Photos of Camille, Daniel (and family and friends)

Today, I spent some quality time with our sailboat that we own with another family.  Let me begin by saying that the boat is 23 years old (did I mention that my vehicle is now 19 years old?).  It is amazing what a saltwater environment and deferred maintenance can do to a “production” boat.  In case you don’t know what “production boat” means, think the Ford Model T – a boat for the masses – assembled quick and dirty in an assembly line.  Do it fast and cheap.  Put whatever parts into that are the cheapest.  Make it affordable for the masses.  Don’t sweat the quality, just get the features that the masses want – lots of places to sleep, good curb (dock) appeal, easy to handle, etc.

Our Catalina 34 is basically a nice boat.  It’s made of a durable and long lasting material – fiberglass.  Wood is kept to a minimum.  This is a good thing, as wood and water do not mix well.

So, after Keith (my boat partner) and I (and lots of folks at the boatyard) worked hard for nearly three weeks to take care of lots of items under the water line, I had the boat plopped back into the water.  As we sat in the slings, I tried desperately and in vain to start the tiny little lawn tractor engine in our boat.  Our “auxillary” engine is a very simple three cylinder 22 horsepower Kubota tractor engine.  Most riding lawnmowers have more power than Santosha.

They say that diesel engines only need three things – fuel, air, and compression.  I think we had the last two, but the first was suspect.  I tried for 20 minutes to start the engine.  We have “glow plugs“.  To start our engine, you turn a key (which really only energizes the primary fuel pump) and hold the glow plug button down.  You hold that g-damn glow plug button down for 30-60 seconds, depending on how lucky you feel.  When you think those glow plugs must be close to the temperature of a runaway nuclear reactor, you depress the starter button.  On a very lucky day, with the throttle wide open, the engine roars to life.  On most days, it goes “rurrr, rurrr, rurrr” until you let go of the starter button and the engine stops moving, leaving you to curse quietly under your breath and try again.

On the day we launched the boat, it was very cold, so the engine went (deep, low, slow) “rurrrrrrrrrrr”.  After a few minutes, I asked the wonderful guys operating the Travelift, what happens if we can’t start the engine?  They said, “don’t worry about it.  It’s 10 now, we don’t have another Travelift job until 1.”  Then after a bit, they said they could push us engineless dingbats over to an adjacent dock where we could slave over our cold piece of cast iron and try to get it cough up a bit of diesel exhaust.

So, Jay and I plugged in our batter charger and warmed up the block and cold engine oil with a heat gun.  After an hour, we could get the engine to fire for about 3 or 4 times before drifting back into the slow rurrrrr, rurrrr, rurrrr.

I was feeling about as big as a dung beetle.  Here our newly polished hull sat lifeless, a victim of an engine whose only purpose seemed to be to add ballast in all the wrong places, reek like diesel, and make an exorbitant amount of noise for a lousy 22 horsepower.

Finally, in a stroke of either curiosity or genius, depending on your generosity, I decided to check the water/fuel separator.  The bowl is fairly opaque, so I wasn’t sure what I saw through the outside.  I drained out a little bit and it was a cloudy yellow liquid that failed to cling to the sides of the plastic cup.  It smelled a bit of diesel, but not completely like diesel.  I asked Jay what he thought.  He said he thought it wasn’t diesel.  I agreed, thinking that water is the only thing that could be in the tank and be oleophobic.  I continued draining liquid until we had a red oleophilic liquid (marine diesel is dyed red, because it is taxed differently than road diesel) on top of the yellow, cloudy stuff.  I was beginning to sort out our problem.

Roland, Seaview West‘s General Manager, strolled down the dock and looked at our sad little plastic cups full of suspicious liquid.  Within 2 milliseconds, he was announcing the diagnosis.  “If that’s what came out of your Racor, then your tank is full of the same stuff.”  Meaning, algae and water.  He went on to discuss, at length, the proposed cure.  He said we (or they) would have to drain and pull out the fuel tank (or at least gain access) and cut access ports in the top.  Then, using rags soaked in diesel, wipe the entire inside of the tank until all the nasty algae is gone.  I said (gulping slightly), “how long (really how much) will that take?”  He said “a full day”.  Let’s see, at $80 per hour for 8 hours, that’s…umm…VERY EXPENSIVE!

Dejected, Jay and I conferred.  Meanwhile, my lovely wife showed up bearing El Paseo Cuban sandwiches.  We delighted in their greasy tastiness.  I talked to Keith on my cell phone.  Keith suggested that we call Catalina and see if we can’t get a new tank.  I, personally, am less likely to think of replacement over repair.  But looking at $640 in labor +$200 in parts, I was looking for salvation.

I called Catalina in CA.  They said call Catalina in FL (I didn’t know they had a branch in FL).  I called FL.  They said that if I threw $600 + shipping their way, and waited 3-4 weeks, they’d be happy to weld me a brand new custom tank.  I gulped quietly again.  Then she said to me, “let me check with CA and see if they have one on a shelf somewhere.”  15 minutes later, I get a call.  An angel tells me that they have one on a shelf.  $313 plus shipping.  I breath a sigh of relief.

Today, I put that beautiful, brand new tank in and did all the connections, bled the air out of the system and got plenty dirty.

I had lots of frustration getting it all done.  But, in the end, the engine finally runs again.

The new tank is gorgeous.  But, even more gorgeous was this sound.  Listen to the purr….(or if you’re feeling irritable, as I often am, a continuous thudding).  I nearly danced a jig on getting the engine to start.  I looked around to see who I could celebrate with.  The Travelift operator heard the roar of our engine and caught my eye.  I gave him a thumbs up; he returned it.  For guys, that’s a celebration.