Just a little rubber part, but the engine will melt down in minutes without it!

Booby Madness! The minute the engine stopped, this guy landed on the deck! "MY BOAT. GET OFF!"

You have to take half the cabin apart to get to the impeller

Great to be sitting here although it’s windy as all get out. Been blowing 20 to 30 knots all night and into today (it’s 1500 right now). A French boat that was next to us dragged three times this morning while we were sitting having coffee. I saw them out of the corner of my eye just start drifting away toward the reef and soon enough there was yelling on board and they got out and started the engine, lifting the anchor, etc. They came back and anchored waaay too close. I tried to shoo them further away but could tell they didn’t know what they were doing, so put a couple fenders on the bow to send a message and went back to just watching them. Sure enough, ½ hour later, off they went. They came back yet again but never got the anchor to set. However during their second two attempts they almost hit us. I was standing on the bow with one of the fenders in my hand. I think they got that message and after the third try, left for the windward side of the anchorage. Now they’ll have to drag through about three other boats to get to us. One of the other boats who had been watching them (and who are now directly downwind from them), quietly slipping into the water with his snorkel gear on and later reported back that the French did indeed have their anchor nicely buried this time. Fun in the anchorage games!

So about our trip and the engine problem. First the trip down here. We knew it would be windy, but it was downwind all the way and the gribs showed increasing wind in the forecast over several days so we just decided what the heck, let’s go before we get stuck here (in Tahiti). Looks like we made the right move as none of the other boats who said they were coming have arrived. Our guess is they are now waiting out high winds. Since it is about 90 miles, which for us is about a 15 hour trip, we left at 1600 so most of the sailing would be during the night and we’d get to Huahine during the daytime hours for visual entry through the reef into the anchorage. We started out with zero wind but sloppy seas and motored for about five hours. Just as we were thinking this trip was going to be a miserable motor sail the wind came up. And up, and up. Very soon we had 20-25 knots directly over the stern and the seas built to 10+ feet. We were doing 8 plus knots with jib alone which would get us to Huahine in the dark, so I reduced sail by furling part of the jib. The only problem with the seas was they were coming from two different places. The really big ones were coming from behind us, but some others were coming from one side. The combination made for a rolly, bumpy ride. Then the squalls started. We didn’t have the same luck we’ve been having the last couple of legs. Several squalls had us in their sights and we had the pleasure of the “squall dance”. The dance: reef further, put on a rain jacket, close the hatches and portholes then when the squall hits, close the doors and sit down below waiting for the rain to stop. Wilson doesn’t mind rain, so it drove. Great guy, Wilson. I just sit down below and look at the radar from time to time and stick my head out the hatch. Fortunately the rain usually doesn’t last too long and then it’s; take the life jacket off, remove raincoat (hot), open doors, hatches and portholes and so on while we wait for the next squall. Oh well, keeps us awake. These short passages make it hard to get into a rhythm for sleeping anyway.

On the night went. Exciting to watch the occasional really big swell rise way over our heads behind us before Charisma rises to meet the challenge. We also spent time during the passage doing the shipping dodge. Well, not really dodge, but you see a light on the horizon-which in these conditions is about 9 miles if it’s a ship. It’s just a light at first, so you don’t know how big, how far or exactly what direction it’s going-other than it’s coming somewhat toward you since it wasn’t there a little while ago. So, down to the nav station and turn on the radar. Put a “bug” on the screen to make the blip representing the ship/boat and go back to business for five minutes. Come back to the radar and see whether the blip on the screen is coming toward you from the “bug” or passing to one side. If it’s coming toward you, evasive action is in order since you are closing fairly fast, can’t see really well in the dark and are by now only a few miles apart. Fortunately, all three ships (we were on the supply route between Tahiti and the Leeward Islands of Huahine, Bora Bora and Raitea) we saw, apparently saw us as well and were kind enough (or we were lucky enough) that they all passed about two miles to one side without us having to disconnect Wilson, retrim the sails and try to determine which direction will put distance between us and the light (big ships are a little easier since they have range lights that much more clearly show what direction they are heading-but you can’t see the range lights well in the big waves until they are about six miles and closing). Once past, reconnect Wilson, retrim the sails. It then takes from 5 to 15 minutes of tweaking to get Wilson spot on course. Ships at night are no bueno.

