SV Panta Rhei Retirement Trip

I've received a number of very nice birthday greetings since we arrived in Bora Bora. Anchoring in Bora Bora would seem to be an optimum way to celebrate a 67th birthday but life is never so simple. This birthday comes with a story.

Thursday the wind died enough to get us off the Uturoa dock with the goal of getting fuel. Unfortunately, as we motored away from the dock toward the fuel dock we noticed a very large power boat pulling in for fuel. Filling a large powerboat with fuel is usually a several hour experience so we elected to just keep going to Bora Bora. We'll get fuel there (we hoped). We started making water while motoring out of the lagoon. And then the engine began to hesitate. At first it was very slight hesitation. Then I noticed that I could not advance the throttle, or rather when I advanced it, nothing happened. No more power but we have some power. We were pretty close to the lagoon pass to the sea so I continued. After making it through the pass we raised the mainsail (double reefed), shut down the motor, and sailed toward Bora Bora. Winds were 20 knots. With the jib poled to weather we were sailing just fine. But of course when we got to Bora Bora the engine started but wouldn't develop much power. By the time we got through the pass we were down to 1000 rpm. The engine even died entirely once. Eventually we put down our anchor in 95 feet of water.

We spotted a friends boat, SV The Rose, but John and Pat weren't aboard. We took our dinghy into the yacht club where I could buy a beer and cry quietly into it. It wasn't long until John returned. I was so glad to have a friend to share my troubles with. It wasn't long until another friend (also named John) on SV Arsinius came to our table. I was thinking it might be the turbocharger. John of Arsinius said "It's ALWAYS fuel". I argued that the fuel filters were pretty new (500 hours on them) and I had switched the Raycore primary fuel filters to a filter that had never been used. I had also used my electric fuel pump fuel route (which I use to fill the filters). I didn't get any change at all with either tactic. Still, the fact that the engine wouldn't run even at idle (for a while) was a clue that was inconsistent with the turbo idea. But to do what we could, John of SV The Rose volunteered to come to Panta Rhei and we would change out the fuel filters and bleed the system down to the injectors (another suggestion from John of SV Arsinius). By the time John got to the boat I had the engine covers removed and had already spilled fuel out of the secondary fuel filter. It was hot and I was sweating profusely. It didn't take long to change out all the filters and bleed the system. We restarted the engine. No improvement at all. Geez. Then I thought to take off the air filer and actually look at the turbo inlet blades. It turned out that the turbine inlet blades spun just fine and in fact coasted a long time after the engine was shut down. They were beautifully clean too. That was good news since the fuel hypothesis probably wouldn't require parts that I didn't have. The fuel hypothesis remained all we had, but of course the engine still wouldn't run above about 1600 rpm. I noticed that the day tank sounded funny when I knocked on it. Empty? It says on the gage that it is almost full and I pumped fuel from it to refill the fuel filters that I had changed out. Maybe it wasn't completely empty and a little air was coming into the main fuel line? I removed the "vent" cap and turned on the electric fuel pump and the tank filled up. It WAS at least part way empty. We restarted the engine and it developed full rpm. Apparently the engine was getting air into the feed line from the day tank which had over time emptied enough to admit that air. So now I owe a few beers to John and John and we are back in business for leaving French Polynesia. We'll eat out and do a few more boat projects and maybe (I hope I hope) wash the sheets on the bed. Then we'll sign out and leave. We've dodged yet another bullet.

Maybe we haven't dodged all the bullets. The zipper on my pants failed this morning.

Karen fixed me a delicious eggplant dinner and is fixing me spam and eggs on homemade toast for breakfast. I'd say that I earned a few brownie points on my birthday.

The picture is of Bora Bora taken from space. Do you see our boat?