Now that's impressive

Now that's impressive   …   Friday 26th April 2013

Undoubtedly one of the great things about being on this trip is meeting new people. Today I went to do the laundry (impressive in itself) and met a couple of really nice guys called John and Andrew who are living aboard and traveling on a Passport 42 sailboat. Over the past couple of years, with some breaks, they have made their way from San Francisco down the west coast, through the Panama canal and up through central America. John told me an incredible story of self sufficiency. Whilst in Panama they had changed the oil and oil filter on their Perkins diesel engine, but not noticed that they had left the old gasket on as well as fitting the new. The consequence being that they leaked oil and ended up seizing the engine. Fortunately they had only just left the marina and could be towed back to the dock. They then proceeded to take the entire engine out of the boat by putting a beam through a pair of ports and hoisting is up on that. Once off the boat they managed to place the engine under some palm trees so they could work on it. They downloaded instructions from the web, ordered a "rebuild kit" which John flew to Miami to pick that up and over the next month completely rebuilt it. John said that the kit contained absolutely everything they needed including a set of oversized bearings for the reconditioned crankshaft. He said the hardest thing was cleaning and de-greasing all the components. Once complete, the engine started straight away but quickly overheated and needed to be switched off. In their excitement to see it working they had forgotten to reconnect the cooling system! I saw a few photos of the operation and have to say I was mightily impressed.

Gloria arrived back safely from Maine - landing in Charleston at about 6pm. I think she was really happy that she made the trip but a little disheartened to see her parents struggling so much. She might write more on this tomorrow.

Mike

p.s I finished the fifth and final coat of varnish today. Building on the layers that were already there from last summer it's starting to get a really sleek smooth look.