Chasing the Illusion

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A lot of my friends think I’m brain damaged, actually sometimes I think I’m brain damaged.  I’ve spent most of my free time and all of my money over the past two years trying to get Illusion up to cruising specs.  Wednesday night movie?  Nope….sanding.  Disc golf?  Nope….sanding. Why do I put myself through all this?

Yesterday I was searching through my email for some old pictures of Illusion, hoping to find some good “before” pictures and I put in “Illusion” into my Gmail search bar. I found a poem I sent Lara while I was doing the Indian Ocean crossing aboard Sea Fever.  I got a little nostalgic and started looking through my pictures from Rodrigues.

The Indian Ocean crossing is pretty long, approximately 7000 miles give or take based on your route.  We did the southern route through Chrismas Island, Cocos Keeling (I’ll post pictures from there one day…..wow), then around 2000 miles to Rodrigues.  Look at that map of Rodrigues at the top of the post, zoom out…..then keep on zooming out…..and then zoom out some more until you find some more land.  That is a seriously remote place, but after 2000+ miles from Cocos seeing those green hillsides was a welcome site.

We arrived the night before the big weekly market and around 3am the screaming started; blood curdling, hair on the back of your neck screaming.  I’m from an island where the main industry is tourism, people aren’t even allowed to control the color of their houses much less have livestock.  Seriously, when I was a kid you’d have to get your friends to call you in a pass to get into their “plantation.”  Read into plantation however you like, it’s the term on Hilton Head and through a lot of the Low Country for neighborhood…..with a gate.  Anyway, that screaming came from the pigs getting slaughtered for market that morning….mmmm…fresh bacon.

Rodrigues was settled mostly as an after thought. It was a stopping point in the Indian Ocean, a place to rest and pick up stores. The island had thousands of giant tortoises that made for easy storage on the high seas. They don’t move around as much as pigs, cows or chickens and are quite nutritious — a cure for scurvy no less. The tortoise of Rodrigues also must have been delicious because they’ve been extinct since 1802 and the island was only discovered in the 17th century.

Even though it was controlled by the English for the better part of 200 years, Rodrigues still has more in common with it’s first settlers — the french. They make a pretty decent baguette, speak Creole and smell like garlic. Ok, I made that last one up….The people of Rodrigue still live pretty close to the land, mostly fishing and subsitance farming. The food we had on the island was excellent, nothing flashy but very fresh. The people were laid back and welcoming without being too in your face. They get some tourists, but they don’t have any big ocean side hotels or major developments. There are just a few guest houses, the restaurants were pretty minimal and internet was hard to come by.

An older man whose name escapes me, comes out to meet the sailboats when they arrive and gives you a tour of the island basically in exchange for the cost of gas and your signature in a book he’s kept for decades with the names of all the boats that have come through the island. This isn’t your tourist trap island, but a place where people are happy to see foreigners and welcome them to their island. Life is tough there, there’s a reason why many islands weren’t permanently settled for thousands of years — but the people are happy and relaxed.

We spent about a week on Rodrigues waiting for a weather window to make the crossing to Mauritius. I didn’t do much but relax and take it in. I took some pictures with my hot (at the time) 4 megapixel camera. I think you’ll see a little bit of why I’m so desperate to get back to sailing.

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Lara submitted a modified version of her Sea Turtle wood panel to infectious.com for a contest they’re running.  If she gets enough votes they’ll make it into a skin for laptops and other electronics and maybe into some other fun things.  So go vote for her

click here

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I realized today that I had an unfinished draft up on the Boat page.  I added a little to it, including some links to the original brochures and some literature about my good old boat.

So for those of you wondering why the paragraph ended in mid sentence, you can  now check out the rest.

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After about a year of back and forth with the US government, Illusion is Coast Guard documented.  Documentation is like a passport for your boat, it’s required to clear in just about anywhere (trust me, no one knows who or what South Carolina is unless they watch the Daily Show).  It’s a first,  big step to getting out of the country.  Now we just need to get out of the boat yard……

It took a long time for me to get my documentation, but not because it’s a complicated process.  Just go to Coast Guard’s Documentation Center Website. Download the handy PDF forms which you can email back to them once you’ve completed them.  All you need is some basic info about your boat (year made, weight, etc. etc.), Bill of Sale and your state registration.  I kept emailing my stuff in without my registration for some reason.  For once, I found dealing with the federal bureaucracy relatively easy.  I always got a live, human being when I called the the Documentation Center and they were plenty helpful and easy to deal with.  I’m not sure why there are so many services out there to help you document your boat?  Maybe I need to go into business charging people $500 to fill out a few forms and email them in

Once you’re issued a number, you have to permanently mount that number somewhere in the boat, I’m thinking we’ll carve ours in at some point using a wood burner or something along those lines.

