Cruising Active Transport

We circumnavigated between 2008 and 2014. After sailing to Alaska we ended up in Seattle for four years.

19 September 2018
Youtube Video of our Voyage
08 August 2018 | Marina del Rey
Settling in at Marina del Rey
23 July 2018 | Marina del Rey
We are tied up in MDR
22 July 2018 | 25 miles west of Cambria
Good first day
21 July 2018 | Crossing Monterey Bay
Whales
21 July 2018 | South of the Golden Gate
On our way on the last leg
16 July 2018
Enjoying the Bay Area
14 July 2018 | Grand Marina
Change in Marina
14 July 2018 | San Francisco Bay
Back in the Bay After Ten Years
13 July 2018 | Point Arena
Passing Point Arena
12 July 2018 | Thirty Miles NW of Humbolt Bay, CA
Weather Is a Bit More Contrary Than Forecasted
11 July 2018 | Crescent City
Not a Whole Lot to Report
10 July 2018 | Neah Bay
Waiting in Crescent City for Blustery Weather to Die Down
09 July 2018 | Thirty five miles WNW of Reedsport, Oregon
Another Day of Motoring in Flat Water
08 July 2018 | Forty Miles West of Columbia River Entrance
A Successful First Day at Sea
07 July 2018 | Neah Bay
On our way
06 July 2018 | Neah Bay Marina
The Gods of Lousy Weather Don't Want Us to Change Our Minds
05 July 2018 | Neah Bay Marina
Weather Still Looking Good for a Saturday Departure
04 July 2018
Tied up in Neah Bay
03 July 2018 | Port Angeles City Floats
Docked on the Cheap in Port Angeles

Youtube Video of our Voyage

19 September 2018
John
I just added a link to a youtube video of a google earth animation that shows the route we took around the world. The route for our circumnavigation is in red. Our subsequent voyage to Alaska and then Seattle is in Yellow.

Settling in at Marina del Rey

08 August 2018 | Marina del Rey
John
We have been here in Los Angeles for two weeks, at this point, and life has settled into familiar routines.

We bought a car. We got a 2012 Honda Civic that runs on compressed natural gas. Almost all the airport shuttles use CNG for fuel so there are quite a few fueling stations nearby.

CNG and Electric vehicles are the only ones that are allowed to use the car pool lanes with only 1 person in the car. They used to allow hybrid vehicles to use those lanes but ended that program when Toyota sold thousands of Prius cars just so their owners could get the magic sticker that entitled them to use the carpool lanes. The carpool lanes became so crowded that their original purpose, of encouraging car pooling, was negated.

We have both ordered bicycles. Neither has shown up yet but we expect them to be very useful here in Marina del Rey because parking can be a real problem in the shopping plazas like the one where we have to go to pick up our mail.

The bicycle trails are well developed in this part of Los Angeles. It is possible to ride all the way to Malibu on bike trails and there are a lot of cultural activities that we will be able to bike to. We are going to see Shakespeare by the Sea this Saturday evening at Pollywog park in Manhattan Beach. We are seeing "The Merry Wives of Winsor" which is Shakespeare's take on "Housewives of Beverly Hills."

We have also bought tickets to a couple of events at the Hollywood Bowl this month. The first is a performance by the LA Symphony. dorected by Dutamel and with Itzhak Perlman on the violin. The, later in the month we are going to a performance of Carmina Burana.

The Hollywood bowl is a wonderful venue for big performances. It's way too big for a lot of things but it is very nice to have your picnic dinner and wine before the performance starts.

LA has so much going on that we could spend a fortune on everything that is worth seeing.

We have been having a heat wave but here on the edge of the ocean we have cooling breezes most of the day.

Shawn has actively started looking for a job and has a lot of leads on really interesting opportunities. A couple of the jobs he has looked at are in Santa Monica which is so close that his commute would consist of a 25 minute bike ride along the beach.

Im adding a satellite view of Marina del Rey that I snagged from google earth. At the bottom are some of the runways at LAX. Any of our international friends with layovers at LAX can easily come visit us. Give us enough warning and we will pick you up. Visiting some place like Venice Beach would be a lot more fun that sitting in the airport.

The blue dot in the marina is our slip.

We are tied up in MDR

23 July 2018 | Marina del Rey
John
After a bumpy ride around Point Conception last night we made it to marina del Rey around 5 PM this afternoon.

It was a motor boat trip the whole way.

After a couple of tries we got docked with the help of our friend Cecile who was sitting on her boat waiting for us and then did her Vanna White imitation to show us to our slip.

Tomorrow we will be occupied with errands like getting a mailbox, getting driver's licenses, picking up a rental car, etc.

