Port Engine Impeller

Our intention was to leave Rabi in the early evening for the two-day passage up to Rotuma. We got a bit of a late start due to an issue with the port engine. And now, since I am the one who writes these narratives, I get to be the one to tell my side of the story. I would like to take the opportunity now to say that I had been telling Tim since Savusavu that the port engine was exhibiting off-nominal behavior at start up. What I had noticed, and what I had communicated to him, was that it would take much longer than normal for water to start coming out, and that the first burst of water wasn’t a burst at all like it normally is, rather it was more of a trickle, and it would take some time for the bursting behavior to build up. Tim’s response to this was to lecture me about how the impeller and water-cooling system works, and the behavior I was observing was clearly consistent with the way it works. Well, that may be, but all I know is I have been starting the engines for almost three years, and what I observe now is different behavior than what has always been “normal.”

Anyway, this time, when we were ready to depart Rabi and I started the engine, no water at all came out of the Port side. When it became obvious to me that no water was going to come, I quickly shut down the engine. Tim had me restart it so that he could see for himself, and then he went into trouble shooting mode. Luckily, this wasn’t too hard to troubleshoot, since the intake impeller is the obvious first place to check. Sure enough, our impeller had pretty much shredded to pieces and had only one of its original 12 “blades” still fully in tact. We had a spare, Tim replaced it quickly, and off we went. And I didn’t even say “I told you so.” (Not then, anyway.)