Diesel Engine Blues
29 August 2012 | Zea Marina, Piraeus
Dan

Most people come to Athens to learn about the ancient Greeks, visit the Acropolis, tour some of the outstanding museums and see the other ruins scattered through the city. Afters 72 hours here I've done none of these things YET because the boat repair projects been going sideways. Fortunately, Chris and Tyler have been able to enjoy the city every day while I've been shuttling back & forth between the hotel and the marina to manage projects there.
We've had black exhaust smoke ever since launching Interlude in Montenegro last month. I've also noticed what appears to be a small sheen of diesel fuel on the surface of the water near where the seawater that cools the engine is discharged. Everything was working just fine last season and the engine is still quite "young", with less than 1,000 hours of run time.
I was told in Montenegro that the fuel injector nozzles needed to be replaced but I opted not to do that, in part because I didn't really believe the recommendation. So, shortly after we arrived in Athens on Monday, I made arrangements with a local mechanic to remove and test the injectors. Within 90 minutes they confirmed that the spray pattern was poor and recommended that the injector nozzles be replaced. I gave them the green light and the rebuilt injectors were reinstalled a few hours later. At that point I was feeling pretty smug about the fact that our primary repair project looked like it would be completed in record time. But it was not to be. We started the engine and had basically the same smoke coming from the exhaust. White smoke when starting the engine, then black smoke once we revved up the RPMs and put load on the engine.
In the two days since then, it seems like we've removed and checked virtually every other major engine component. The fuel pump, oil cooler, turbocharger and one other component (I forget which) have all been removed, checked and replaced (all were fine). We've hired a diver to check that the shaft spins freely and to clean the shaft & prop. Tomorrow is Day 4 of this project and we're going to check the compression in each cylinder. I'm not feeling very optimistic at the moment and we may end up leaving with this issue not resolved.
The AIS / VHF transmission problem has been similarly challenging. The Raymarine techs came on Monday afternoon and concluded that the VHF antenna splitter needs to be replaced. It's basically brand new and was installed 3 months ago when I upgraded to the Raymarine 650 transceiver. Yesterday I decided to test their diagnosis by plugging the VHF antenna cable directly into the AIS unit, bypassing the splitter. When I returned to the hotel last night, I checked and confirmed that we are still not showing up on the Marine Traffic website. So MY conclusion is that the splitter may not be the problem and I still suspect we may have some kind of break in the cable running up the mast to the VHF antenna. If this were just about transmitting our AIS info, I wouldn't be all that concerned. But I can't reliably send voice transmissions using fixed VHF radio and, in an emergency, that's a real liability. We have several handheld VHF radios onboard, but they have considerably less power and range. As luck would have it, the lead tech who was onboard Monday is now on vacation and can't return to the boat until NEXT Monday, so I've had to hire ANOTHER Raymarine tech to come tomorrow morning for what will essentially be a second opinion. Stay tuned on that.
The upside to our extended stay here is that I've been able to get other work done. The secondary bilge pump is now working properly and the anchor windlass has been put back together with the right size/type of bolts. Tomorrow I hope to get the swim ladder reinstalled, if not permanently, at least well enough for us to use over the next 6 weeks. (That's another long story that isn't worth sharing....) We're also going to have our liferaft serviced tomorrow and if we're REALLY lucky, perhaps even get the water maker working again.
Our intended two night hotel stay will soon be stretched to four. But if all goes according to plan, I'm going to play tourist tomorrow night and Saturday before we move back onboard and prepare to shove off. We're keeping an eye on the weather because that will be the final factor which dictates when we leave. There are a couple of other American boats nearby (one couple from Wilmar, MN!) and they are heading the same direction we are from here. Perhaps we'll have some traveling partners as we move on to the next leg of our journey.