Engine failure at sea!
There are not many moments in sailing better than when you hoist the sails and shut off the motor. On the other hand, the moment the engine shuts off and you didn’t want it to, that’s another story.
One day in March, Shannon and I were out on just another weekend day sail. The weather wasn’t perfect, but we wanted to go anyway. Besides, we have to learn to sail in any weather. After our 45 minute motor out to the bay, we put up the main, unfurled the jib, and sheeted home. Then came that moment. The moment when you pull the engine shutoff and the wondrous silence of sailing engulfs us. The only sounds left are the slight hum of the rig, and the splashing of the waves off the bow.
The clouds opened up, the sun came out, and the day turned out be be much better than expected. We sailed up and down the bay for hours.
Nearing the end of the afternoon, with our confidence at a peak after several hours of tacking and gybing Nymeria like we know what we are doing, we set course back to the channel to head home. The Clear Creek Channel is about 70 ft wide at its widest, and wanders its way inland to the lake. Its often quite full of traffic as well, as it is the only access to Galveston bay from Clear Lake, where most of the Kemah area Marinas are. Due to this, only the most confident sailors continue sailing to their marinas. We are not one of them.
As we get to the channel entrance, we fire up the motor, turn the boat into the wind and begin dropping our sails. After the Jib is furled, and just as I start getting ready to drop the main, silence. The engine had died. OK, no big deal, we still have the main up, so I tell Shannon to bear away and start sailing again to maintain control while I go start the motor. It had been off for several hours so maybe it just hadn’t warmed up all the way. I push the starter and she fires right up. All good.
Or so I thought.
Thirty seconds after putting it back in gear, she dies again. Now I’m a bit more concerned, but there are still several possible causes. Maybe after hours of sailing, the fuel just got all sloshed around and there is air in the line or something. So I try again to start, it starts… but then dies. Am I out of fuel? The gauge reads 1/2 but the boat uses so little fuel, I’ve never seen the it move. Try to start again. It starts, and runs at idle, but starts to struggle. Give it some throttle, and it revs faster, but slowly dies again.
Now we need to start getting serious. I ask Shannon how shes doing. Does She have good control? Are we sailing OK? “Yes” she says.
“I’m going to need to open up the engine bay and start looking for issues, so it will be some time before we have power again”
“OK, well then we probably should tack back out toward the bay as were headed toward shallow waters.”
We make a slow tack to a good course, and I double check she is OK and in control before I go below. I get the engine cover open, and start looking. Everything seems fine to my untrained eyes. First things first, fuel filter. I’ve heard many stories of clogged filters, and have been warned to always have several spares aboard. I had never opened the filter, so why not now as we rock back and fourth in the waves n the middle of the bay. Opening the filter looked fine, plenty of fuel in there so I don’t think we ran out. The filter actually looks really clean to me as well. I put everything back together. My usual method of take it apart and put it back together again tends to work, so I tried to start it. Nothing, just cranking.
Time to phone a friend.
Luckily we have great cell coverage in the bay, so I’m able to call our friend Darby. Hes been on his boat just over a year and had pretty much all the normal issues. “Did you check the filter?” he asks. “Yes, it looked OK to me.” “how about the fuel pump, is it working?” “Uhh, I don’t know.” I hadn’t thought of the pump, nor do I know how to see if it is working. He tells me that if I turn the key on, I should hear it running, it should sound like a bunch of clicking. If that is working, then replace the fuel filter anyway and try again. “If after all that it still doesn’t start, just call TowBoatUS, you have a membership right?” “I’m pretty sure I do.”
I do as he says and start digging deep into the back of my storage to find the spare parts bin the previous owner had left aboard. Sure enough, there’s a brand new fuel filter (and many other unknown filters and belts). I replace the filter and start looking at the fuel pump. Of course it looks OK to me, but then again, I have no idea what I’m really looking at. I turn on the key and it immediately starts clicking, just like it is supposed to. I was told to just let is sit for a minute or two running to prime the system before trying to start. After an unusually long minute, I try to start again. Nothing…
I guess its now time to call the tow boat. I’m confident I have a membership TowBoatUs as it was included with my insurance. In fact. Just that morning I had looked up the number and put it in my phone, you know, just in case. I didn’t think I would have jinxed myself. I call the dispatcher and give all my information. Good news! I have a basic membership and they will cover the first $50 of the towing! Still thinking that this must be right, and it can only be a another hundred or so on top of that I had a boat dispatched.
Two hours and $400 later we were back at our dock, tired and stressed. We left the boat and promptly found the nearest margarita and did our best for forget for the evening.
We later worked out that we had bad info with our TowBoat membership, and got that towing fee reimbersed. It also took us another couple of weeks to get the engine running again, but that is a whole other story for later so check back in again!
