Tuesday, 27 June 2017
From zero to ninety in
no time at all
This was a day that just kept accelerating throughout the
day. It started with my quest to find
the missing parts shipments amongst the chaos that is Green Turtle Bay’s three
receiving systems, one each for FEDEX, UPS, and USPS. Both packages I was looking for were addressed
to Ken, the owner, rather than to me, but one was addressed to him “aboard
Pathfinder,” and the darned staff still made no attempt over three days to
contact the boat. In the end, I had both
packages by mid-morning. With the new voltage
now in hand I went to the GTB Boat Works office seeking technical help for the
short job of replacing one Balmar regulator with another and was told it would
be a week before they could help.
Unacceptable. I went back to the
boat, read the installation instructions and found that for four of the five
wire connections I could simply pull the multi-plug out of the existing
regulator and plug it into the new one.
The fifth connection took a few minutes to make and BOOM, I was done and
ready to test the new installation which worked well. Then I removed the alternator so that I could
get it overhauled by Panama Alternator while we are home waiting on acceptable
river conditions to continue the journey.
As I finished that job, one of the mechanics working on Mike’s big
SeaRay knocked on the door to tell me they were about ready to start his
waterlogged engine and go for a sea trial.
I went on down the pier .and ended up helping them by pushing the
starter button for a few seconds at a time as they bled various lines. They finally got the engine running
discovering no injector damage as a result of water being run through them,
LUCKY Mike. We were supposed to go over
to the fuel dock and load some fuel into the now-empty starboard tank but
decided that on the way to the fuel dock, just a couple hundred yards distant,
that we would take the boat out onto the Cumberland River to give the engine a
thorough test at speed. This SeaRay 450
Express with two 430-HP engines was interesting to handle because it literally
leaps as the clutches are engaged when the boat is at a standstill. I tried to ease out of the slip on one engine
and found the boat very quickly charging toward one side of the slip, which I
corrected with the bow thruster. Once in
the river, we threw a monstrous wake at the 1800 RPM the mechanics wanted, and
I worried over the safety of nearby small fishing boats. It was hard to find a clear area where we
could run the engines up. Eventually, we
ran at 2100 to get to the speed Mike said he had been running, and the wake
flattened out somewhat. Back at the
marina, we filled it up with three hundred gallons of diesel and put it back in
the slip and called Mike to tell him of our success. It turns out the source of water in the
starboard tank was a loosely fitted fuel tank air vent on the side of the boat
which allowed its external portion, mounted low on the hull, to turn its
opening forward allowing it to scoop water into the tank when the boat runs at
higher speeds. He will return to GTB
this coming Friday with his son as crew to take the boat up the Tennessee to
its new home in Knoxville. We finished
mooring Mike’s boat just about the time Mary and I were scheduled to take the
courtesy van on a 50-mile round trip to Paducah to pick up the rental car we
had reserved for our trip home. While I Paducah,
we of course hit a quilting store for some purchases. When we got back to GTB two hours later, I
informed the marina manager that we were departing for a couple of weeks at
which time he informed me this would be a problem since the boat needed to be
moved to make space on the guest dock for the big Fourth of July weekend. I told him I would gladly move the boat, but
with the alternator out of it, I could not start its engine. It was near quitting time for the marina
staff, but he elected to use the tow boat they have to accomplish the job. I ran to the boat and told Mary o vacate to
the rental car while three of us used the tow boat to move the boat across the
cove to another pier. By this point, it
was dinner time, and Mary and I went to the yacht club for something to eat before
returning to the boat to begin packing the car.
We finished that task about midnight ending one very busy day!
