Tag: breakdown in the Atlantic

Crossing Oceans in a Calm & Assertive Manner – Most of the Time!

Be aware, but not paranoid.

Another Night on the Atlantic

If you are worried about everything, you will drive yourself and crew crazy. You need to be able to separate the likely from the remote. Be vigilant, but you can’t watch everything.  An hour from home, you can afford in indulge your paranoia, in the middle of the Atlantic, indulgences are not allowed.  it’s “Calm & Assertive” as Caesar Milan would say.

When I would hear a noise in the middle of the night. Perhaps I was being sleeping? Did the noise wake me or was it a dream?  I stay in bed in listen.  Sometimes I may even open my cabin door to listen and more importantly sniff the wind!  Your sense of smell may well be your most reliable tool on a boat.

Admittedly, the first year on Dauntless I was not his way. Unless she was firmly tied to a dock, I was up at every little noise or movement. I hated anchoring out because I got so little sleep. What changed? Mostly me understanding that the boat was fine, the anchor was fine, and the only problem was me.

A couple days out of New England, on the way to the Azores, on my first Atlantic Passage, a mast cleat that secured the port paravane pole let go with a sound like a pistol shot. I stopped the boat, put on a PFD (probably the last time I used it too) and went to the fly bridge to see what happened.

The quarter inch steel bolts had sheared off.  I realized that it was too much tension for a cleat, but a simple clove hitch around the mast a few times would secure the two paravane pole lines with much less stress at any particular point, then ending on the cleat. I made that change in minutes and three years later, it’s still the same.

Later, Julie told me that having a problem like that and me being able to come up with a different and even better solution, gave her all the confidence to not worry about anything. And she didn’t. She had been on the boat less than I, but was more experienced. She understood right away what it took to be successful.

It took me a couple of years.

During my second Atlantic Passage, westbound from Europe, North Africa to North America, I had noticed fuel in the bilge on the first day out of the Canaries. I kept it to myself. It didn’t seem like much, probably less than a gallon, of the 700 we had onboard.  To get to the Caribbean we would probably need 600 of those gallons.  If push came to shove and I needed to conserve, I could probably get there on 500, even 450. In fact, at idle and in gear, 900 rpms, fuel consumption is probably 0.5gal/hr. at 3.8 knots, making the range above 5,000 nm.  With these conditions, with a 20-knot wind behind us, our range would be above 6,000 nm.  (at idle and in neutral, with no load on the engine, the fuel consumption is probably 0.1 gal/hr.)

Since I could see no leak on any of the connections or hoses between the fuel tanks and the engine, including the 4 fuel filters, there was not much I could do until it became obvious. It was clearly coming from the tank, but not the bottom of the tank.

I continued to run the numbers in my head, often, during those days and nights.

But I continued to say nothing.  Certainly, Micah could do nothing and he worries, a lot. My job as Captain is to do the worrying and to keep my crew fat and happy.

By Day 4, Calm & Assertive was slipping away. I was getting nervous.

The big problem was that the bilge pump was pumping water out that had gotten into the bilge from the lazzerette.  With large following seas, the stern deck is awash plenty of time, enough that water gets into the lazzerette.  It is then dutifully pumped out. When I would look into the bilge, fuel being lighter than water, it floats on top. So, when I look in the bilge and see a gallon of liquid, which the bilge pump will pump out, it’s unclear if I’m looking at a gallon of fuel or a quarter of a cup, the rest being water. Under these conditions, the bilge pump was turning on about once an hour. So, in 24 hours, that’s about 24 gallons.  If it’s mostly water no problem, but if mostly fuel I needed to know.

It was possible that I was looking at the same inch of fuel floating on top of water. So, when the pump would pump out, it was just pumping water leaving the last inch of liquid every time. I had to know what was going on.

initially on Day 4, I did the following:

  1. I used the shop vac to vacuum out the bilge. Now if I saw fuel again, I knew it was new fuel. I turned off the bilge pump and left it off for 6 hours.
  2. I reduced our engine rpms to 1450. Now this change would only reduce our consumption by about 0.1 gallons/hour, but we had 16 days at 24 hr./day = 384 hours. So, to save a tenth of a gallon, that’s 40 gallons over that time. I had estimated worst case scenario if it was all fuel with a little water, we were losing about 12 gallons a day, that would be 200 gallons lost. That would be a problem. Better to reduce speed now and figure it out just in case.

Six hours later, I checked the bilge hoping to see only water.

I saw water and fuel!

Wherever the fuel was coming from, it was still coming.  But of the approximately 5 gallons I pulled out, there was at most an inch of fuel on top of the water.  That’s less than half a gallon.

