When Sailing Becomes An Adventure In Diesel Repairs

There is too much to cover in one blog post since the last time I wrote, so this will only be about Nomad’s latest misadventures. Later posts will be slightly out of chronological order covering the last haul out, returning to Texas after a decade of sailing, and restitching the sails in the Dominican Republic. This was to be Nomad's record setting, slowest ever trip taking twenty four days to travel 1681nm. Mindful of the impending hurricane season and the limited time for sailing in the north Nomad sailed out of Luperon near the end of June. The plan was to sail through the Turks and skirt the edge of the high pressure area motor sailing as needed and ride the south edge of the Gulf Stream until it was time to cross it and steer for Newfoundland. It didn’t happen quite as planned… Two days into the voyage it was time for a little motor sailing to keep a safe distance off the east end of Mayaguana island which was a lee shore. All was going well until the engine room suddenly filled with smoke and water. Upon shutting down the engine and clearing the air I found that the exhaust pipe had broken and the entire contents of the exhaust were spraying into the engine room. Fortunately I had some spare parts in the bilge and was able to replace the broken piece. Problem solved and back to motoring now that we were getting closer to Mayaguana. After warming up at low rpm and gradually increasing to cruising rpm the engine promptly overheated and blew out it’s coolant. This has been an ongoing problem since leaving Texas and I thought it was cured by replacing a bad bearing in the water pump. This problem was apparently cured but I was only able to test it by backing against the anchor and not under a full load. It wasn’t the only problem! After clearing the lee shore at the east end of Mayaguana late at night I set about getting the engine back to working the next day.

The wind and seas were becoming calm as expected with the summer high pressure reaching nearly to Cape Hatteras. This made good conditions for working on the engine but not so good for sailing. Finding apparently nothing wrong I refilled the coolant and topped it off with the engine running at half throttle. It was running ok so I put the cap back on the heat exchanger but withing a few minutes the engine room was full of steam from the blow by pipe and nothing in the coolant overflow. Pulling the dipstick showed all the coolant had relocated to the oil pan. Time to let it cool down and work on it the next day.

Well into the doldrums now, progress was painfully slow under sail, around twenty miles a day, most of it during the sunrise squalls. There was one day where I logged one mile going in circles. Fortunately there was little swell so I was able to keep the sails up and move a little whenever there was the slightest breeze. Upon reflection of the motor’s problems I decided that it either had to be the head gasket or a crack in the head or block. With nothing to do but try to fix it while drifting about I set about pulling the head. There had been some fuel seepage at one of the injectors and the fuel return line was the culprit here, it cracked open as I removed it. The head and block looked ok but the sealing material on the gasket had turned to a grey goo and I could see where the water was leaking into the oil gallery. I did not have a spare head gasket so I cleaned up the old one and coated it with rtv silicone and re assembled the engine and changed the oil. I filled everything up and started the engine. Everything looked good so I brought it up to operating temperature. So far, so good...no change in the water level. So I put the cap the expansion tank and it promptly sent all the water into the oil pan and filled the engine room with steam again. That was enough for one day.

This was more serious than a head gasket problem. The engine ran well,it just couldn’t keep it’s coolant where it belonged. I dried out the engine and changed the oil again. It could be run dry thirty to forty seconds if I needed it to avoid a collision but other than for a very limited emergency use Nomad was now purely a sailing vessel. Seventeen days into what should have been a three week trip and only 1215 miles traveled so far I realized that it would likely be another three weeks getting to Newfoundland. This was early July by now and the weather fax was showing a tropical storm forming off of Florida while I was drifting about trying to catch a breeze. Coupled with concerns that people would begin to worry about my whereabouts if I was to continue on to Newfoundland and being more than a month overdue on a relatively short trip, I decided to change course for the Chesapeake bay. Coupled with easier access to parts or possibly another engine this was the logical but highly disappointing choice. I had to coax Nomad to within two hundred miles of Cape Hatteras to get some wind and the Gulf Stream current.

Eventually Nomad found the wind and had a nice sail for a couple days and then the wind stopped again leaving me drifting about the traffic lanes at the entrance to the Chesapeake bay for almost four days. After two attempts to cross the Bay Bridge tunnel gap the wind returned as I turned towards Hampton roads. During this time drifting around the entrance there was intermittent and very weak cell service but it was enough to get some messages out. I connected with Steve Nelson of the Colvin Owners group on Facebook to see if he had space on his dock for another schooner. He did and came out in his dinghy with a very powerful outboard and met me as I got near Hampton roads. The wind died again when we got inside. With the dinghy lashed alongside we were still able to make a couple knots against the now ebbing tide. Well after sunset we arrived in Portsmouth with no further problems and Steve piloted us through the poorly marked creek to his dock.

A new head gasket and fuel pipe was ordered and while waiting for it to arrive I got busy with the prep work taking the head off and getting everything cleaned up. It was decided that it would be good to have the head re surfaced for flatness and check it for cracks. As I was cleaning it up to take it to the machine shop I discovered that one of the freeze plugs under the rocker arms had rusted through when my screwdriver with a bit of rag on the end went right through it when I tried to scrape some debris out of it. This is where my coolant had been draining out of the system even with the engine off. The parts arrived and the motor was put back together, running better than it ever has done before. With all the new parts arriving late it was no longer possible to make it to the Arctic this year as I was two thousand miles away from where I should have been at this time. Try again next year…That trip will begin again in the springtime.