39:21.207N 009:25.9761W
SV Eleonora
Michael A. Andronov
Sat 11 Aug 2018 14:14
We are clearing Peniche, Cabo Carvoeiro.
Turned port a bit, and we will follow the coast till Cabo Raso… where we will turn again a bit to port and we will targeting Cascais… That is the plan…
The Sun is raising, but some fog is also building… So, probably for a while we will not see the shore…
The wind — as expected — is coming exactly from the back, aligned with the swell, and very light…. Without yankee, our speed is pathetic… and we are motoring…
‘We are motor sailing’ — the phrase sounds as a music for me, as I’m dropping and setting the fishing line into the water… Why is it so? Let me start from the beginning…
It was shortly after 0100 UTC, when I was checking the boat, verifying that we are OK for a night… The wind has just went down, we were progressing slowly… I was not in a rush at all since I wanted to clear the Peniche at early morning, in first Sun lights… I checked the boat, watched the sky for a while… ( I do not know, somehow — it is not so bright as the skies in Caribbean or further South… Everything is there… And at the same time — it is not as bright and vivid as in Caribbean… ;-)).
Looked at the batteries, fridges — and decided to run a motor for half an hour — to charge batteries, to cool down fridges, and ‘to compensate’ a bit for the slow down as the wind was keep veering, and I have no choice but to furl yankee… With all that done, I went down, start the timer for 25 minutes, and go to sleep…
I opened my eyes… No, it is not timer, I still have 14 minutes to go… So, it is the boat call, as usual… ( Good, we still that that connection… )… But what is it ? The motor is running, the course is OK… No boats around… (All that was done as I rushed towards the Nav station and gave a quick look, still have sleepy….)
At this moment — abrupt stopped of the motor, and ‘beep, beep, beep… ‘ from its control panel in the cockpit… ‘Oh, no… it is impossible… we have fuel… not again… ‘, the thought was crossing my mind, as I was still half asleep…
The smell of something burning in the engine compartment removed the last traces of sleep and makes me awake momentarily… Turn off engine compartment blower… The smell increased… The engine started to make attempts to run the starter sporadically… which reminds me to turn off the main switch of the engine batteries… Which removes the last signs of life from the engine… No sound of burning… But the smell…. and smoke… With fire extinguisher in one hand, opened the engine compartment window on a side… More smoke coming out… no fire… the smoke slowly disappeared… leaving the smell of the burning wire isolation..,. But the light inside… Still, quite smoky all around… But disappearing… Double checked… Started the blower… The smoke gone… The smell — still there… The engine — in ‘ electrical arrest… ‘… on in plain English — dead…
The good part — all that smoke seems to be from ‘outside the engine’, and mechanically, it seems to be fine… No fire in the compartment either… which brought a bit of relief…
Nor the air in the fuel line… Well, I would probably prefer to deal with that one now… since I know how to do it, and the smell of the diesel is nicer then the current smell…
’Should I call 911?’, the thought crossed my mind nearly automatically… ‘ I wonder which 911 the phone would connect to… Canadian or local ?’, that thought indicated that I have not waken up yet… But it is time to wake up, and ’to build the plan’…
It is a 0147 UTC… we are still moving at about 3 knots in the proper direction… The boat has a steerage, but we have a bit of a swell, the wind going down… and the autopilot consuming the batteries happily… If the wind holds enough to steer — we are fine, we will clear the Peniche in 2-3 hours… with first signs of light…. Then turn, and continue… If the wind will go down — then clearing the Peniche may become a challenge in that swell… ( I adjusted the course a bit further from the land, just in case… ).burn
State of the batteries — another challenge… but it is a different matter. There is a solution for that one…
Cascais marina — or any marina — forget it… Same as the mooring… Anchorage ? Yes, we will be fine…
So, back to the motor… The times when the diesel did not need any electricity to run — except may be to turn at the start-up — seems long time gone… Now, the engine is covered with wire harness, which is splitting and going around… blocks of relays, fuses… converter from 12 V to 24 volts… etc, etc…
Most of them — I guess and I hope are still simple — as controls, stoppers from different ‘emergencies’ — as high pressure, lot temperature, no water, etc, etc…
But if fuses are all over the place — what has been burning ?!
‘Oh, I know why it happened! I got the new headlamp the other day… What is the better way to try it then to inspect the burned down diesel engine?! ‘… Good idea… But did not Inspire me a lot anyway. But the lamp — definitely a help…
Slowly opening the relay box, and started to look…
It does not take long to noticed the burned wire… All isolation on it gone, and the wire itself — was going from the relay into harness….and the harness — was disappearing somewhere at the back of the engine, going on another side of it… And what makes it a bit more challenging — as soon as I took the burned copper — what left from the wire — it disappeared as a dust… Somehow, it was quite a current running from it…
To make the story short…
— I’ve learned a lot about the electrical part of the engine today….
— I have to repair — to rewire most of the connections within the relay box… since the wire was crossing it, and burning everything on its way…
— I figured out where the damaged wires in harness suppose to go and to come from…
— I managed to isolate the burned wires from the ‘good ones’…
— I found the place where it all started… The wire with 12V was going through the whole harness, providing 12V supply to 12 into 24 V converter… Which is used by fuel pump ( Have to verify that )…. I found the place where the 12V wire isolation got broken, and connected to the ground… putting enough current to burn all isolation and to create all that terrible smoke….
— As it started — my guess is — the pump stopped, which caused the engine to stop so abruptly… But because the control panel was still on, the engine home battery was providing enough power to literally evaporate the wire… Which put the end to the burning… which is my good luck!!!
It took me nearly 3 hours to rewire everything based on ‘ original general schematics’, and tracing what left… The engine started to look like a Christmas Tree, surrounded by old wires, new wires… Since I was not sure what I was doing ;-), made all connection temporary at the beginning… Finally, turn the switch… and nothing…
Another double checking… Ah, I forgot one connection! Turn the switch… The motor started to rotate… and a split second later — I hear the happy diesel engine running…
The next thing I did… I collapse on the flour, put all timers around, and went to sleep for half an hour…
The day started, we turned around the point… the wind went down to 4 knots… It took quite a time to make all changes and modifications ‘ permanent ’ — to the best degree I could… ( No, I do not have a spare harness on board… )… To assemble back the engine compartment, to verify it is running…
We changed the course to the new point, Cabo Rosa.
We are motor sailing, making the water, charging the batteries… Looking forward for the promised wind later today… crossing the fingers that the repairs would stay…
And even drop fishing line behind the boat…
And then cleaning, cleaning, cleaning… And then — go to sleep again… ;-)
We are fine. We survived the ‘first smoke’ test… We are MOTOR sailing!
Talk to you later,
M.