Transmission Mystery Solved, Launch of America-Lap 3

Mystery solved. That transmission was dead. Really, really dead.

With new and old transmissions set side-by-side the problem was clearly visible. A missing circlip had allowed the retaining nut to loosen, driving the shaft through the cover. No wonder the transmission was running dry. And fraying its cable. And working intermittently.

Which means all summer long, all the transmission-related things we fixed, they were all symptoms of this problem, and there was no way we could have known until it was separated from the engine. All of this drama was likely caused by the last service technician's lack of attention to a small but important 50 cent clip. Wish I knew who that guy was. I'd like to leave him a gift. From Chloe. It's already in a bag.

Well, deep breath. Onwards. The shiny new transmission hums along happily and the dead one is off to the knackers.

The two primary winches were also discovered to be dead. This was a bit of a surprise as we had them down as a Tier 3 project. We anticipated them to be like the first two we serviced, solved by simply breaking them down, scrubbing them well, and applying new grease. Alas they are frozen solid from years of neglect. So... new winches for us.

Winch #1 of 2 - we swapped our Lewmars for Andersens

Covid part delays strike again: one winch showed up promptly and the other one is still on backorder.

Dead winch guts are beautiful in a steam punk sort of way

Not to be deterred from our test-run mission, we temporarily shifted the jib sheets to the spinnaker winches for the transmission shakedown cruise. For the first time in 6 attempts, we left for a shakedown cruise and returned successfully. We motored. We anchored. We motored. We sailed. We motored again. We landed in the slip under our own power. What a glorious day! So long overdue!

What a relief!

This week the air conditioner finally gets installed (those parts were ordered in June... Covid delays again), and then the fuel system is being revised to give us greater control over the fuel/engine relationship. These two projects are beyond our scope and frankly we're ready to let someone else work on the boat for a while. We found a great mechanic to handle these two projects and the process will require total boat destructo. Better if we aren't underfoot.

Parking Loretta at the marina made moving back aboard easier

So we moved back onto Loretta. This was the November plan all along, although we thought by now we'd have pictures and sailing stories to share from our grand NorthEast sailing tour. November's plan is to camp with friends in nearby New Bern, followed by Thanksgiving with dock neighbors, and then cruising Loretta to the Keys for December. The rough January sketch is to continue the road trip back to California to fetch our scuba and boat gear, check in with family and friends, doctors and dentists, other mandatory adulting. If the weather cooperates we'll take the bikes out for a mountaintop romp or two.

Oh. And tacos. We will definitely be stopping for New Mexico tacos along the way.

Look out America... two returning full-timers headed your way for another lap.

Living in Schrodinger's box

 

I see them at the marina. At the bar. At the local restaurants.

All around the country, they're always there. 

Those boaters who never leave the dock.

I always wondered to myself...

in a rather judgey way...

What's the point of having a boat if you never leave the dock with it?

Hiding out from another rainy day with the Tour de France

Now I get it.

If the boat doesn't move, you don't know what's wrong with it.

Nothing is broken.

For the moment.

Until you put her in gear.

Take her out of the slip.

Try to do actual boat stuff.

That's when you discover what is broken.

She's not really dead until you crack the seal and see for yourself.

Until then she's both alive and dead at the same time.

The marina shoreline on a warm foggy morning

So for now, Minerva is running perfectly.

We're afraid to leave the dock.

Another squally week makes for spectacular sunrises

False Starts

We put the finishing touches on the electrical refit and decided Minerva was done. One more test sail and then we'd finally escape North out of the hurricane zone. We were invited to tag along with Phoenix for a Cape Lookout weekend sail. We were even smug enough to consider, for a moment, leaving right from there on the outside around Cape Hatteras and up to Virginia that way.

Oh, how the smug get smote.

