Impeller Replacement


On Tuesday, I called Chris Parker as usual.
In past years, we have sailed directly from Miami to Charleston in light sunny winds, using the gulf stream to speed us along. But not this year. Chris' forecast was for a full week of squally weather. And Tuesday was the least bad of all, so we decided to head for Lake Worth, a 45 mile trip along the coast.
From there we could head up the ICW until conditions improve. The morning went as planned, light southerlies with enough following current to move us at 8-9 knots. But by afternoon, things changed... We watched two squalls bear down on us, dump some rain, but no lightning close.
Then the wind dropped. On came the engine. Then it swung to the north into our path, then the engine stopped pumping cooling water, still 15 miles from the nearest inlet. Running at low rpm's produced enough cooling water to maintain the engine temperatures, but we shut it down just in case. After all, we are a sail boat, so we sailed. Slowly the wind swung east, giving us a beautiful close reach to the Lake Worth inlet.
Arriving to face an outgoing tidal current of four knots, we were thankful for the freshening wind to push us through the currents and chop. Inside we turned on the engine and eased our way into the anchorage, and dropped anchor. Wednesday, I spent most of the day trying to sort out the problem. First, remove the raw water pump and check the impeller; it looked fine. Re-assemble and re-install the pump. Now no water at any speed. Check for air lock, nothing.
Again I removed the pump but this time, decided to replace the impeller in spite of it looking fine and having less than 200 hours on it. AHA! Problem discovered, the impeller had broken between the metal hub and the rubber outer ring. The damage could not be seen without removing it.
So new impeller installed and pump re-installed, all was well. In mid-afternoon we headed north to North Lake Worth where we anchored for two nights, settling in as the first squall of the day hit. The night was mostly quiet with just a couple of minor showers.
Yesterday was just about constant rain with winds and thunder in squalls rolling through every hour or so. And last night we had the mother of all squalls blow through with winds of 40 knots. A few boats could be seen racing across the anchorage at 4am, but in the morning, there was no damage to be seen.
The forecast says this will continue for two more days. So today we dinghied ashore between squalls to do some shopping, and tomorrow we'll head up the ICW for the duration of the bad weather. The latest plan is to motor inside up to Port Canaveral and head out for an overnight sail to Charleston. But as we have seen, our plans are subject to change.