05/09/2008, Severn River Marina - Hayes, VA
Today Charles has one more reason to celebrate his birthday - He fixed the engine! After bleeding the fuel line dozens of times and looking EVERYWHERE for leaks and other issues, he finally found the trouble.
The fuel cut-off valve (used to stop the diesel engine by cutting off the fuel supply) is pulled closed by the solenoid when you stop the engine.
As soon the engine stops, the solenoid moves the cut-off valve back to a full open position. This puts the engine in 'ready mode' to be started the next time. Some how, some way when we stopped the engine on May 2nd the cut-off valve failed to open all the way. It was about a 10th of an inch from the full open position. Since we could not get the engine started again, the solenoid could never reset the fuel valve so it remained in this almost open position from then on, starving the engine of just enough fuel to keep it from starting.
Before you say - "Wow Charles, why didn't you see such an obvious problem?", you must know ALL the facts. First, the valve was mostly hidden under the solenoid assembly AND second, when Charles looked at it, it looked exactly like it does in the photo above (open).
So, thanks to a lot of persistence (and maybe a little birthday luck), Charles the "grease monkey" has come through again!
| Back in the USA - 2008 |
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05/04/2008, The Chesapeake Bay
We've sailed over 50,000 miles, visited 4 continents, logged years of sea time and there's one thing we've learned - There's always a new experience waiting for you on the water...
Our trip from South Carolina to the Chesapeake Bay was not a long or tiring one, it was pretty average as far as passages go. Because of bad timing and some fresh wind near the end of the trip, we arrived at the entrance to the Chesapeake bay around midnight and decided to make our way to Ft Monroe where we would anchor in the bay and sleep until daylight.
We followed the axially channel to Norfolk, paying careful attention to the large ship traffic in the main channel. When we got to Thimble Shoals lighthouse we were a few miles off Ft Monroe and decided to put away the sails and start the engine.
The engine started fine, the sails got furled away but when we throttled up the engine to make our way to Ft Monroe, nothing happened. After some scrambling to check cables and make sure the engine was not stuck in neutral, we realized 2 things:
1 - we had no steerage and were drifting into the big ship channel (full of big ship traffic).
2 - We needed to get our sails back out ASAP to get the boat going in another direction.
The jib came out quick and we managed to turn the boat away from the channel. We found a shoal area not far away and dropped anchor there to wait for sunrise and figure things out.
The engine was beyond fixing with the tools we had on board so around 8am we put up the sails again and headed North to Severn River marina (our final destination for the season). Thanks to a steady wind from a good direction we made it to within 3 miles of our marina before we had to stop and drop anchor again. This morning a nice fellow named Hank on a boat called "Hanky Panky" came out and gave us a tow the rest of the way.
We've never had engine trouble on "RobinLeigh" before but on a boat there's always a first time for everything.
| Back in the USA - 2008 |
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04/30/2008, Georgetown, SC
... while anchored in historic Great Peedee River, Georgetown SC we welcomed USGC Inspection Team.
The Crew was polite, professional and efficient while performing their duty.
This was our first 'official' boarding / inspection ever by the USCG.
Thank you USGC for your efforts to keep us boaters safe!
| Back in the USA - 2008 |
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04/29/2008, Georgetown, SC
What a shock it's been!
Just eight days ago we sailed through the NW Providence channel of the Bahamas heading for Lake Worth (Palm Beach), Florida.
With a low pressure system on top of us we had an overcast sky and showers but we were still sailing barefoot in shorts, t-shirts and a generous amount of sunscreen. Who knew those days were coming to an end so soon...
Now we're sitting at anchor near Georgetown, South Carolina and it is, by our definition, really, really, COLD. With highs in the 60s and lows in the 40s we are clearly not prepared for this climate change. We do not have enough blankets, warm clothes, or hot cocoa on board for those temperatures!
We will be in the Chesapeake bay for most of the month of May and right now we're wishing for a heat wave.
| Back in the USA - 2008 |
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