When we last left Pellucidar, she was experiencing some electrical weirdness in addition to a noise in the drive train that kept coming and going but maybe getting more frequent???
Tom Upshaw, at Tom’s Marine Electric, behind the Port of Everett office, is my go to marine fixit dude. He dove into the charging and thruster issues and had them both repaired before the next weekend. We were good to go…. or so we thought.
After work on Friday we headed out of port bound for Port Ludlow. The noise was very evident at first but went away. We continued onto Port Ludlow. (Never claimed to be the smartest boater out there.) We slowed as we approached the anchorage in Port Ludlow and the drive train noise was painfull! We had a serious issue. We anchored for the night and tried to locate a diver to see what was going on with the prop to make such a racket. We were scheduled to pick up friends in Port Townsend the next day for an afternoon sail. It was not to be. We woke early, hoisted anchor and the noise was worse. We managed to limp over to the the fuel dock where eventually the engine quit. Thinking all along this was a prop issue I had not checked anything else. I hear water. Uh oh. The PSS shaft collar had separated from the bellows allowing large amounts of the Puget Sound to enter the engine room. While we were adjusting the collar to slow down the influx of water until we could investigate further, we found a broken stud in the bilge.
Further examination found the coupling between the transmission and prop shaft had come loose and the nuts were hitting up against the transmission. Two of the four were broken and the two remaining were in tough shape.
Yes Owen, Grandpa agrees!
After running through a few scenarios with a fellow sailor via text, we decided it was time to call our friends at Vessel Assist. Thankfully we had renewed our insurance this year! The folks at Vessel Assist were great. Response was quick considering they had to shuffle some crew around after a late night and they kept us informed often.
Being towed up the river on a Saturday afternoon when it looks like I 405 is nerve racking. Suffice it to say Captain Carl put us right where we needed to be and the staff at the Port of Everett were all out to help get us into position. We hauled out the next morning. Barrett and Jill came by to give us a hand getting things apart. Even on short notice we were able to make good use of our yard time. We had the hull pressure washed, new zincs installed, coated the transducer with anti fouling paint, checked and greased the prop, and repaired the coupling. (Prop was fine) All said and done it could have been much worse. We were back in the water the following Saturday with everything back together and working well. It was a good thing because we had plans for a trip to Bamfield, BC beginning Wednesday.
SV Pellucidar 