July 20 - 22 -- Last Three Days Before the Summer Cruise

First day back from Sheepshead Bay was a Wednesday, and the Old Salts convened, eleven of us. With ILENE's engine not working, though I did figure out the culprit, but needed help fixing it, we sailed on PC Mark's catamaran, Deuce of Hearts. It was her first sail with brand new high tech racing sails made but Z-spars, the guys who did the sails on our old ILENE, the 34 foot Tartan. Mark's is one of two Harlem boats entered in the Around Long Island Regatta which starts on a Thursday late in July. And the boat was very fast with the crisp new sails in light air. I cast off the mooring lines and dropped the main, but that is all I did, except for schmoozing, eating and drinking. Normally I like to do as much of the sailing of the boat as possible because it is fun, but this time I was tired and served as a passenger. First time in 20 years and I may do it again in less than the next 20.

The next two days were a whirlwind of getting ready to go. I had seen water in the clear yellow plastic bowl of the Racor primary fuel filter. Herr Deisel was a genius, but even he could not get his engine to run on water. When water reaches the engine it shuts down. I had switched from the aft fuel tank to the forward tank a minute or so before the shutdown. This was the tank into which I had poured water at about Christmas, 2014. I had pumped out all the diesel and all the water then, or so I had thought, but apparently not all the water after all, it is heavier and lies on the bottom from which the liquid is drawn. And I had apparently used and refilled the aft tank, the "good" tank, ever since then. We bought a brass hand operated fluid transfer pump and unscrewed a whole lot of screws that hold the cabin sole in place and those that hold the lid on the non-working fuel gauge sensor to provide access. Then we started pumping from the bottom of the tank, we thought, but pulled up more diesel fuel than water.  Ed's next idea: remove the end of the hose that carries the fuel (and water) from the tanks to the Racor, insert the hand pump into the hose (a perfect fit) and start to pump away. We got about a gallon of water out of the tank before it was mostly diesel again. All the removals were poured into the plastic yellow five gallon diesel Jerry can. Then came replacement of the secondary Yanmar fuel filter, and "bleeding" remaining air and water from the system. And the engine runs again!  We were still not out of the woods, though. Running it for half an hour chilled the refrigerator, saving the food. But during that half hour the Racor bowl acquired some water, which we removed. So for now, long runs will be fed from the good tank and short ones of less than half an hour will be run from the bad tank, after which the remaining water will be drained off from the Racor, half a cup at a time.

The other major problem was the electric winch, which makes the raising of the main sail so much easier for an old guy. Its failure was intermittent, and to prove the point it worked when I tried to demonstrate the "clunk"  I was hearing instead of the grinding sound for Ed. Ed checked out each of the four heavy gauge wires that run to and from the control box and all were good. So the problem was in the motor, the cylinder mounted directly under the winch itself.  Ed took it  off and webrought it to Bronx Ignition. They replaced the graphite "brushes" that rub on the coils of wire and make it go. Same day service. Ed volunteered to come back the next day to reinstall it but with his remote help I figured it out. I had to do it twice, because I found a flat plastic bearing ring in the box in which Bronx Ignition gave it back to me, that I did not know belonged and hence had left out the first time I reinstalled it.  One difficulty was holding the heavy thing up, above my head, while fiddling with each of four small Allen head bolts. I built a scaffold to keep it up so I had both hands to deal with the bolts and their wrench. The other problem was that I could not push it up high enough into the base of the winch to close up those bolts. Ed said: insert the winch handle into the winch and give it a small turn. It worked! The cogs of the gears lined up properly and the motor could be closed up.

The rest of the two days were for other errands and chores. I took the boat to the dock to fill her with water. Took off the propane tank to New Rochelle for a fill up and re installation. The Jerry can of bad diesel waster went to Buddy's, where I picked it up empty next day. Lene did the laundry. We visited the supermarket to top off provisions.

We are ready!