Sail Cutthroat

Long Overdue Sitrep
North to Alaska Seattle Series 2008
19 August 2008
Lat N48.07.008
Lon W122.45.050

Attitude = the difference between Ordeal and Adventure

We got this on a bumper sticker while attending the Island Packet Rendezvous this weekend in Port Townsend, WA. I think it says a lot, and certainly causes us to focus on our cruising this summer…we still think it’s an Adventure…at least most days. Well, maybe somewhere inbetween…

Many of you have inquired as to where we’ve been…what’s up with the fuel/engine…and generally wanting a status report. I apologize for going off the radar screen for so long but it was beginning to seem (to me anyway) that every time I provided an update - our mechanical situation worsened. Yes…it was getting depressing so I just stopped writing anything down for publication. But it is long overdue.

At our last entry we were headed back down into the Gulf Islands of British Columbia. Since then we cruised throughout the Gulf and San Juan Islands. This really is a beautiful cruising area with an endless array of quaint towns and small, secure anchorages. Even though we didn’t make it to the Broughton Archipelagos or Desolation Sound this year, we have thoroughly enjoyed our time in the Pacific Northwest and the vast beauty it offers. We’ve actually been to many places: Victoria, John Wayne Marina at Sequim, Port Sidney, Telegraph Harbor on Thetis Island, Chemainus, Clam Bay, Roche Harbor, Rosario, McKay Harbor, Barlow Bay, Friday Harbor, Sequim, Port Ludlow, Poulsbo, Elliott Bay, Port Townsend…it’s a long list of wonderful places to fill our memory box for years to come.

In between all our island and harbor hopping, we continued to be concerned with the performance of the engine. While there was a little bit of water and gunk, we think it was the residual of what the fuel tank cleanup just couldn’t get to. Overall, we’re convinced that the fuel is good, and the major cause of the original engine problem is resolved. Unfortunately, there was considerable damage done, and we’ve yet to solve all those continuing mysteries and deal with the effects of all this. In Telegraph Harbor the high-speed FilterBoss pump just stopped working…no doubt from all the crud it pumped through its little system on the Hawaii trip. So we learned how to import (FedEx) parts from the US to Canada. Since Thetis Island is very small and doesn’t really have regular mail service for things like that, we found the grocery store in Chemainus that accepts FedEx/UPS for others and had the pump shipped there. We took the ferry to Chemainus to retrieve the package. While in Chemainus, we also got to visit with our very good friends from Puerto Vallarta, Mike and Maureen who just happened to be visiting yet another PV couple who live on Vancouver Island. Yes, it’s a very small world!

We were scheduled to fly to Colorado to join the Mott family in celebrating young Steve’s wedding, and we decided that Seattle was the best place to get to the airport and get the engine evaluated by the Yanmar dealers. It was a great wedding, and we really enjoyed the weekend. When we returned to Elliott Bay where Cutthroat was getting all the attention of passer-bys, we started in on the work at hand. The good news was that several issues were identified. The timing was incorrect (after replacing the injector pump last month), the turbo was in need of a rebuild (a leaking oil seal), and for some reason still unknown to us we had two more bad injectors (this is the one that baffles us). Upon repairing all of that, everything seemed to run just fine…at least at the dock. No more smoke, engine running at high rpm’s, etc…a good engine!

So off we went to Port Townsend for the Island Packet Rendezvous…it was a perfect trial run. Now I really thought we were restored to a sound engine…but not yet. Several hours enroute the engine started to sound “funny”…yes, it’s a technical term; and once we got to Port Townsend and in our slip we put the engine at high rpm’s but not under load. More white smoke and the rpm’s wouldn’t go over 3000…not where it should be. Yesterday, we set out to return to Seattle so further investigation could continue. We got about 5 miles out when the engine really pooped out and we were forced to return to Port Townsend. A BIG disappointment to say the least, but we had a great sail back!

Tuesday (today) the Yanmar mechanic is taking the ferry to Port Townsend to spend the day with us. Not sure what it will bring, but we’re still optimistic that we will slowly figure all of this out and regain our confidence in the engine.

Our timeline is diminishing with each day. We planned on starting the trip south to San Diego at the end of this week - If the engine gods start cooperating we’ll be on our way. Otherwise, we’ll consider remaining in the area through the winter. We can make a strong argument for either scenario - we just want the engine fixed and be confident that it will continue work! We’ll let you all know as this continues to progress.
Meanwhile it’s a rather rainy and dreary week in Washington. There is a storm off the coast bringing all this weather, so more than likely we wouldn’t have been able to depart right now anyway.

BTW - Great pictures of the summers travels are located at the tab named Gallery at the top right of the web page…

Love to all,
Roger and Elise
s/v Cutthroat