We followed Phoenix down Adams Creek and out into the open ocean. In Beaufort we sailed out against the incoming tide - with all our sails out on a 15 knot beam reach we inched past the channel marker buoys which were leaning hard against the current and throwing up wakes of their own. It felt a little like those nightmares where you are running as hard as you can and not going anywhere.

Eventually we escaped the incoming tide and Minerva realized the speed she'd been straining for. We sailed alongside the shores of the Outer Banks in rather sloppy seas. It felt good to be out in open ocean for the first time on Minerva, she handles the slop like a champ. Ahead of us, we saw the wave action rolling Phoenix around near the mouth of Cape Lookout so we made the decision to take a longer but more comfortable approach which delayed our arrival.

By the time we came around the sandbar that makes up the hook of Cape Lookout, Phoenix had long been settled on her anchor way up in the protected part of the anchorage. Just inside the hook we turned into the wind, fired up the engine, and Lance started taking down the sails while I kept her pointed into the wind. As soon as I put Minerva into gear, she died. I started her back up again, put her in gear, and she died again, and again a third time. Lance was unaware of my struggles and yelled back "hey the boat is coming around you gotta turn into the wind so I can get the sails down" to which I shouted (first a string of cursing, then) "she keeps dying". He let go of his armful of sail to check the engine compartment; I watched in horror as the depth meter read 24 feet, 20 feet, 17 feet. He still had his head in the engine compartment while I ran up and dropped the anchor. In my haste I dumped some chain on top of the anchor instead of letting it set first and then paying out the chain carefully - a rookie mistake and I know better. He didn't find anything obviously wrong with the engine - the filters looked clean and water was entering and exiting like it should. All seemed to be running well until we tried to put her in gear.

The winds were howling and we were being blown against the lee shore.

We looked hopefully for an obstruction on the propeller, alas there was nothing to cut free. Which meant we probably had a transmission problem. Not so easily solved at this remote location. I reluctantly put away the dive knives.

The Lighthouse at Cape Lookout 

As the afternoon became night, the winds increased to a steady 40 knots. We inched towards the lee shore, in hindsight I think the chain was just freeing itself from the top of the new Mantus anchor, but at the time I was convinced we were dragging and so we set the second Fortress anchor. The shelf was disturbingly close behind us and so we took turns on anchor watch.

In the morning we hashed out our options over coffee. The Saturday morning winds were changing direction a bit too haphazardly and we were too close to the 3' shoal to try sailing off the anchors into deeper waters, and the afternoon and next two days were predicted to be the same high winds blowing us onto the lee shore, followed by flat calm on Monday. Ultimately we swallowed our pride and called TowBoat US; they agreed the best course of action was to tow us into a safer part of the anchorage closer to Phoenix for the time being rather than drag us off the lee shore after running aground later, and do the long tow on Monday when conditions were calm.

Wild ponies of Shackleford Banks

With our plan established we explored all we could between rain squalls. By Monday Lance decided rather than getting towed to a shop he wanted to return to our Oriental slip, pull the transmission and replace it himself with the help of a local mechanic in Oriental.

Our tow ride home on Monday was smooth as silk. At the end of the ride I signed a document for $0 towing fees. Yay unlimited towing.

The open ocean portion of the long tow home

The mechanic gave us some good news: a whole transmission replacement wouldn't be necessary - just a cable which was obviously frayed - a readily available $30 part. We were up and running again quickly. We thought the problem was solved, so we scheduled another "last" shakedown cruise before our big escape.

The following weekend we took out a handful of friends for an afternoon sail. It was glorious... until time to put the sails away and go home. I powered her up, turned her into the wind, put her in gear, and she died. Exactly the same as the weekend before.

This time we were close to home, had a nice beam reach, and lots of able-bodied sailors aboard, so the decision to sail her into her slip was a natural one.