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On Friday I finished drilling through the new steel mast step, in the process learned some valuable lessons about steel as the subject of drilling. When you’re putting in a 3/4″ hole through 1/4″ steel from underneath (or another thick, hard material….) it pays to:

• buy a good drill bit
• keep it sharp (use a bench grinder and roll the bit along it’s natural curvature and sharpen each outside edge)
• drill pilot holes, if it’s a big hole drill multiple

How did I learn these things?  I needed to drill four holes in the new mast step and elected to use the old holes in the lead keel.  Drilling up through the countersunk holes allowed me to keep my angle right.  I did not have a drill bit the right size, nor did the boatyard.  I wanted the hole to be slightly smaller than the bolts so I could tap the hole so the bolt would be threaded into the step itself and a nut.

We made a run out to the local True Value, about 15 miles away and bought a bit.  I came back and assumed the position.  I crouched under the boat and held drill above my head at about a 70 degree angle and well….drilled.  A lot.  By the second hole the woman who works their store offered me a stool, I of course declined until I looked up what felt like 15 minutes later and had only gone through half of it…….that seat suddenly seemed like a good idea.

The seat didn’t make the drill any faster, when I finished the hole I checked out the bit and it was totally rounded off on the sides.  If I’d sharpened it, that second hole wouldn’t have taken anywhere near as long.

When I finished the first hole, the drill stuck in the hole and kicked.  I dropped the drill, if I’d had a bad grip or wasn’t paying attention I could definitely have been popped in the head….After the second hole I learned how to sharpen the bit.  The third hole went quickly and easily.  The last hole was going quickly like the third until the bit split enough.  That’s where the pilot holes come in.  Right…..

Drill bits are designed to cut around the outside.  I was putting a lot of weight on the point and the steel was pushing back, all that pressure and motion eventually cracked the bit in half.

Anyway….holes drilled and tapped, I cleaned out the holes with my Dremel.  Then threaded in the bolts and tightened them about 90% of my strength (only a slight grunt, not battle cry tight) with a whole lot  of 5200 in the hole and around the head of the bolt.  5200 holds….I don’t like using it because getting it off is like battling a 20 minute mayonnaise jar lid with a jigsaw and pry bar.  I let that sit over the weekend to form a gasket.

Then I went and got two Tyvex suits, breathing masks and heavy duty gloves to sand the bottom with 6″ sanders attached to giant shop vacs.  Lara was shockingly not too enthused about spending the afternoon dressed like she was doing a crime scene clean up, sanding off paint designed to poison shellfish and other would be colonizers.  So I was stuck by myself to finish off my Friday afternoon shoulder work out.

While sanding I discovered more work….or created some.  The bottom had several blisters, I followed these instructions by Don Casey, who incidentally knows what he’s doing.  Though he skipped the “flatter your artistic girlfriend and convince her to fill the blisters because you make a giant mess with any available medium and you don’t want to end up having to sand off stalagmites of epoxy” step.

Pictures below

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And so the push begins, or continues or…..well….we’re still at it.  We got the sturdy new mast step back, I spent the better part of two hours yesterday drilling two holes in it.  Apparently drilling through thick steel is tough, who knew?  Lara and I are hustling to get all the out of the water projects finished this weekend so the boat can go back in the water early next week and I can start the rebuild.  I got the engine block and head back from the machine shop last week, it’s just been riding around in my car taking in the scenery for going on 7 days now.

There is a light at the end of the tunnel, and my first boatyard experience has been a blast. Here are some pics from the work over the last week:

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Boats, plans and budgets have been coming apart faster than a jenga tower in a Parkinson’s support group.

We have the boat hauled out to take care of some unpleasantness while the engine is at the machine shop.  We’re replacing sea cocks, painting the bilge, tidying up the engine bay and all sorts little projects that are easier with the engine out of the boat.  You can see pic’s here on Lara’s page.