At the fuel dock in Oakland Shawn's shorts got caught on the lifeline and it ripped the pocket off. His cell phone was in the pocket and it had a pocket on the back that contained his driver's license and credit cards. So replacing all that stuff will be among the errands we have to deal with.

Our friend Cecile, who has her sailboat next to our old slip in Seattle, is coming by in a few minutes so we can go get some supper. I ate the last of our KFC this morning (aka the Breakfast of Champions)
Vessel Name: Active Transport
Vessel Make/Model: Tayana 37 PH
Hailing Port: Seattle, Washington
Crew: John and Shawn
About:
John and Shawn left San Francisco in September of 2008 to sail around the world. They completed their circumnavigation when the came out of the Panama Canal in late October 2013. From there they sailed to Mexico, out to Hawaii and up to Kodiak, Alaska. [...]
Extra:
This blog is intended for friends and family who may or may not be sailors. It is not intended to provide technical details of any of the boat's systems. Its purpose is to keep friends up-to-date on our progress and, whereabouts Following the completion of our circumnavigation our blog entries [...]
Active Transport's Photos - Engine Work in Mazatlan
Photos 1 to 44 of 44 | Cruising Active Transport (Main)
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Pulling into the travel lift area with the wind behind us and unreliable reverse shifting from the cockpit was a little nerve wracking. I spent time jumping from the cockpit steering wheel, where I could see what I was doing, to the pilot house where the functional reverse shit control was located.
We are never sure how much rigging we will have to disassemble to get the boat into a travel lift. This lift was small enough that we had to disconnect both the outer and inner forestays to allow the boat to be raised up above the level of the boatyard without a stay hitting the top beam on the travel lift. Im getting very good at disconnecting the forestays.
These yard workers really had their act together. They spaced the slings appropriately and had all the gear assembled to tie the two slings together so the could not slip on the hull. Most yards figure out the need for tying the slings together after they start lifting.
This photo of the travel lift operator reflects the attention to detail and care that everyone involved took to make sure the boat got lifted safely and parked in the yard with proper supports.
We were really curious to see how the bottom looked. We had hired a guy named Augustin in Zihuatanejo to clean it and he worked hard for about 4 hours. We were pleased to see that the bottom was evenly covered with very small barnacles which meant that it was an entirely fresh crop since Augustin had cleaned the boat. He did a remarkably good job on a very dirty bottom. the paint we put on in South Africa was not very long lasting.
Here we are lifted well out of the water. You can see how close even the disconnected forestays came to the beam of the travel lift.
This growth happened in the past month following our Zihautanejo cleaning
After power washing the hull to get rid of all the soft growth they tented it to contain the mess while they sanded the bottom smooth. The sanding got rid of all the small barnacles.
After the sanding the bottom was nice an smooth. You can see one spot they missed inside the ground plate for the Single Side Band Radio
The yard used 8 of these stands to hold the boat upright and chained them together side-to-side so they could not slip. Compare this with the fence posts stuck in the mud that were used in South Africa
Pulling the engine required calling in a crane to lift it out of the boat. The mechanics had spent a couple of hours the day before disconnecting the shaft, shift and throttle connections and hoses. I had disconnected all the electrical connections and removed the alternator so the engine would fit through the hatch. We had learned that when we had it pulled in Peru
Notice how close the crane got to the backstay when it was in position to lift the engine straight up.
slowly the tension was increased on the webbing bridle as mechanics aligned the engine so it would come straight off it motor mounts and start its way up through the hatch. They had lined the wood work near the hatch with cardboard and plywood to prevent damage.
They had to maneuver the engine forward so the transmission would fit up the hatch and then aft so the other end of the engine would fit through through.
Slowly but surely it came out
Almost there
Here is the engine sitting on a cart on the concrete surface of the boat yard.
This shot shows the rust that was found near the starting motor (cylinder to the right in the photo) This was the result of the broken hose clamp that let a hose leak salt water all over the back of the engine.
Another shot of the rusty side of the engine
This pic shows rust that resulted from the broken hose clamp that allowed saltwater to run all over the back of the engine. The horizontal cylinder is the oil cooler where the lubricating oil runs through a special heat exchanger with flowing sea water. The hose clamps on the right are where the break occurred. Im not sure which clamp broke but when we saw what had happened we replaced both (at sea off the west coast of Africa). The only hose clamps we could find at the time were a it too long for the job but they worked just fine. Yanmar used automotive type hose clamps for many of the hose clamps on the engine. Automotive hose clamps have stainless bands but the screw that tightens the bands are common steel and rust. Marine quality hose clamps are all stainless. They still rust but not nearly as bad.
This is the engine in the shop with the exhaust manifold/heat exhanger removed.
This is the heat exhanger/exhaust manifold sitting in a vice on Bob