From the first time I noticed the fuel, it never seemed that much to me. From dipping the oil soak cloth (very effective in absorbing fuel and oil, but not water) to collecting the 6 gallons, all signs were a minor fuel loss, which was even decreasing. But,

The mind is its own place and can make a heaven of hell or a hell of heaven. (thanks Milton & Star Trek).

But this is why I say, worry is very destructive.  Even with those facts, by the next day, that worry drove me off the deep end. By constantly checking for fuel, all it did was make me lose any objective sense of reason.  I cracked.

So, I came up with another radical plan.

We needed a way to recover significant amounts of fuel:

I cut the hose (pictured) that leads from the bilge pump to the thru hull and stuck another hose onto it.  This hose I now led out of the engine room, out the salon door to a large bucket on the stern deck.

The Bilge Pump hose with newly made connection. Yes, I will replace that non-stainless steel clamp

We would collect everything the bilge pump pumped out of the bilge for the next 12 hours.

 

We would then take the fuel that standing on top of the water, and pour it into another bucket. Then filter it and pour it back into the fuel tank, as needed.  Thus, even if losing 20 gallons of fuel a day, we would probably recover 75% of that. To lose 5 gallons a day was tolerable.

Now the boat is rolling all the time as we have 10 to 16 foot waves off both stern quarters, so it was no easy task to pour one bucket into a larger bucket.

We, really Micah, did just that for 6 hours.

When I relieved Micah, he thought it was mostly water. I checked the “fuel” bucket, the one into which we were pouring the obvious fuel from the bigger bucket.  After 6 hours, we had about a quarter of a gallon if that.

I looked at that, I looked at Micah and I came to my senses.

I quickly put an end to this process.  It was a 5-minute job to re-connect the now two sections of bilge hose and we were back to normal.

On Day 6, all fuel stopped getting into the bilge

Did I scare it away?

The only explanation is also the most obvious explanation. Last year, in Ireland, when we opened up the port tank to seal it, it was obvious that water had dripped down from the screw holes in which the poorly installed fuel vent fitting had been placed. Now since this is one of the few design, construction issues I have ever found on the Kadey Krogen, it’s hard to complain.

I figured that what had happened is that since the tanks was totally full, the pitching movement in particular meant fuel was being pushed hard against the upper back of the tank.  Just where the fuel vent is poorly installed.  A few drops every dozen second will easily add up to a couple of gallons a day.

Lesson Learned: If I had to do it all over.  I should have been more patient.  I could have slowed a bit before doing anything else and waited a few more days.  I let myself get too nervous even after I had come up with multiple estimates that the amount of fuel we were losing was not significant.

After arrival in Martinique, Dauntless still had 125 gallons of fuel. I determined that we had lost probably 5 to 1o gallons at most. I was meticulous in feeding from each tank every other day, thus the tanks should have been the same, but instead there was a 5 to 10-gallon difference.

Lastly, don’t beat yourself up too much.

All’s Well that Ends Well

 

 

 

 

 

What I’ve Learned from Crossing Oceans

Sunset on the Atlantic

Well, it would probably take a book I’m too lazy to write.

But as I sit here in the sweltering heat of Mexico, air conditioning or lack thereof has become my number one concern.

Having spent two years in Northern Europe, AC was the least of my concerns.  So last year when cruising south, once I hit Portugal, the heat hit us at the same time. Like leaving a room that was a pleasant 68° (20°C) and entering a furnace that was in the 90°s (>32°).

Dauntless has two air conditioning (AC) systems.  One for the back of the boat, like the salon and second cabin, the other, for the forward sections, the forward cabin and pilot house.  Of course, neither one was working.
Somewhere in the Caribbean, finally realizing that this heat and humidity was unrelenting, I tackled the issue and in a remarkable time, got both units working.  Relief at last.  But this isn’t about that.

So, for the last couple months, I have luxuriated in the coolness of modern living.  Now, air conditioning only works if I am at a marina and plugged into shore power or if I run the boat’s generator.

Then last week, my cool times came to an abrupt end.  My aft AC stopped cooling and then started blowing hot air.  That won’t work.

The top of the AC strainer. The problem hose connection in the right.

The main engine strainer 

Boat AC’s working using water pumped through the condenser to make cool air. (Home AC’s use air to cool the condenser).

So, when there is a problem, the first thing to check is water flow.  And in fact, there was not any water flow or maybe just a dribble when it should be coming out like a water hose.

Easy fix I thought. It started well.  I checked the sea strainer, which is exactly that, it strains sea water so that the water pump only gets water and not sea weed, sticks, fish and whatever got sucked into the thru hull opening.  The strainer was full of crap and water was just dribbling out, when it should have been gushing out.

Oh, that was easy.  But on a boat, the systems in place that makes everything run as they must, can become complicated.

