A Wrench in the Works

A lot has happened since I've been able to post anything on the blog, so time for an update, all the way back to Wednesday June 12. “Some Lucky” left to go down the east side of Gwaii Haanas. Our intermittent electrical problems continued to plague us, so after we'd returned the car at noon, we spent most of the afternoon working on trying to trace the problem....again....and again....and again. I found a local marine electrician who was very busy on the fishing fleet in preparation for the upcoming salmon opening on the 20^th, but he agreed to come over and have a look at the end of his day. Geoff (the electrician) finally showed up a little after 6 PM and started tracing all of my connections.....he found a suspect wire running from the negative bus to the negative switch panel – he advised it was much too small for its needs, and that it be replaced by a larger one. I agreed, and he supplied me with some #6 wire to replace the smaller #16 in place, and he connected the lug connections onto it, and left me to connect and run the wire through. I also decided to do the same thing with the positive side of things. I managed to get most of this done, with the understanding that Geoff would return in the morning to check out the connections and voltages. By this time it was 1930, so I quit work and walked up to the head of the dock to join Ray in Howlers Bar (the only pub in town) to watch the end of the first game of the Stanley Cup Finals. I'm not a big hockey fan, but I enjoyed the action in this game, which went into two overtime periods before the Chicago win. The following morning, Geoff arrived at 0830 to check my work and the connections, and declared our system fit to use. By 0930 we were motoring out of the harbour in sunny and warm, and calm conditions. But a little over a mile out of the harbour, our engine overheat warning went off. We shut down the engine and checked the water intake – clear. Then we checked the water pump and the impeller inside it, and the belt which drives it – all OK. So we sailed back slowly, and at the harbour mouth, were able to motor back into the dock (the engine had cooled enough for a short run). A snake through all of the various water lines, a recheck on the intake, water pump, impeller all proved no problems....so I disconnected and cleaned the heat exchanger, with still no positive results. The last part of the cooling system is a large elbow used to mix the exhaust gases with the coolant water, but requires a very large wrench to remove and clean it. The pipe wrench we have is big enough...but too thick. The other boaters around us were helpful in lending various tools and wrenches, but nothing fit. I walked all over town, renting a large adjustable wrench which ended up not fitting. A local fisherman, Lindsay, was very helpful in suggestions and then in driving me around to various shops in town, finally finding the right wrench (which we borrowed from a machine shop in town in return for a case of beer). The wrench fit, and started to loosen the fittings, but by then it was getting late – so we called it a day, had supper, and an early night.

Saturday morning dawned bright and sunny yet again – perhaps my impressions of a cold and rainy Haida Gwaii were mistaken! I was able to finally remove the fitting with the wrench, and get it all cleaned. But when all was back together again, to my complete frustration, we still had no coolant water making through the system! Back to the beginning – this time, I removed the hose from the intake water pipe, instead of checking the opening at the top....and found some seaweed clogging the hose. This fitting had been replaced last fall by Stone's Boatyard, and I had at the time complained that it was a 90 degree elbow fitting....but they insisted it was necessary for the hose to fit properly. I should have stood my ground, as a straight fitting would have been immediately evident for a clog, and would not have created the seaweed trap in the first place! At any rate, this fixed the problem....and I was now quite confident that the entire cooling system was in good order. It was too late to leave today, so we spent another evening at Howler's Pub watching game two, which also went into overtime.

So enough with the fixing – it is certainly time to get exploring again, or at least run out a scouting trip to check out the area before Ray's wife Kathy flies in to join us for five days, on the 20^th.  No pictures to go with this entry....but I promise a bunch of them in the next entry to update everybody to the present time!