Now, if you've never sailed a boat into a slip, let me tell you - getting the speed juuuuuuuust right is of the utmost importance. Too fast and you'll destroy something on the boat or the dock, or someone will get hurt trying to prevent just that from happening. Too slow and you'll drift uncontrollably in the anchorage. In both cases the boat will seek out the most expensive thing to run into. Lance and I practiced this with smaller previous boats; Minerva weighs in at a beastly 16 tons.

Nevertheless, luck was with us. We landed at just the right speed, placed the lines easily, and stepped off the boat like pros. It went off perfectly, largely because the wind was just right for such a maneuver, and also because we had plenty of agile crew aboard. Despite being the only ones aboard with any experience in this maneuver (or perhaps because we were) it was only Lance and I who appeared to suffer from flop sweat. From the outside it probably looked impressive. I still shudder when I think of all the ways it could have gone wrong.

Once we'd waved our friends goodbye, we moved on to problem-solving. Clearly the transmission cable was A problem but not THE problem. More troubleshooting required. Our daily mantra.

The mechanic is a busy guy. While waiting for him to find room for us on his calendar Lance started poking around on his own and discovered some errant belts around the shaft under the engine, probably used by the last technicians to align the propeller with the engine after the last service and then forgotten, and also the transmission was empty. As in NO fluid at all empty. Lance flushed it out - thankfully discovered no glitter - and replaced it with new transmission fluid. By the time the mechanic arrived she was purring like a kitten and smoothly shifting into forward and reverse in the slip, straining against her docklines, ready to go.

With quite a bit less confidence we launched shakedown attempt #3. We joined in with 3 other boats headed to Ocracoke for the long holiday weekend. We put her in reverse, pulled out into the river and pointed into the wind. All seemed well. We motored for a while, then sailed for a while. When it became clear we were not going to make it against the contrary winds to our destination before sunset we tried to fire up the motor again. No love. Turned the key on and... no go.

Once again Lance had his head in the engine compartment while I watched the depth gauge free fall towards zero. When I decided it was getting too shallow I turned her around, filled the sails and we surfed back to the marina on following seas and a strong tailwind. Marina staff towed us into our slip when it became clear there wasn't enough wind in the marina to land her the rest of the way on our own.

Our good friends Janet and Joe, who had been watching our inReach breakcrumbs and guessed we were in trouble when they saw us turn around, were waiting on the dock to catch us, and accompanied us for a commiserating evening of alcohol abuse.

Time to quit. This girl needs a drink.

The next time we opened the engine compartment - a broken spring glinted in the sunshine. Yep, you guessed it, its job had been "kill switch". A 25 cent part; Lance swapped it out in less than a minute. She fired right up, purred like a kitten, shifted smoothly and strained against her docklines in forward and reverse.

We're hoping the third time's a charm, and that we can escape to safety soon. Storm after storm rolls across the Atlantic, we've witnessed two of them become hurricanes, and they are likely to keep threatening us through October. I try not to lose sleep over when the big one is coming for us, and my obsession with weather websites might be bordering on excessive.

It's starting to feel like we will never leave Oriental.

I wonder if Minerva's cursed. Lance believes she just wants to show us all the areas she needs attention up front and when she is content she'll behave. He believes she's testing our worthiness. She's certainly testing the limits of my sanity.

There are worse places a person could get stuck, surely. At least the sunsets are pretty.

Another beautiful post-squall summer sunset behind the Oriental bridge

We'll do it in our underwear then

The storms have been rolling through Oriental, NC. One right after another.

Half the folks we meet on the dock act surprised, and profess that it's highly unusual for May. The other half just roll their eyes and tell us this is the way May is around here.

The new switch on the old French bracket, after a brief polish. So shiny.

We received the chartplotter, radar, and VHS with AIS system, and installed them. When we went to connect them to the existing structure of the boat, though, that's when we encountered unexpected messes. The battery bank includes two different types of batteries wired together in parallel (Lance cursed out loud about that one), and the starting batteries were not segregated from the house batteries meaning we could possibly burn up every little bit of battery by leaving on an errant light somewhere, and then not have anything at all left to start the boat. Since we can't push-start Minerva it had to be fixed.

