Engine struggles and the march forward.

The ever ongoing troubles of preparing a boat for long term ocean cruising have continued as expected.  I like to think that the more love and attention I give to the boat the more love and respect she will have for us. Hopefully this relationship will allow her to provide for us and protect us on our journey. I buy her the best there is and I hope she will keep us safe in storms and far off lands. I tell myself that the more things I find broken or in poor condition is just a chance for me to better learn the inner workings of all the systems and allow me to have a greater understanding when things actually do go wrong. We will see years from now how true this holds!

It has a been a sad and long eleven months of "Wild Swan" sitting stationary in her slip not feeling the wind fill her beautiful dark sails. This period of rest is not due to a lack of love or attention from us but due to the lack of said things from previous care takers. Slowly she grew tentacles into the bottom below her and if given the chance, Mother Earth would have taken her back.

 Last January while doing an oil change on the engine I found myself standing on my head to look at things as we all typically do. It was to my great dismay I noticed an engine mount completely broken in half! Upon further inspection I found another one broken as well!! How could this be?! I paid a surveyor!! I'll wait while you finish chuckling...... So apparently those low idle vibrations were not due to it being a Yanmar, but being a Yanmar with no feet. At this point I tightened her lines and settled in for a long repair.

The initial discovery of the Broken Mount. YIKES!

Not completely broken in half, but delaminated! There was a second one that was broken in half.

With the help of my good friend Greg, I got a good deal on some R&D engine mounts. Friends at the Hans Christian Forum gave advice on how to change out the mounts in the boat and my friend Alex loaned his time and strength. Of course the "direct replacement" mounts did not fit and I found myself on the phone with tech help at R&D and ended up at a machine shop for the alterations to be made. Three removals of the engine later the mounts were in, but this was only the beginning.  I found the flex coupling was bad as well which required a fourth removal of the engine to get out. More help from Greg and a new coupling was bought and now for the alignment.

The lifting device from the boom to lift the engine up.

Engine alignment in  my mind is perfectly logical and I understand how to do it, but when my hands are on the wrench and the feeler gauges were out, I was at a lost. I finally caved and paid good money to have it professionally done. This was a costly decision but one I'm glad I made.  Now why did this take 11 months you ask? Well with me being gone at work every other month and with the numerous other problems we found with the engine, it took a while. A complete rebuild of the exhaust system was needed and so was a lot of money!! This I will probably discuss later.

Eleven months later after much patience, Ashely and I took her our for a beautiful sail on a cold windy day and what a great day it was. 

First Time Sailing in 11 Months!!! WoHoo!