Good news is, the boat is going to be a lot more seaworthy.  I’ll be able to sleep better on long passages and won’t be afraid to push Illusion from time to time (with her fin keel, she likes to really move!)

Bad news is more MAJOR issues…Illusion sat in the previous owners backyard for 20 or so years (in the water) and didn’t get a lot in the way of TLC or even basic upkeep.  The mast step (and most of the structural metal of the boat) is made of mild steel.  Here’s an equation for you budding chemists out there.

Steel + water + years of neglect = Lots of Corrosion

We knew there was corrosion, and after crewing on a steel boat I know the steps to remedy it: bang rust with a hard implement like a chisel, treat with Ospho, then paint with a rust inhibiting paint.  We attacked the keel bolts and their backing plates this week, had them checked out by the yard and then moved onto the mast step.  The keel bolts got a passable bill of health (they look like crap but the keel isn’t coming off).  The mast step on the other hand, looked like swiss cheese…..well if swiss cheese was covered in rust.

The mast step is where the mast is joined to the keel, in a keel stepped mast configuration it’s the basic structural component for a system that uses thousands of pounds of pressure to move the boat forward through the water.  After rust removal and treatment, here’s a picture of a load bearing portion of the mast step:

So……I’ve got more work on my hands.  I’ll put a technical post up soon.

But misery lovers company, last weekend I was looking for some other websites/blogs of people working on some of the same stuff we are and I found Syzygy.  Matt is the captain/mechanic/boat maintenance guru over there and they’re going through some similar problems (albeit on a sweet Valiant 40…give me some of those problems please!) as they try to hit the open sea.  His last few posts are interesting and show some of the frustrations of old boat ownership and trying to leaving the f’ing dock in general.

Check it out.

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Go check out Lara’s blog Forest and Fin to get a fuller picture of life on the boat…..she posts pretty often and takes great pics.  There are some pictures of the boat painted over there and some posts about living on the boat etc.

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this is part II of the great engine debacle…..click here for part I

That was the inside of that bad fourth cylinder….somehow salt water must have ended up in the cylinder and sat for several months leading to a surface that was more like 30 grit sandpaper than the smooth walls needed for the engine to turn over.  A replacement “rebuilt” engine would run around $4,000 – $5,000 but that would be for the engine alone.

When you put in a different engine there’s a lot to consider.  Different engines are shaped differently, requiring a different mounting area and many engines have different angles that they need to interact with the prop.  Replacing the engine with a different type could translate to weeks more work adjusting the engine bay to work for the new engine.  Also the control panel most likely won’t be compatible……basically a lot more work and expense than just putting in the engine.

Despite those concerns, replacing the engine with an RTO (running take out) or a rebuild would be the fastest way for us to get under way.  After finishing my job in mid November and the onset of cold weather we were itching to get on the road.  This has been two years in the making and we were tired of waiting.  I started the internet search, found some diesels in the 25 – 35 hp range and researched possible mechanic shops on the web that would be close by to talk to about rebuilding my engine or any engines they had available for sale.

I’d heard of Rockville Marine/Marine Propulsion from people for a few years.  I knew they had a great reputation, mostly from actual cruisers instead of marina types.  On their website they advertised some rebuilt engines and just seemed like a serious place.  I needed to talk to someone who knew about marine diesels and to feel like I was doing something other than searching the internet.

We took pictures of the engine, went by the pharmacy and printed them out, got in the Jeep and headed to Rockville.

The drive down was beautiful and somewhat soothing, it’s about 30 to 45 minutes south from Charleston and you cross three or four bridges and through beautiful marshes and countryside to get to the southern end of Wadmalaw Island.  We pulled up to the boatyard, were greeted by a few old dogs and a beautiful view out over Adams Creek and miles of marshland.

We tracked down Anthony Black, the boatyard’s spearfishing, South African, bad mamajama owner. He took time out from his day of running one of the South’s premier boatyards to listen to us, look through our pictures of the motor, look through the rebuilds we found online and challenge my manhood.

