I wanted the first post to be epic. Something vividly grandiose and special, well the heck with that, let's get down to business and tell a story about nuts. Could be the boating kind, as in me or my husband, but this time it's an actual piece of hardware.
Last Friday our engine guru, Portside Marine, paid a visit to fix the starboard engine inbound hose from the transmission to the transmission fluid cooler. Brad went to a shop locally, Colliflower, where these types of hoses are made and ordered one appropriate to the task.
Our guru proceeded to install the new hose and said to Brad, "Let's start her up". Brad turns the key and, "shut it down, shut it down" yells the guru. The transmission fluid had sprayed all over the place in the bilge (I wasn't there to describe this better). So, alas, the fix had not worked. Oh yeah, "I love yachting". For better or worse, we love our boats, but we do not love these moments, but we keep on boating. And, um, no, that is not a magnum of spilled wine, nor is it a filet mignon (?), as some friends have curiously noted.
Speculation ensued and it was settled upon a previously faulty repair before we purchased the boat with the conclusion that the connection must have been stripped and hence why the nut had not screwed on securely. This would be a much bigger repair now with a stripped connection.
This is a very difficult repair to get to - it would be easy to keep trying and get this wrong. This is on the outboard side of the engine, practically under it, and between it and the batteries, a nearly impossible space. (the picture is actually of the port engine and the guru is working on something entirely unrelated but you can see how tight the fit is)
Well, now it's the weekend and we are not going anywhere. Saturday was stinking hot so we missed little. With dashed dreams of leaving the dock, Brad pursued the fix.
He sweated it out under the awning to see if he could get the repair, repaired. With storms in the area, he had to abandon the mission.
Sunday morning he was back at it and during a lunch break at home, he noted as calmly as possible that a sudden gust of wind had sailed the starboard engine canvas cover off the boat from its resting position on the coaming and down to the bottom.
I am not OK with things that are not broken, getting broken. I nearly lost my mind for a minute then said to my so very apologetic mechanic-trying-to-be husband, that I can handle a boat that we knew we'd have to make repairs and upgrades to along the way, but geez, to lose a perfectly good cover... That said, it wasn't far under and a diver is almost always at the dock working on someone's boat, we'd just get him to pull it up.
After a quick bite, Brad headed back to the boat. A little after 4 pm, I start getting texts, and there's an awesome video!
Wow! He's done it! A shiny new connection not spraying red juice all over and the nut is screwed up as securely as he could endeavor to do so from hanging over the engine in a contorted fashion to reach this area from a different angle.
Mechanic genius comes back to the house, cleans up, and we head back to the boat to have an evening cocktail aboard CAYUGA, albeit at the dock, just to make sure this is a
real fix before we venture out later this week.
We started up the engines and ran them for a little bit and yes, the fix seems fixed!
And a little icing on the I love yachting cake? Brad was able to fish up the engine canvas cover from the bottom with a boathook while the tide was low.
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