Sailing the Bay

This is San Francisco from the Bay.

There’s a giant bow and arrow stuck into the ground.

In for a penny …

… In for $2000.

When I bought my boat, I knew there were a few things it needed.  Namely, new sails.  However, I priced those and found them to be not too bad.  I also knew I’d want some new PFDs and various odds and ends.

What I did not take into consideration is that I am a Henschel.  What does that mean?  We are morally opposed to buying anything new, and we don’t believe there is anyone out there more capable than ourselves.  Its a bad mix.  My dad has had motor boats with outboard motors as long as I can remember.  And pretty much every time we ever went out in Narragansett or Casco Bay, the motor would break.  So Dad would jury rig it and we would limp home with him hitting the motor with a hammer every 5 minutes just to let it know who was in charge.  Unfortunately, I inherited the buy-old bit without learning how to fix it (although I can hit pretty hard with a hammer).

My baby came with an old Mercury 7.5 HP, kind of a vintage flair.  Turns out vintage isn’t good when it comes to engines.  The twink I bought the boat from admitted he knew nothing about engines and hadn’t touched it, but insisted it was very reliable.  Maybe it was until I fell down the stairs with it.  That couldn’t have been good for it.

Its kind of an awkward set up to begin with – there’s a built-in well at the stern with a small hole for the engine to clamp on with the prop in the water.  When not in use, I have to lift the motor entirely out since the well is too small to tilt the engine forward.  All this lifting and man-handling leads to things like falling down the cabin stairs with it, ripping the fuel line, pulling muscles in my back, who knows what else.  But its what I have right now.

So I was on a sail with 3 guests.  It was kind of stressful as they didn’t know much about sailing.  The wind was pretty stiff (25 knots or so) so we were really heeled over and when we tacked, the engine came loose.  We came really close to losing it, but not quite.  So I tried to steer the most level course I could while Carlos and Caroline tried to get it out of the water and back into place as well as find a way to wedge the gas tank (which had also come loose) into place.  They eventually succeeded and we figured that the reason we smelled so much gas was that the tank had tipped over and spilled some through the vent.  We cleaned it up and sailed on, checking it frequently to make sure it wasn’t loose.

We get to the harbor entrance.  The harbor is due West and 99.9% of the time the wind is from the West.  Technically, I’m not even allowed to try to sail in but must come in under motor.  In other words, you need a motor to get back to berth.  So, I started the motor up and once it was in gear told my crew to drop the sails.  They got them down, but the main got really tangled (not sure what happened).  Then I realized that I couldn’t make any headway against the wind.  I could go side to side, but not into the wind where I needed to go.  The wind would die slightly, I would point up, then the wind would pick up and push me away.  I realized that I couldn’t get any power to the motor.  It was either on or off, no fine tuning.  Did I mention I don’t know anything about motors?

Things got a little stressful at this point.  The crew couldn’t get the main up.  It got more and more fouled.  I didn’t think putting the jib up would help us in trying to go upwind.  So, I did what every resourceful skipper does – I called for a tow.  I called on a cell phone because this was when I found out that my VHF radio wasn’t working.  It did when we left the dock, but not anymore.  BoatUS couldn’t understand why I didn’t just put up my main and sail into the harbor.  They clearly aren’t staffed by sailors.  Eventually, decided the best course of action was to put down anchor and wait for the tow.  Got the anchor out, attached a line, put it down successfully, then realized I shouldn’t have attached it to the stern – the bow would be a better option.  Scrambling all over I got it reattached at the front and the Indian Summer swung gently into the breeze. 

Once the tow boat got there it took all of 10 minutes to get us back into the harbor and tied up at a dock.  Plus $300.

Yup.  $300.

But the next day, the harbor patrol towed my baby back to her berth and that night a local mechanic came over to give his opinion on the engine.  His overall opinion "Take it to an outboard specialist and if he says to throw it out – throw it out."

Here’s what the non-specialist found wrong in the first 10 minutes:

1. ripped fuel line   
2. cracked spark plug
3. mismatched spark plugs
4. all original wires
5. all original lines
6. drill bit used as part of the clamp

Its not pretty.  I’m looking for a new engine.