This is another view of the heat exchanger showing the end of the bronze tubes that run through it. the problem area is where the bronze meets the aluminum casting of the heat exhanger.
After soaking this in a special scale removing solution the core would still not budge when hit with a hammer driving a piece of wood. Bob
this is one end cap off the heat exhanger showing scale build up inside the cap and the remnants of the o ring that is supposed to isolate the bronze heat exchanger from the aluminum housing
Here is a shot of the other cap from the end of the heat exchanger. You can see the gasket has pulled away from the cap.
This is the pressure plate device between the transmission and the engine. Those springs are weaker than they should be and the whole thing is rusty from the salt water leak. there is a place in town that rebuilds these devices.
This shows the rusted mounting foot for the engine and the remanants of the wiring harness that is about to become part of history
Here is the engine in an even greater state of disassembly than in previous photos. The starting motor is on the bottom left. It fits in on the bottom right of the engine. The raw water pump is in the center of the bottom of the photo with one of its hoses still attached. It installs in the black hole to on the bottom left of the engine.
this is the raw water pump showing the gear that engages with the internal parts of the engine. It is showing signs of leaking around its seal and will need to be rebuilt.
The is the oil cooler. Notice it is manufactured by the same country that brought us the MG automobiles. Oil flows into one of the big fittings on the top and out of the other. Raw sea water flows into the right side and out of the left side. The sea water flows through a bunch of tubes that are immersed in the hot oil This is just a second heat exchanger that sees the sea water flow before the sea water passes into the larger heat exchanger mounted on the exhaust manifold.
Here is a view of the inlet end of the oil cooler showing the damage that resulted from corrosion and requires that this device be repalaced in addition to the main heat exchanger.
This shows all the raw water impeller parts that were in the inlet end of the oil cooler. The oil cooler is the first place the cold sea water goes after it leaves the pump. We replaced two impellers on this voyage and all the torn up blades got stopped by the oil cooler. I have thought about adding a strainer to the raw sea water water line between the pump and the oil cooler but it might be just as easy to pull the hose off the oil cooler every time I replace an impeller and fish the pieces of the old impeller out.
This shows the worn cutlass bearing that needs to be replaced. This is the bearing that supports the drive shaft where it exits the hull. The inside surface is rubber so it will not damage the shaft. The ruber was probably ground up by barnacles that grew inside the bearing when we were anchored so long in Ziahuatanejo. It would probably be a good idea to run the prop in reverse fora few minutes every time we charge batteries at anchor to dispel any tiny barnacles that are starting to get established in the bearing.
Another fatality of our broken hose clamp off Africa was this relay that was used to operate the engine stop solenoid. On the right is the bottom of the relay and on the left is the socket it plugged into.
This is the mystery device that was also a victim of the failed hose clamp. The mechanic here at the yard says this was used between the start button and the engine starter solenoid. Im not convinced. It only has one big wire attachment point which I think means it was used to switch something to ground. I think Ill write to Yanmar and ask them to identify this mystery part.
This is what the impeller looked like when we opened the raw water pump. Some of the impeller vanes were broken and it would not have been long before it failed and we would have faced replacing the impeller at sea.
this pic shows the new speed seal device I bought the last time we were back in California. It is designed to make changing the impeller easier. The old cover for the pump is shown to the right and the new cover, which is attached with thumb screws, is shown on the left. The new cover also has a brass disk that rotates on a teflon bearing to reduce wear on the impeller. Now instead of getting our wrenches to remove bolts Ill be able to change the impeller by removing two of the 4 thumb screws, and loosening the other two, and lifting the plate off the pump. Given the poor access to the pump on this engine I think this thing will pay for itself very soon.
We are having the through hull for the engine water intake moved to a better location where it can be accessed from the main cabin. The mechanic cut the hole yesterday and was surprised to see how thick the hull is at the turn of the bilge. In measures a little over an inch and a half. The through hull he had brought to install was not long enough.
We removed the old engine mounts and this is what one of the bolts looked like after it broke when we were removing them. This bolt was on one of the aft motor mounts where the engine got its salt water bath. Shawn broke it by hand with a short wrench
Here is the engine hanging outside the shop. It got painted today.
This shot shows the raw water pump installed on the engine. Right below the lower hose connection is the mounting pad for bolting the engine to the engine bed in the boat. Notice how it is not possible to remove the raw water pump without removing the motor mount. That is an unfortunate design feature.
This shows the starboard side of the painted engine.
 
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On the hook in Tomales Bay

Who: John and Shawn
Port: Seattle, Washington