Saturday, December 7, 2024

Engine issues and other maintenance challenges

Engine issues and other maintenance challenges

Thursday 5th to Saturday 7th December, 2024


As any serious cruiser knows, it takes a lot of effort to maintain your boat. I personally think that if you don’t like boat maintenance then it’s a mistake to buy a boat. The exception of course is if you are financially loaded, in which case you just hire someone to do all the work! I do enjoy working on the boat, but I have to say that since rejoining Cotinga three weeks ago, the number and variety of boat issues has been a little overwhelming. I suspect that keeping the boat in the tropics is tough on all the systems.


Just before we were about to drop Pete and Jo at Anse d’l’Anne, I did a routine check of the engine and found a leak coming from the fresh water side of the heat exchanger.  This was obvious because the greenish color on the white mat below the engine indicated anti-freeze!  We were quite concerned as the heat exchanger is something we replaced just three years ago.  To add to our dismay, there was also salt water in the tray below the engine—AGAIN.  Despite our concerns it was lunch time - so we headed to shore! 


After a wonderful lunch out (entrecôte steak and fries for Gloria, Pete and myself, seafood ravioli for Jo) it was time to transfer luggage to shore and to say farewell to our friends who will spend another week on Martinique, before returning to the UK. It has been great having them cruise with us.


Our attention then became focused on engine leaks.  An examination of the salt water hose  that had been leaking earlier, revealed that the hose clip on the other end was badly rusted. (The hose is only 3" long!). We suspect that this end of the hose might have been the original leak - leading to ingress of salt water and rusting of the clips, with the far one failing and causing the major leak. Attempts to tighten the remaining clip, resulted in a fracture of the metal band.  A new clip was installed.  At least for now that seems to have stopped the accumulation of salt water in the tray under the engine.


The leak from the fresh water side seems more difficult to solve.  I have treated the area with nearly every glue or adhesive that we have to hand.  So far the leak persists but is fairly minor, and aggravating! We have ordered a replacement gasket, but just getting the end off the heat exchanger is a massive job - because of what else is in the way. When I replaced the whole unit three years ago I had to take apart the kitchen cabinetry before I could even start disassembling the heat exchanger. What is more worrying is that it was a similar leak that was a problem three years ago, but on that occasion the aluminum body of the heat exchanger had corroded so badly that a new gasket wouldn’t have solved the problem. Why is this happening?


To add insult to injury, the salt water in the engine has caused the connections on the engine “stop” relay to become rusted and so switching off the engine using the regular “stop” button has become hit or miss. I have tried cleaning up the terminals, with some success, and have ordered a spare relay. Unfortunately the receiver box for the relay is an integral part of the wiring harness. 


Let’s switch topics to a real shit situation! While Pete and Jo were aboard, we started to believe that our holding tank monitor was giving some false readings.  On passages, we would successfully pump the tank overboard, but the gauge would often fail to drop or in fact look higher than the initial level?  Frequently, this could be resolved by turning the whole system off and re-starting the gauge.  Over time, this solution also let us down.  To resolve the issue with the ultrasound gauge, we were pretty sure we just needed to clean the “focus tube” in the holding tank … another lovely job! However, we first had to get to the top of the tank.  This involved removing half of the contents in the lazarette (the large locker in the cockpit). Anyone who had seen the inside of our lazarette will appreciate this Herculean task. That’s only the beginning of the misery.  I then had to unscrew the top of the holding tank and remove the sensor and the focus tube.  Much reaming of the focus tube in a bath of sea water followed by reassembly and general disinfection of tools and hands, seems to have resolved the holding tank monitor problem….


With all of these unanticipated problems, it was something of a surprise when we able to get our water maker (reverse osmosis desalinator) up and running with relatively little effort. Anchored off Anse Chaudierre, we felt the sea water was sufficiently clean and we were able to make our first 5 gallons of fresh water. We’ll call that a victory! 


With so much to sort out on the boat it’s been hard to contemplate doing much exploration on land - so other than boat projects we have mostly been hanging out on the boat, taking the odd swim and doing some snorkeling, and generally trying to relax!


Mike and Gloria


14 28.880 N, 61 04.890 W



This is a photograph of a bowl made from palm fronds that we bought in Marigot Bay, St Lucia. The photo was converted to it's negative (inverted) and partially changed to B&W, thereby muting the colors. I've been struggling for inspiration with my photography recently (probably because we've been so busy) but I really like the way this turned out.


Anchored off Anse Chaudierre. This is a lovely peaceful spot on the south west coast of Martinique. However, today (Saturday) lots of powerboats showed up and it got a bit loud!


A couple racing through the anchorage on their JetSki.

1 comment:

  1. Perhaps we were the albatrosses, and now we've left Cotinga, all your maintenance problems will stop ??🤔🤞🏻🤞🏻 It does sound like you've made some progress though! Pete

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