Engine Shut Down

[Island Time 1,239]

hmm, could write a book about that! have a look at http://www.paulins.net for the latest voyage details. That voyage was 3 years, but its not the only one. Boat is a Farr Phase 4, engine is a Volvo Penta 2003T, 3 cyl 43 HP Turbo, connected to a 120S saildrive.

 

Technical Issues... A few. As you have prob gathered, my background includes Mechanical Engineering. So I worked a lot on both my boat and other cruisers. In one place, upon arriving back at the boat after a day out, I had six people waiting for me because of issues on their boats. Man, my wife threw a tantrum that day - why are we here, you could get paid for this, etc etc. After that I told people to schedule jobs and payment with Jo, so she could regulate the quantity. Worked pretty well, but at one stage I was working for weetbix!

 

Problems on cruising boats are common, and cruising has been described as "repairing boats in exotic locations". For us, we had no serious problems. A few of the issues we had - a broken baby stay, failed engine fresh water circ pump (the only one I did not have! had to convert to salt water cooling for a bit), starter motor failure, leak in a salt water copper pipe caused by an arc from alt terminal, others I've forgotten. Oh yeah, and in the solo tasman race - failed Autopilot (Hydraulic leak), and broaching down a wave under said autopilot, snapped a preventer and broke the kicker fitting.

 

There were others. In the Maldives, i swapped a 20amp fuse to a 100fter, for a Dive tank fill, a whole eye fillet, and a beer! Best value ever!! If you see us out in the gulf some time, come over for a beer if you want to talk about it!

Matt

[Steve Pope 243]

1 part Phosphoric acid to 4 or 5 parts water is the simplest way to clean out your heat exchangers. Remove core and put into a container just large enough to hold the core + some room for frothing, while the mixture does its job, add acid mix, remove and rinse well after 10 to 15 minutes, or as soon as you see there is no more activity.

I have cleaned ones that don't have a removeable core in situ ( gearbox, engine oil, etc) by removing the water inlet / outlet hoses and fitting hoses with a 90' bend to allow you to fill the exchanger yet contain the fluid. Suggest you have a bucket to catch any frothing / overflow while the process is underway. drain the acid mix into your bucket and allow to settle, then poor it into plastic container leaving any solids in the bucket, it is then ready to reuse the next time.