Opening the wall behind the navigation table revealed decades of wires from long-abandoned equipment, shady wire nuts and other dubious connections. Lastly, the main power switch was original French equipment from 1983, and the intermittent and cranky nature of it left us praying it would cooperate. Lance isn't a religious man, so his ultimate solution involved less praying and more tools.

He decided the best plan of attack was to trace every single wire, remove it if it was unnecessary and replace/repair its connections as needed. After that it would be necessary to segregate and re-cable the battery bank, and replace the main power switch with a more modern Perko switch and dedicated busbar system. Doing this meant building some custom brackets, ordering some new tools, and...

Minerva would be without power from beginning to end.

So, coming back to the storms. At first we dodged them. As they rolled through and turned Minerva into a bucking bronco in her slip, we stayed in the peaceful RV planning, ordering and assembling what we could for delivery and installation in the calm windows. Whenever she stopped bucking we attacked it together, Lance with his head in the wall or sitting on the engine elbow deep in the battery compartment, me handing him tools, labels (yes he bought a special labelmaker to get it all perfect) and cold beverages. Some wires we pulled together with a combination of Lance's strength and my little hands in deep holes here and there. I always knew that skill of being able to fit my whole hand in a Pringles can would come in handy somewhere, sometime.

And then a surprise. Out of nowhere the first named storm popped up and headed right for us. Arthur.

A whole month ahead of the recognized hurricane season.

And Minerva had no power with which to escape.

Arthur ended up slipping past us as a non-event, but while spider-webbing Minerva into her slip in preparation we came to the conclusion that we must double-time this project. Storms or no storms, Minerva can't be sitting here like a lame duck waiting for the next one to hit.

But the storms never stopped. After Arthur they just got wetter. Buckets of rain, one storm after another.

So, a rainy Wednesday found us shuffling down the dock being pelted with fat sideways rain, arriving at Minerva soaked to the skin. I found and installed the bimini, giving Lance and the engine some protection from the heavy rain (why hadn't I figured this out before?), and I settled in with the laptop to work. Every now and then Lance would call for tools or a label, and I would pause my client timer, deliver them to him and get back to work.

The second time I appeared at the companionway door and handed him a tool he did a double-take to see me standing there in my underwear. My clothes were all hanging up inside drip-drying. He laughed as he stripped off his soggy shirt to hang alongside them.

Ah yes, Flexibility. Your lessons have been well received.

We made good progress and she should be up and running soon. We're 70% of the way there now. Clothes or no clothes. Storm or no storm.

Standing on the step handing Lance yet another tool, I had this strange moment of... wonder? reality vs expectations met? It's hard to put a name on it. We have always been boaters and expected our boat life to look like this. Well, maybe with more sunshine but not necessarily with more clothes. The popular saying "owning a boat is fixing it in exotic places" is definitely true. We came in expecting that. There's a work/fun ratio I expect to meet, and as long as they remain in balance I'm content.

People ask us when we are leaving. We are shooting for June but know better than to put a  specific date on it. We'll go when she's ready, when we're comfortable with her, when the weather is right and when Loretta and Mr. Toad have been tucked away safely.

Tools loaned by a friend made short work of the bracket upgrade

I wonder about people that buy a boat and just go. Or are expecting the turquoise waters of the Bahamas and fail to fully consider the bumpy Gulf Stream on the way there. Endless instagrammers can be seen posing with surreal backdrops, but that life doesn't seem real to me. To me, standing in my underwear with wet hair stuck to my back, waving a tool at Lance who can't quite grasp it because the boat is getting tossed around and giggling while he misses it again, both of us soaked to the skin... this is the life.

This. This is truly what we signed up for.

Good times are coming soon. We'll find that magical turquoise water. There will be lots more days of tools coming too. And that's also pretty OK.