Eventually the squally night transitioned into a squally day. Right on schedule the island of Huahine appeared ahead. The southern tip to be exact and so did the reefs that extent a mile offshore. Huge waves were breaking and being blown up into the air by the 30 knot gusts of wind. It was awe inspiring. It also inspired me to stay at least another mile beyond that!

At one point we were thinking we would go to the eastern side of the island where there’s a pass into a large bay that on the chart at least, looked inviting. All I can say is thank goodness we didn’t do that. I typically wait until we’re nearing the reef to turn on the engine and if we had done that coming down on the entrance to the reef with 10 foot following seas and 30 knots of wind and then found the engine overheating and had to shut it down…oooh, I don’t want to think about that.

Fortunately we decided that with the large easterly swell and high gusting winds, the OTHER side of the island would be a friendlier place to make landfall. We could check it out and when the weather got better go around to the other side. Good advice to ourselves. As we sailed down the west side of the island we continued to be awed by the waves crashing on the reefs. One minute you would see relatively calm water up ahead and the next- massive whitewater from huge crashing waves. I can see how people “goof” when they try to cut a corner and get driven up on the reef. You don’t always see the reef then suddenly a large wave rears up, snarls and shows it massive power crashing on the reef that’s just a few feet under water.

It took a couple hours to sail down the west side. The pass on this side is all the way down the island to the north end. Around 1030 we turned the final point of the island and started on a beam reach (we’d previously just been going DDW with wind and waves). A couple miles from the entrance I furled the jib some more and was looking at the chart when Ann said, “look at that!” I looked up and a really nasty squall was screaming down from the top of the mountain blotting everything from view with cloud and rain. Yikes! We were going to get slammed and lose all visibility at the same time. I took a quick check of the chart/GPS to make sure there was nothing to hit and ensure I had a safe compass course to follow since that’s all the reference we would have until the squall passed (Yes, Jerry-SA. Situational Awareness!) Time for the squall dance, but this time since we were close to land, I would have to stay out and steer. Wilson gets shut down near land. He’s a great helmsthing, but he’s blind and doesn’t know rock from water. Anyway, the squall hit and the wind shift had us going to a very close reach. Without the mainsail to balance the jib, we couldn’t hold that close to the wind so I started the engine to give us a little boost. We were only a mile or two from the pass so I would have started it soon anyway. I left it on pretty low RPM (fortunate again!) since I just wanted directional control in the wind, not forward progress at this point. I had my raincoat with hood on and the rain was drumming on my head so when I thought something sounded funny my first additional though was, “it’s because my ears are covered”. Dumb. One of the things that I’ve learned is when you think something is wrong, it probably is, but in this case, I was overloaded by the wind, rain, squall, lack of visibility and our course, thus the “sound” was not quite registering consciously yet. Just a few minutes passed and the rain let up which let me take off my hood. I immediately recognized the sound of the dry exhaust with no cooling water coming out. A quick look at the engine temp gauge clearly showed it rising, but fortunately not yet in the red. Before doing anything else, I shut the engine down. Then I furled the sail. We needed to come to a stop so we could deal with the problem but you can’t deal with the problem until the boat is safely stopped and won’t run into something. So, we’re floating with no engine. Furled sails. Sitting. Should be peaceful, but it’s still gusting to 30. And the reef is just a mile off. Before anything else, I took a look at the chart/GPS and set a waypoint. That way we would be able to track how fast we were drifting. We had 8 miles to leeward before we came up against Raietea. We hove to. Charisma will heave-to without any sails up by just turning the wheel into the wind and locking it there. She did just as she was directed and we were, for now, comfortable and going more or less sideways very slowly. Everything quiets down when you heave-to, even though it’s still blowing hard and there are big waves. I put Ann in charge of watching the reef to make sure there wasn’t a current that might be setting us in. We could always sail away from it if we needed to, but for now, I wanted time to troubleshoot the engine problem because without power it would be very difficult and somewhat dangerous to try and sail into any of the reef protected anchorages in this part of the world. First thing, we had to empty the lazarette because that gives access to the back half of the engine and the water intake. It’s almost six feet deep so a lot of stuff resides there. I just pulled stuff out (inflatable kayak, snorkel gear, boat fenders, extra dock lines, etc, etc and handed them down the companionway to Ann who stacked them forward and out of the way. Once I was able to get down into the lazarette, the first check was the water intake system. I closed the valve and opened the intake filter. Unfortunately it was empty and the water flowed into the filter from the through hull. Rats. The easy problem of a clogged filter or intake wasn’t the issue. That meant the next step was to pull the quarterberth apart in order to get to the raw water pump on the engine and look at the impeller. That in itself took 10 minutes since we have to take the berth apart to get at the engine. Once the mattress is pulled out, there are three floor boards to the bed and then two removable bulkheads to the engine compartment that all have to come out as well as two drawers full of stuff under the bed. Once all that stuff was out I was able to get to the water pump. (And all of this stuff is also piling up in the main cabin on top of the stuff from the lazarette.) There’s a cover on one end of the pump that faces aft. I could reach it, but not see it since it was way in under the engine. I could unscrew the four screws that hold it on, but once the cover was removed, it faces aft and I can’t get my head in there. I need my telescoping mirror. Grab that, get my headlamp to free my hands and take a look. Good news! The rubber impeller that drives the water through the pump is completely destroyed. That means this is the problem. Not uncommon, just not a happy experience. The other good news is when my mechanic put a new one in a few years ago, I watched him and kept the old impeller. So we had a spare and I’d seen it done, and I knew at least in theory how to fix it.

