NO FIRE! NO FIRE!
OK, so where
were we? Oh, yes. I remember now .
‘102 miles into our journey…..
50 miles from the nearest port…
The engines shut down ……
And the entire boat filled with dense black smoke…..”
Imagine millions of thoughts going through one’s mind in a situation like
this? Oh, SHIT! Save us, Father God! What happened? Is
everyone OK? Why did the engines quit?
Are we on fire? Are we sinking? Do
we need to abandon ship? Are we going to
lose our boat and everything aboard? Are
we going in the water? How cold it the
water? Do we need to grab anything? Do we need to call a “Mayday”? Who threw the
overalls in Mrs. Murphy’s chowder? What
WAS the name of Dudley DoRight’s horse?
OK, well, maybe not these last two, but suffice to say it was
a frantic moment. But our crew sprang
into action. Wade shut down the power
and called our buddy boats to come to our aid.
Everyone donned their life jackets.
Kathleen bravely opened the cabin door and ran down to the aft stateroom
to retrieve fur-Admiral Maggie. While Wade strapped Maggie into her life
jacket, Kathleen and Dan opened the engine room hatch. Dan jumped down with a fire extinguisher
ready to do battle, but quickly called back “No Fire! No Fire!
Wade joined him, but the dense smoke made inspection difficult. It appeared the source of the smoke was on
the aft, outboard side of the port engine.
Maybe we had blown the turbocharger?
Maybe we had fried the electronic engine control module that resides in the space?
Maybe we had burned the insulating
blanket off an exhaust elbow? Maybe we
blew up the turbocharger? Who knew?
Slowly, the air and our situation became clearer. No one was injured (although we all looked
like smoke-eating firefighters and were coughing.). We were NOT on fire and we were NOT sinking. The automatic fire suppression system on the engine
room had NOT activated. Our buddy boats
(Tim and Jean on Bello and Dan and Robin on Michael Jay) arrived
quickly and stood by , ready to take us aboard if need be, while we assessed
our situation.
Wade reactivated the engine room blowers and was able to
restart the starboard engine. It seemed
to run normally and he choose not to try to start the port engine. We determined that our closest port of safety
was Crystal River, FL, about 40 miles to the east. We needed to get there
before sunset, to beat both the darkness and a forecast cold front and gale
warning in the northern Gulf. Since this
was Bello’s intended destination anyway, they agreed to escort us there
at our best single-engine speed. We sent
Michael Jay on to their next port
with our thanks. Wade hailed the Coast Guard
and advised them of our situation, position, and plan, and off we went with Bello
in the van. . It took 15 degrees of
starboard rudder to hold a straight course, but we were able to make almost 10
mph, which gave us an ETA at Crystal River of about 4:45 pm. Sunset was at
5:20. Hey, we might actually survive! Praise GOD!
Tim on Bello contacted Twin River Martina on our
behalf and made arrangements for us to tie up at their fuel dock. They could not offer us power or dockside
water, but “any port in a storm”, as they say.
After 4+ hours of single-engine operation, we slid up to the dock, tied
off, and said a BIG prayer of thanks.
AMEN!
With no dockside services, we fired up our generator, had (several)
cocktails and dinner, and fell into bed
early. A cold front arrived at the same
time we did and overnight temps were forecast near freezing, so the hum of the generator
and our revere-cycle heat pumps were our lullaby.
The next morning dawned clear and cold and we assessed our
situation. We were several miles out of
town in a pretty rustic marina two days before Christmas. What were the odds of finding help here? Or will we have to continue on one engine
further south toward Clearwater/Tampa to seek repairs. Wade had a conversation with Mike, the
marina’s outboard the mechanic about local contractors and he professed to
“know somebody who knew somebody” and would make a call. Within 30 minutes we had a name and phone
number.
Wade called a left a VM for Will Fuller at KHW Repair and Maintnence, fully expecting not to hear from him until after Christmas, or even
after New Years, if at all. But lo, and
behold, he called back within an hour.
AND he was in the vicinity finishing up another job. AND he would be
happy to come by and assess our situation that very afternoon. Hallelujah!!
Will arrived on time, listened to our description, and dove
into the sooty engine room. Within
minutes he diagnosed the problem. Turns out
we did not have a fire. Instead, we
broke the cast metal exhaust elbow off the port turbocharger. And what we thought was smoke was black sooty
diesel exhaust. (I guess Irish Lass can “roll coal” like nobody’s
business, which is why the exhaust normally exits underwater.) What killed the engines was the exhaust clogging
up the air cleaners and starving the engines for air. Furthermore, Will indicated that, if parts
were available, it was an easy fix. Apparently,
this elbow is a highly stressed component due to large temperature fluctuations
and vibration, and he replaces them regularly.
He made a call tohis parts supplier and 10 minutes later, the new elbow
and associated hardware and two new air filters were ordered with expediated
shipping to arrive a day or two after Christmas. Halleluia, Halleluia, and AMEN!
 |
| Broken Exhaust Elbow |
 |
| A healthy Exhaust Elbow |
So, for us it was Christmas in Crystal River. And poor Dan was stuck with us, due to this calamity, the meltdown at Southwest Airlines, and the latest storm-of-the-century in the Midwest. So, we got back to "making lemonade". Kathleen found us a rental car and even charmed to manager at Enterprise into pickup and drop off service. Dan baked us biscuits, grilled Grouper, and dutifully drug the water hose over form the fuel dock everyday to top of our water tanks. (The marina’s restrooms were marginally acceptable for toilet use but unacceptable for showering.) John, the marina manager gave us access to their washer and dyer and to space in their utility room where we could plug in our crockpot. And Tim on Bello shared the password to his Star Link internet so we could stream movies to our hearts content while he and his family visited ashore. We explored the local WinnDixie, Harbor Freight Tools, and other retail delights. We explored some local birding trails in the coast marshland. Kathleen found a location (after entering a curiously unlocked gate next to a “closed” sign) where we could see dozens of manatees huddled together near a warm water spring.
 |
| Huddling Manatees |
 |
| Lucky Manatees at the Crystal Spring |
We ran the generator for a few
hours each morning and evening to cook,
heat water, and warm up the cabins. And, in our spare time, we scrubbed (and
scrubbed and scrubbed and scrubbed) soot from every interior surface of the
boat. Yuck! Dan even volunteered to begin cleaning the
engine room. Bleech!
Christmas Eve saw us at St Anne’s Anglican Episcopal parish
for a very traditional wordship service.
Christmas Day dawned very cold (like 28 F!) and Kathleen treated us to a
delightful pot roast dinner with all the trimmings, artfully prepared in the
marina utility room. And, as promised, on
Dec 27th Will Fuller was back on board with the new parts in hand
and installed them in a matter of three hours.
On December 28th, we resumed our journey to
Clearwater. Whew!!