I cleaned out the strainer.  Put it back together and that started the last seven days of trial and error.

I hadn’t cleaned or opened the strainer in probably 4 years.  It had a lot of corrosion around it.  I brushed and cleaned it up as well as I could. Put it back together again, turned on the AC pump and all was well.

For about 10 minutes.

As of yesterday, the 6th day, I got the time up to two hours. It would run OK for two hours and then quit.  I would need to let it rest about an hour and then do the process all over again.

Somewhere between the thru-hull and the AC water pump, air was being sucked into the system. The water pump is sucking so hard and it’s always easier to suck air than water. So even the smallest crack will allow air to be sucked in.  That air then collects at the highest point in the system, at the aft AC unit, at which point the air blocks the water and the AC stops cooling.

That has been my last 7 days.

Every day I tried something new. I even made new gaskets from rubber sheets, I’ve did all sorts of things to try to fix the strainer.  Sure, there has been some improvement, but it wasn’t fixed.

But I didn’t have a spare strainer. What to do?

One of my lessons learned from crossing oceans is there is always a solution.

When you are in the middle of the Atlantic, there’s no Boat US, no AAA, no nothing, only you and the odds and ends you happen to have.

I realized I did not have a spare sea strainer, but I did have two other sea strainers!

I could simply bypass the AC strainer and put a hose between one of the other strainers to the AC water pump.  Then if there is still a problem, it would mean it’s the pump itself.

I’d decided to use the Generator strainer.  The gen is not being used and won’t be until next summer.  Also, should I mess that system up, it’s not a critical component, like the main engine.

The AC sea strainer uses 1” hose.  Turns out the gen sea strainer uses ¾” hose.  The gen doesn’t use much cooling water, but the AC’s use a lot.

The main engine sea strainer was 1” hose, so I decided to use that.  That has enabled me to sit here a couple of hours later and write this piece in the cool comfort of the Kadey Krogen salon.

Which raises another even more important issue. The first rule of Ocean Crossing, Do No Harm. Don’t fix one problem by making another.

Only because Dauntless will spend the winter here in Huatulco, Mexico, would I consider messing with the main engine’s sea strainer.

There is always a lot of blather about single engine boats crossing oceans. Large commercial boats do it all the time, but then they are not affected by marketing.

If one looks at engine failures on single engine boats versus multi engine boats, the preponderance is a failure of one of the two engines on a multi engine boat. Why is that? On the face of it, the numbers should be exactly the same. Why aren’t they?

They are not the same because both consciously and unconsciously people take care of stuff better when they only have one versus two. Of anything.

How many times have you lost a key after having gotten extra keys made? How many times have you lost your only key?

If I was getting underway in the foreseeable future. I would never have touched the main engine’s sea strainer. Even though Dauntless is going to be here for the next 8 months, if my plan was to come back and get her ready to cross the Pacific, I would never have touched the sea strainer now.

Only because I have the luxury of knowing that: not only will I not be using the engine until next summer, even then we will be slowly moving up the coast. I have a few years and a few thousand miles of coastal cruising before setting across the North Pacific.

A boat is all about systems.  A motor boat even more because it takes more complicated systems to run in a dependable manner.  So, I am very careful not to mess with systems that don’t need it. Remeber, Do No Harm.

In opening up the AC sea strainer, I messed with that system. I upset something.

Turns out, in getting ready to bypass the AC strainer, I noticed the end of the outlet hose was very hard.  Is it possible that when I opened the strainer, I broke the seal between this hose and the strainer nipple? Even though the two clamps were tight. (All connections to thru hulls have two clamps)

I decided before I did anything else, to cut 2″ off the end of that hose and re-attach it.  I did and that solved the problem once and for all. Yesterday, the ACs worked for 12 hours with nary a problem.

So even with a solution in hand, keep trying to determine the real problem. Otherwise, it may come back to haunt you in the most inopportune time.

When I had the hydraulic hose failure in the middle of the Atlantic.  I caused the problem because I turned the wheel knowing the rudder was already at its stop. Thus I did harm. This forced the fluid to go somewhere and it burst the hose at its weakest point. Luckily for me, that point was easy to find and relatively easy to replace.

But I will never do that again.

Here is the video of me replacing that hose.  The seas were about 8 to 15 feet.  We were stopped in the water like that for about 30 minutes, because I had to be careful not to make a small problem worse by breaking one of the fittings from the three-way coupling:  

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I tried to get Micah who was holding the camera to get the overall picture and show the big waves that would approach Dauntless and then disappear under the boat.  But that seemed to unnerve him. He wouldn’t look out. Oh well, it could have been worse.

So, one of my lessons learned in crossing the Atlantic: There is always an alternative, there is always a way, a bypass, a work around, but there is always a way.  You just have to think about it.