So without too much more detail, suffice to say I pulled the old impeller out with some pliers after a lot of trouble balancing mirror, headlamp light and pliers looking backwards through the mirror. Then I used a pick to fish some of the bits of the broken impeller blades out of the pump body. At least one bit went back into the pump and I couldn’t get it. I hope it gets blown through because there’s no way I can get to it. With the help of some glycerin on the inside of the pump, the impeller went back in (not as simple as saying it). The I fitted the o-ring, closed the thing up and said a prayer. “OK Ann, we’ll fire her up. Listen for water coming out of the exhaust, but also listen to me. If I see a leak or a problem I’ll yell up to shut down” Ready. Ann fired the engine. OK, rev it a bit. Up on the RPMs. Ann: “There’s water coming out!” Momentarily, I’m elated, then looking in the engine compartment for leaks I see a huge one and it’s not coming from the pump. Damn, there must be a burst hose. “SHUT ‘ER DOWN!”

It’s quiet again. What should have been a celebration was just silence. We had a problem that I might not have a part for. Exhaust hose. Down into the lazarette one more time with mirror and headlamp. “OK turn on the engine!” Looking in from the backside of the engine I could see water pouring down from the exhaust hose onto the mixer. “Shut her back down”, I yelled from down in the lazarette. “Hand me down a screwdriver”. Looking around with my little shop mirror, I couldn’t see an obvious blown hose, so I though well, I’ll try and tighten these hose clamps. Put the screwdriver to the hose clamps and amazing, they were loose. It wasn’t long ago that I tightened them “just because”, so I was surprised. We started up the engine again and miracle of miracles, the leak had stopped. We were going to make it in.

So, we fired up the engine once more, crossed fingers and headed toward the pass. Turned out in 20-30 knots of wind we only drifted 2 miles in 2 hours, so we didn’t have too far to go. I sweated most of those miles through the reef and into the anchorage and was thrilled to have the anchor hold on the first try so we could shut down and I could have another look and make sure all was OK.

I’ve now had time to go over the exhaust system and can’t find any more problems at this point. I think the hose heated up when the impeller failed and expanded causing the clamps to also expand and loosen. I think we’re good. Also there’s another boat in the anchorage with some spare impellers he’s willing to sell, so I’m going to go over and see if one will fit. It’s good to have a spare 😉

Tomorrow: Our nice friends who invited us to dinner so we didn’t have to cook after our tiring passage and the huge supply ship that comes in here and misses us by about 70 yards in the dark.