It always does....
Just before sunset, time to charge the batteries. Send young Patrick back to start up the engine. He forgets to put the engine in neutral first and starts it in reverse. Ouch, that can't be good for the engine. Luckily, he figures it out quickly and by the time I get to the throttle control he has us in neutral. Nice heart attack for all onboard in the mean time.
Now I figure that the prop is flipped into reverse position and I need to put the engine in fwd in order to properly feather the blades and return to neutral. I slow the boat heading into the wind and then shift into fwd.
"All holy hell" breaks out from what sounds like under the boat?? )*$%%$^ what was that?? I try again slowly this time, and those below scream up on deck that something is seriously wrong down below!! Seriously wrong??? How bad is it?? I ask about water entering the bilge??? None seen. Well that's good. I shut the engine down, put the boat back on autopilot and run below to see what's up. Chris already has the cover off the shaft and with a couple of flashlights (remember sunset?) we try to see what's happened?? Is the strut loose?? Cracks?? Holes?? Nothing...
Humm...that noise was not imagined so we work our way up the shaft to the "universal" that connects the shaft to the transmission. Something definitely wrong here.... Grease everywhere, the coupling normally attached to the shaft adaptor by six bolts is hanging by one (barely) and there are misc bolts and parts sitting in the bilge.
How in the world did this all come apart?? Starting in reverse doesn't force six bolts to unwind all at once?? Must have been working loose for some time now.
No water, no threat of water, and everything was still basically "in place". Good we are not going to sink. But...will we be able to ever use our engine on this trip? Or will we drift through the high??
Time will tell. Frederic Laffitte is 100 miles ahead of us. His company sells this "Aquadrive" coupler and we've been on the radio talking to him about it. We know how to put it back together and have the tools to do that. But...it requires "high temperature grease" and all we have in winch grease.
So...in a day or two when the wind drops I'll spend a few hours in the bilge and we'll see what happens.
Nothing to worry about, if we can't motor, we have sails and fuel for about 80 days of battery charging!!
Just another lesson that out here, you need to think through everything that you do. There are problems and potential disasters lurking everwhere just waiting for a chance to leap out and ruin your day (or your boat!)
August 2nd, 0515 HST
30 01N, 155 50W
19 knots
110M
Misc Squalls
Heading 45M
- Jim Gregory
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