Boat Issues

We’ve had a few more boat issues along the way, but nothing of the magnitude of the inadequate anchor we experienced early in the trip.  The biggest issue has had to be the starboard engine.  For a while, we had been experiencing that intermittently the starboard engine wouldn’t engage in reverse (to be more specific, the saildrive was not engaging the propeller).  Tim was pretty sure he knew what it was and how to fix it (he actually found a blog post by another sailor explaining how to fix it), but he didn’t have the right tools,  and he was waiting for when Gary and Marsha were coming to visit so they could bring them down.  It was an issue when anchoring so we sometimes found ourselves having to spin an extra circle because starboard reverse wouldn’t work right when you needed it to.  We started assuming it wouldn’t work and never planned an approach near land that depended on it.  Then during one passage when we were motoring (when the engines were in forward gear, obviously) Tim asked me if I had shut down the starboard engine and when I answered no he asked me if the two engines were at the same RPM.  He was asking me this because he was observing that the wakes of the two propellers in the water looked differently.   So, we figured out that the starboard side wasn’t working in forward, and Tim decided we should shut it down and not use it until he was able to get it fixed.  When we went into Puerto Escondido we decided to anchor rather than pick up a mooring ball, because anchoring with one engine would be much easier.  He went to the boatyard in Puerto Escondido to see if they had the tool he needed socket, and they didn’t, but they tried another approach that initially seemed not to work until Tim came back to the boat and re-read the blog post and realized that the whole time they were tightening what they wanted to loosen.  He went back to the boatyard and they tried again and this time it worked.  Success seemed to be near but sometimes it can be so elusive.  When he was back at the boat he realized he had put the assembly back together wrong.  The boys and I were at the restaurant at this time enjoying wifi while the laundry was finishing, but I’m pretty sure we faintly heard the expletives emanating from Exodus by one frustrated Captain.  So, he went back to the boatyard a third time, and this time success really was near and even with all the back and forth, Tim fixed the problem in under a day, and we were back to a fully operational, two engine, catamaran.

Another issue that came up is the fuse would sometimes blow when trying to empty the head (specifically the waste holding tank) in Brenden’s room.  (“Brenden’s head is empty!”  Yeah, there’s no end to the amusement that joke brings.)  Replacing the fuse was a quick fix, but eventually the root cause had to be found.  Turns out the macerator at the exit of the holding tank was jammed with a small piece of plastic (not a lego, I feel obligated to point out).  OK, problem fixed.  Well, not quite.  Something must have gone wrong reinstalling the macerator because soon the odor in the bilge made it clear that Brenden’s holding tank was leaking.  So, that mess had to be cleaned up (not by me!) and Brenden’s head was out of commission until that could be dealt with.  It turned out that the macerator had a paper gasket that tore during the reinstallation, so Tim was able to borrow some liquid gasket from one of the other boats, and we were back to a fully functioning, three head, catamaran.  So, those of you who judge by the photos I post that the life of a cruising boat captain is all swimming, eating, and lounging around should know it takes al of hard work keeping this boat livable and sea-worthy.

We’ve also had a lot of fun tracking down some SSB radio noise sources.  I figured out early on that our fridge is the source of the very large chirping noise in the 6-8 MHz frequencies.  When using sailmail the instructions say over and over that you need to listen before transmitting because digital noise on the channel means someone else is using it and if you transmit you will step on them and neither one of you will be able to get your email.  So, the first few times I mistook the fridge chirping for digital noise, and I was baffled how the 7 MHz channel at the San Diego station was ALWAYS in use.  Anyway, although I was able to do digital transmissions through sailmail, it took a while before we found all the noise sources that were rendering voice communications all but impossible.  The obvious ones after the fridge were the inverter and the navigation equipment.  Then in La Paz, another cruiser said it could be the solar charge controller, so we shut that down too, and still couldn’t hear anything on the nets.  Then, one morning when I was straining to pick out Gary’s weather forecast out of the noise floor on the morning Sonrisa net Tim flipped off power to the water maker, and it was like the sky cleared and the sun broke through.  We could hear Gary loud and clear, and I was able to hear everyone on the Amigo net that morning for the first time.  The water maker wasn’t actually running at the time, but there are telemetry display electronics that are always on, so by cutting the power it shut those off.  I would never have predicted that would be such a huge noise source.  Getting rid of that has now uncovered a really loud hum at the 4 MHz frequency band.  I can still usually pick out the voice traffic, but it’s really annoying, so we still have to figure that one out.   When I listen to the Amigo net, some mornings there’s not much noise and some mornings it sounds like a train is driving by in the background.  So, I started thinking about what could be different from day to day that I could control.  I knew it was possible it was just varying propagation, but I wanted to at least try something.  The only thing I could come up with was the solar array orientation.  Some mornings I forget to point the solar arrays at the sun, and even when I do it’s not always the same direction since our heading could be different.  So, on a morning when the train was particularly loud I asked Tim to humor me and vary the solar array angle.  Aha!  Another mystery solved.   Our noise source investigations are still ongoing since we still seem to not have as good reception as some boats.  Of course, it could just be our antenna size.  Most monohulls put isolators at the top and bottom of their backstays and use that for the antenna.  We don’t have a backstay, so we have installed a 23’ whip antenna on our aft deck (right next to the solar array, incidentally) which is smaller than most backstays.

All in all, these issues have been manageable, and if you find all of it quite boring, I apologize, but I also feel compelled to write about the total cruising lifestyle, not just the turquoise water and happy hours.  However, we are more than happy to endure the difficult and the mundane in order to enjoy all of the amazing.