Blissful sailing, bittersweet ending, outboard ho!
After buying a used filter housing that kinda, sorta fit my engine and spending thirty something dollars on fittings, I threw in the towel on that option for a host of reasons. The weather cleared Friday evening and I had a revelation that I didn't need the hard copper piping since this was all upstream of the injector pump. A trip to West Marine ended in a bulkhead mounted Racor at 2 micron filtration downstream of my existing 30 micron Racor, plumbed to the fuel and injector pumps with flexible hosing. It worked perfectly.
Elizabeth came into town on Friday and after picking up some supplies for lunch we were planning to sail to Block Island. When the key was turned and the ignition button pressed however, nothing happened: dead battery. I had read about, and knew I had, a manual crank starting option that I had not attempted before. With Elizabeth at the compression lever and my hands cranking as fast as possible, it started on the second try! By the time we had this sorted and weighed anchor though the wind had switched direction to an unfavorable southwest. No Block Island, but we'd have a great afternoon in the bay!
It blew a steady 10-15 out of the southwest all afternoon under a cloudless sky. I essentially single handed the entire trip from anchor to anchor, with Elizabeth only holding the tiller steady from time to time. One feature I was truly amazed about was how well Soveraine tracks. I essentially steered the boat using the sails alone, and leaving the tiller nearly hands free. This allowed me to go to the bow to take this picture:
Elizabeth came into town on Friday and after picking up some supplies for lunch we were planning to sail to Block Island. When the key was turned and the ignition button pressed however, nothing happened: dead battery. I had read about, and knew I had, a manual crank starting option that I had not attempted before. With Elizabeth at the compression lever and my hands cranking as fast as possible, it started on the second try! By the time we had this sorted and weighed anchor though the wind had switched direction to an unfavorable southwest. No Block Island, but we'd have a great afternoon in the bay!
It blew a steady 10-15 out of the southwest all afternoon under a cloudless sky. I essentially single handed the entire trip from anchor to anchor, with Elizabeth only holding the tiller steady from time to time. One feature I was truly amazed about was how well Soveraine tracks. I essentially steered the boat using the sails alone, and leaving the tiller nearly hands free. This allowed me to go to the bow to take this picture:
And the reciprocal!
Up and down the bay we went, for over 4 hours, on every point of sail, playing with the currents, sail combinations, jib car placement, etc, etc. We sailed right into the harbor past Goat Island where I turned on the engine near the anchorage. I rolled up the jib, took the main and mizzen down, flaked and tied them up. I went to the cockpit and put the engine into gear. Huh, we didn't go anywhere, and there was no prop wash out the stern. Again: neutral, forward, throttle. Nothing.
In a drill familiar to Memorial Day I popped the jib back out and sailed to an open spot in the anchorage. I dropped and set the hook and then immediately dove into the engine compartment. I knew this adjustment well, I had made a similar one at the dock before I left. However, this time, even with the collar tightened to its maximum, I could still turn the prop shaft by hand with the transmission in forward: not good. My suspicions were confirmed when I started the engine back up and again, the prop did not spin. A call to the mechanic who worked on my transmission previously told me what I had thought: the discs were shot and need to be replaced. Those parts may or may not still be available, and if they are, they're coming from one place in Sweden, i.e. $$$$.
After working on this engine for a year and sinking some serious dough into it, I've decided to go the outboard route. A newer, albeit lower powered outboard will be a much more reliable source of propulsion when I really need it. And, apparently, between using the hip-tied 3.5 horsepower dinghy from Watch Hill to Newport last summer, catching a mooring under sail on Memorial Day and anchoring under sail on Saturday, I don't need it all that much. In all reality, the sailing is the easy part. It's an aging mechanical device that has really been the bane of this boat. The running and standing rigging; rebuilding the bowsprit; designing, making and installing new chainplates; that's the fun stuff. Working on an engine that continuously disappoints in new ways, making a mockery of my efforts, that's the drudgery.
There have been many successful sailors with under powered auxiliaries. It all comes from a standpoint of expectations. Can I expect a 8 horsepower outboard, mounted on the transom, to push me through 5 foot chop on the nose? Of course not. If there was that much chop, I'd expect there to be a fair amount of wind with it. Against a 4 knot current? No way. Wait for the current to change, I can think of very, very few places where any current flows that strong in only one direction. Bernard Moitessier, in his 13 ton Joshua, had a very modest 7.5 horsepower two stroke. Ben and Danielle on Ganymede have an 8 horsepower outboard, and they have done over 3,000 miles in a boat that weights 10 tons, 4 tons more than mine! A great link to an article Ben wrote about his outboard and their trip through the Panama Canal: http://www.bwi.org/bwicontest/files/727-amotoringmuse.pdf James Baldwin on Atom weighs in here (question 9): http://www.atomvoyages.com/planning/cruising-q-a-a/72-frequently-asked-questions.html
So there it is. An 8-9.9 horsepower four stroke outboard, with a long shaft and a high thrust propeller. Simple, efficient. I welcome any questions, comments or suggestions!
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