Maiden Voyage After all the stuffing around with the crane & travel lift on Friday I was late going in the water & then not getting water through the motor because of a blocked pipe / mixing elbow I couldn’t get out through the channel & do some sea trials on Botany Bay. Chris at Viking Marine made me a new water outlet first thing Sat morning, even with an added tee to feed water to the shaft seal, so we had plenty of water pumping through the motor & was ready to go. I got away on time Sat morning with Mick & Adam & headed north out of Botany Bay keeping about 2 mile off the coast - I can’t go any further out because I don’t have an Epirb on this boat yet. About an hour out the motor started to die - it felt like running out of fuel so had to throttle back to keep it going. Further on it started stopping, we took the filler cap off to let air in - worked for a while but stopped again. So then had to go down into the engine & blow & suck on the diesel feed line to make sure it wasn’t blocked - even had an air pump into the filler to try to blow fuel through & heard air coming out the breathers so knew they weren’t blocked. There was a lot of air getting in the fuel line so every time it stopped, & it was quite often now, the motor had to be bled - which meant head down arse up alongside the motor. We eventually limped into America Bay for the night but as we were going in to pick up a mooring I went for reverse & gunned it & we took off forward - no reverse!! We finally picked up the buoy after a few attempts when I worked out there was no neutral either. The bolt had vibrated out of the gear linkage - easily fixed. Had a coupla beers & we all had a hot shower & a good feed & then hit the fart sack for a well-earned rest. Up early & after a coffee Mick (I did the washing up) put a new fuel filter in the first one - there are three & all were replaced before launch. I also hooked the fuel line up to my electric fuel pump, which is for the genset, just to see if it helped getting the fuel through - it also made it easier to bleed. I wanted to get away at 0600 on Sunday to catch the highest tide possible to get up Swansea Channel & we were on time but when I hit the starter there was nothing on the start battery (or so I thought) & not enough left in the house batteries to start the motor. I wasn’t worried about using up the house battery power with the hot water system & the induction stove running off the inverter - these will run off the genset but it was only lifted in with the crane on Friday & wasn’t hooked up yet. The start battery should have been full so that had me baffled why it was flat. I called Marine Rescue & they gave us a jump start & we were heading out of Broken Bay at 1000, 4 hrs late!! All went well for a while but the same thing started again - air in the fuel line. I bypassed the first filter - we found a tiny chip in the glass & thought it might be sucking air. We got going again after head down arse up bleeding the system again - I am now an expert at bleeding an 85hp Ford Lehman engine!! Next time the motor just stopped dead - no gradual dying. Just like running out of fuel so I opened up the second tank to equalise the fuel & let more into the tank with the pickup. I have two 300 litre diesel tanks & they were both over half full with 360 lts for the trip - I was only running on the main tank (with the filler, pick-up & gauge sender) & using the other as a reserve. Off we went again, only to have it dying an hour later. I lost track of how many times of the stopping & bleeding but it was becoming much more frequent. We were way too late to get over the bar at Swansea so had to keep heading up to Newcastle with an ETA of 1900. We got as far as Redhead Point & she would go no further. Marine Rescue Newcastle was called & came down to pick us up. Did I mention this boat really rocks with no mast - especially while not under way!! Expert seamanship from the MR boys had us docked at Newcastle Cruising Yacht Club about 2030. It wasn’t quite the arrival I wanted but at least I was closer to home. The girls picked us up & some Maccas on the way home - lucky it stayed down after being mixed with all the diesel!! Adam & I were back down on the boat Monday morning with 55 litres of diesel in drums & I bought 4 more fuel filters & replaced two. I ran a fuel hose directly out of a 20lt drum through the electric pump through the main lift pump missing the first filter. Ready to head off so I hit the starter & there was not enough to turn the motor over with the start battery - it should have been full!! I added the house batteries (fully charged) as well to help, 770 Ah all up, & still wouldn’t turn the motor over!! I gave the battery isolator switch a “wiggle” & sure enough there was plenty of power to turn over the motor & fired up after a bit of a final bleed. Apparently the battery isolator switch is faulty & if I had “wiggled” it Sunday morning it would have fired. We had a great run down the coast with a tail wind & she didn’t miss a beat. We kept the 20lt drum topped up just so I didn’t have to do any more head down arse up bleeding. Crossed the Swansea bar with plenty of water underneath at 1300 & had the bridge opening booked for 1400. We picked up a courtesy mooring & had lunch & I started to relax for the first time in 3 days. We headed up the channel on max high tide (allowing for the delay in the channel), Adam up front to let me know if I was heading for any sand bars, & were going great guns …………………………………………… until Adam started pointing in all directions at once & we hit the one & only sand bar off Pelican airstrip. It wouldn’t budge so this time it was Marine Rescue Lake Macquarie that was on their way to help - I could see them from where I was. They tried pulling & then they tried going around us making waves to try to wash us off for an hour or so. They then decided they’ll get the other, bigger boat to tow while they make the waves. We had to wait another hour before we had both boats pulling & washing for half an hour & then a big southerly came through & we finally broke free - I was starting to think we were going to be spending the night there on our side!! The dredging of the channel starts next week …………………I was watching them setting up while sitting there waiting. They dragged me the rest of the way up the channel & into the lake before we unhooked the tow line. I had no propulsion!! I thought I’d lost a prop or stripped the key with all the revving etc trying to get off the bottom. We hooked back up with Marine Rescue & got a tow up to my mooring at Bolton Point but, I heard the shaft turning as we were being towed, I knew the sound (from past experience) but I even lifted the floor to check - this meant my prop was still functional so the problem must be in the gearbox. Oh boy, am I looking forward to fixing this problem - NOT!!! Anyway, Larrikin is at home on her mooring & I don’t have to pay hardstand rent or travel to Taren Point any more ………………….well just one more time to retrieve my car. To top it off I am waiting for two “letters” to arrive this week as a result of camera flashes I saw in my car mirror last week. Thank fark for Marine Rescue, I don’t know where I would be without them - they all did an absolute fantastic job I cannot thank them enough - I am a member of Lake Mac & pay my subscription so they didn’t want any payment but I think I may have to make a donation as well. I just happened to know the skipper of the MR Newcastle vessel who came to save me - he is ex Water Police with a Coxswains license & “he knows boats” & is a top bloke as well!! A big thanks to Adam & Mick, could not have done it without you, also to Mel, John & Chris, Kriss & Todd for picking us up from different locations & a special thanks to my darling wife , Kathy, who has been a nervous wreck & took up smoking ……….again!! She now wants me to sell the boat & buy a Winnebago. As if!! As Adam said to me today, “I knew it was going to be an adventure, but no way did I expect that”. Larry
Posted on: Tue, 28 Oct 2014 09:32:06 +0000
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