Birvidik

You know that feeling that something's not quite right, but you can't quite put your finger on it? Something sounds or feels different, but you're damned if you can actually pin it down?

We'd got back from our gallivant to the wilder shores of Western Europe, put the boat back in the water and spent a frantic 4 days getting everything ready to leave, which we did on the 4th May, for a short hop across to Mourtos. Those of you with long memories and little to occupy your time may remember Mourtos as the scene of The Thunderstorm And The German Catamaran Fiasco from last year. This year the 4 hour motor across and the two day sojourn there were enjoyable and uneventful. Sadly, this could not be said of the 7 hour next stage from Mourtos to Lefkas.

About 5 hours into this trip Bob became slightly uneasy. The engine didn't exactly sound right, but there again it didn't exactly sound wrong either. Then he noticed that the oil pressure was steadily dropping. This was not a good sign. Nor was the ever increasing white smoke pouring out from the exhaust. Nor was the fact that we were stuck out at sea 15 miles from Lefkas without enough wind to maintain steerage.

A quick inspection of the engine bay showed no sign of oil loss, so that was theory number one out of the window. "Hmm", he thought, "Perhaps we've broken a piston ring and are burning oil - hence the smoke" (Wrong colour though). It was far too hot to lay on top of the engine and check the oil level, so we nursed her carefully into Lefkas and tied up to the town quay, nervously waiting for and expensive bang and the sudden loss of control as we were manoeuvring in the restricted waters of the canal and the harbour. Our luck held and we moored up bows to with the stern anchor out.

The next day the oil level was checked and, much to Bob's surprise, not only had it not dropped, but it had actually risen by about 4 cm. It was also worryingly thin. The level of fuel in the tank had also dropped rather dramatically. It was starting to sound like diesel fuel had somehow managed to find its way into the lube oil.

Time to call in the experts. Contract Yacht Services, may their name be praised, concurred with the tentative diagnosis and suggested several possible causes, some of which sounded worryingly expensive. If anyone reading this needs any work done in Lefkas we can thoroughly recommend Joe Charleton and his team at CYS. They were friendly, competent and went out of their way to help us, even to the extent of Joe leaving his truck with used oil bowser at our disposal while he had to scrounge the use of other vehicles.

We started with the easiest and most obvious, the injectors, which turned out to be the case. This came as a surprise as we had had all four injector nozzles renewed last winter as part of the standard maintenance schedule. This had not been cheap. At the same time Bob had changed the oil and replaced all the fuel and oil filters.

After listening patiently for some time to Bob impugning the parentage of the engineer who had replaced the nozzles the CYS engineer gently pointed out that the nozzles were all indeed new and had been fitted and adjusted correctly. What had happened was that the needle valves had all seized solid and the injectors were squirting neat, liquid diesel into the cylinders which was then passing past the piston rings and into the sump. The cause, they argued, was fuel badly contaminated with water.

Pulling off fuel from the bottom of the tanks confirmed this. We pulled off 5 litres of water before we got to anything that even vaguely resembled diesel, and that was cloudy and heavily contaminated with diesel bug. This was irritating to say the least, as we'd filled the tanks with 1000 litres of fuel just before wintering up in Gouvia marina. I do object to paying 1 Euro 35 cents a litre for dirty water that buggers up my immaculately maintained engine.

The solution was 4 more new injector nozzles, 2 more oil changes, renewal of all fuel and oil filters (all of this just 15 engine hours after it was last done) empty the tanks and throw away a thousand quid's worth of diesel, wash out tanks and refill. Altogether the whole shebang set us back 10 days and about 2000 euros. Mind you, it could have been a lot worse; we seem to have got away without significant damage to the piston rings, injection pump and big end bearings.

We hope.

The next 20 hours on engine will be spent on tenterhooks as we listen intently for any change in engine sound and keep a nervous eye on the oil pressure gauge and the exhaust.