, which has a lot more twists and turns than going through Woods Hole in the summer - all to keep you interested.
Having a spare vs. having the correct spare
Carlos is pretty skilled with diesel engines, so as soon as he drained the dirty salt water and cleaned the locker, he troubleshot the starter as the initial issue. No problem, we have a spare! However, having a spare and having the right spare are two different things. The new one was much smaller on the connection end and didn't fit. We were off on a hunt for an equivalent starter! Amazon had them, amazingly. Good price, but couldn't deliver until April 8th. Ordered two anyway. Contacted Bill Regan, our broker and go to guy for all things Leopard and he pointed us to Mastry parts, an official Yanmar engine distributor close to us in St. Pete. Good news, they had one in stock; bad news it was 6X as much as the Amazon ones. This is a definite part of the boat life - having the right spares on board so you are not paying the premium price for them.
The starboard still won’t start. Take the chance.
Removing the port side starter
With the new starter installed, the starboard engine still would not turn over. A few clicks, but then nothing. OK, all you troubleshooting aficionados, what next? We needed to eliminate the starter as the issue, so Carlos chose to move the working starter from the port side to the starboard side. A little risky, I thought, but he was confident that we would be able to narrow down the root cause. Did I mention that he checked the oil on the starboard side and there was no water in the oil? Such a big relief! Did I also mention that while the port engine was running, it overheated? I'll come back to that in this blog.
He moved the "good" starter from the port to the starboard side, still no turn over. Using his experience, he was able to trace out the wires and do a "hot" start to get the engine to run, and it worked. It turned over, ran and appeared to be OK.
During this time, the dinghy engine started and we were free of depending on the marina to get us back and forth. Spare parts, cleaning supplies, some clothes and other ordered parts came over. Since the port engine had an overheating issue, he installed the new starter from the starboard on the port side and changed the impeller and filter for the water pump. Are you keeping up?
The rest of the clean up
Water in the food storage locker
Smaller issues included mold growth on the inside, caused by the bursting of 3 of the gallon bottles with water in them and the hot sun heating the inside. That mess was cleaned while Carlos worked on the starter issues. Cleaning the bathrooms, cabins and the food lockers - tossing anything that looked suspicious - took about two days. Carlos replaced the fairlead roller which was broken. There is still have an issue with the forward port cabin hatch - the mattress is always a little damp. However, I did notice that there was a lot of condensation on the inside of the hatch - maybe as we keep moving and getting fresh air inside the boat, this will be mitigated. As soon as possible, there will be mattress protectors in the 3 cabins to protect against any further damage.
Schedule met!
Although we couldn't get the starboard engine to start through the control panel, the hot start was good enough and we moved Bubista II to the slip at Marina Jack's on April 1. A 10 minute trip....Whew!! Now, we look for experienced help to troubleshoot the starting of the starboard engine.