“Why don’t you just rebuild the motor.  Take it out, bring it here — I’ll look at it and you can be rebuild it.  You don’t have anything to be afraid of.”  Basically he gave me a kick in the ass, was completely cool and collected and didn’t have dollar signs in his eyes.  The quickest, cheapest way for me to get a solid running engine was to rebuild the engine myself.  It was the answer I wanted but hadn’t heard from anyone else.  It fit with the Illusion’s story and would help me build on my skills.  Last year, I looked at attending the Landing School in Maine, but decided I would rather learn on my own (and be able to afford to keep my boat).  This would be my class.

Diesel Engines 250:  Guided Self-Study

In this course students will gain exposure to all aspects of a an engine and the basic mechanics of a diesel.  This is an intense course and combines several semesters of learning with the pressure of a disappointed girlfriend who was promised warm weather and blue water, not freezing temperatures and greasy floors.  Students must also learn how to source parts from scrap yards, online discount supply and cross reference marine diesels with their industrial/tractor blocks.

Topics covered will include dis-assembly and removal of a 275 lb motor from inside a sailboat, use of a sledge hammer to remove seized pistons, interaction with grumpy machine shop employees, and how to properly remove engine oil from just about any surface.

Pre-requisites include a limited budget, a seized engine and a strong desire to get sailing

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……..

December — tried to go out surfing this morning and it was cold, grey, raining and blown out.  I walked up and down the beach with a coffee and talked myself into going out, it was 7 in the morning and I was already at the beach, screw it.  Got in my wetsuit, leashed up and walked into the water, got about ankle deep and decided against it.  It was cold, damn cold and I didn’t have booties.

I’ll probably get some later today.

We’re still in Charleston, trying to get moving but sometimes things require persistence and pig headedness depending on who you ask.  The paint job is about 1/3′rd done — weather should allow us to finish everything but the hatches and cockpit this week.  Definitely a learning experience, I went from not knowing anything about fiberglass to being pretty confident I can do this for work along the way, but was the deck a lot of work.

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I started typing the few paragraphs above in early December.  That day I went to the surf shop and got some booties and went back out to Folly Beach and had a great session. I am pig headed sometimes, if I want to do something I’m going to find a way to make it happen.

Early December this year was uncharacteristically cold for Charleston and really stormy.  We had a day with six inches of rain, several days in a row of 30 knot winds and about 5 good painting days.  Illusion’s deck got painted with the exception of the cockpit, we’re saving that for warmer times or at least when it’s more convenient. Painting the cockpit when you’re coming in and out of the boat all the time isn’t the best idea.

Around the time we were putting down our final coats of paint, I decided to figure out what was wrong with the starter.  I’d had some electrical problems and I thought there was a problem with the starting circuit.  I went out and bought a new battery and connected it back up, but when I tried to turn the engine over I just got a *clunk* sound from the motor and no go.  My friend Chuck came over to help figure out what the problem was, we disconnected the starter and jumped it…..it engaged just fine.  My stomach dropped about from my waist to my ankles…..if the starter is fine, then the engine is not.  We grabbed Chucks two foot breaker bar and tried to turn the engine by hand on the crankshaft pulley, not even a millimeter budge.

Injectors were removed, cylinders filled with penetrating oil (good ol’ PB Blaster) and Marvel Mystery Oil;  Nigel Calder was consulted repeatedly, not in person but in his book on diesels and once by seance; goats were sacrificed.  Patience was the word of the day, then the word of the days, then the word of the week.

My engine was seized…..gulp…..people in the marina talked to me as a child or parent was sick in the hospital; quietly and reverently passers by who had heard the news inquired about the condition of my Westerbeke.  “Still down, but we’re hoping she’ll pull through any day.” On the 7th day, I knocked on the side of Chuck’s boat.  It was time to pull the head and see what was in those cylinders.

We took the intake manifold off, then the exhaust manifold.  Illusion’s Westerbeke W27 is 23 years old, it doesn’t have that many hours on it but well…it’s seen better days.  Some of the bolts holding on the exhaust manifold were totally frozen and we had to chisel them off.  Once we got the exhaust manifold off, the head came pretty easily.  It was like opening an anticipated present only backwards — I knew I was getting something bad, just not sure how bad.

The first three cylinders didn’t look that bad, but the number four looked like shit.  Chuck put his hand in the cylinder and ran his fingers around the walls, “feels like a gravel road.”

My stomach returned to my ankles.

…….to be continued……

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