I spent much of last night in a sleepless state, kept awake by the hot bile churning in my stomach. Hot, because without air conditioning, the temperature inside Sea Dragon has skyrocketed alongside the exterior temperature here in Key West with the approach of summer, and bilious with frustration.
We’ve been working hard the last few weeks to get Sea Dragon ready for a big summer, but due to a number of factors beyond our control, we have been forced to delay starting our preparation by a week, and now we’re rushing to be done before an earlier-than-planned departure to Bermuda. Yesterday we finally replaced a number of high-pressure fittings on the watermaker, installed some freshly-powder coated brackets for its pre-filters, then fired up the generator to cool the boat down, charge the batteries, and test that everything we had done was functioning properly. We found one slow drip, quickly fixed with a few more turns of a wrench, then kicked on the A/C and the battery chargers and settled in to some more of the un-glamorous side of life at sea – answering e-mails. About an hour later I walked by the engine room and noticed black tendrils of oil seeping down the bottom door, out the fire port in the middle, and forming an inky pool on the floor before disappearing through the floorboards into the bilge. Clearly, Something was not right.
Listening, I heard the tell-tale burbling gasp of fluid being forced out of a hose at high pressure and quickly shut down the generator, noticing en route that the oil pressure was half of what it should have been. As soon as I got the engine room door off I quickly saw the problem – It looked like an abbatoir of machinery, with oil spattered across the world, a thin covering on batteries, exhaust hoses, walls, ceilings, fans. One of the hoses that carry oil to the filter had split, spewing hot oil everywhere.
“Not again,” Shanley said. We almost couldn’t even be upset, just resigned. The generator on Sea Dragon is a pernicious beast, a result of taking full advantage of the available space, which leaves next to no room to actually work on it place. Instead, once a year we spend 4 days or so dismantling the walls and ceiling, hooking up block and tackle to overhead beams, and after unbolting and disconnecting everything connected to the generator, haul its 400 pounds out of the engine room and lower it into the hallway where we can easily access all sides of it to check that all is well. Last year we were inspired to our first round of this fun by a combination of a required bearing change which was only possible with the genny out and a persistent oil leak which turned the entire engine room into a black, greasy mess within hours of it being freshly cleaned.
This year we took care of the standard litany of procedures: new water pump, new belt, new air filter, replaced a section of exhaust hose that had developed a leak, replaced a broken capacitor, checked that all the hose clamps were tight, generally cleaned and de-greased, and finally drained, flushed, and re-filled the coolant circuit before we lifted it back off the ground and levered it back into its hole. You can imagine how quickly our elation turned to disappointment when I sheared a bolt head after everything was put back in place, quickly emptying all of the brand new anti-freeze in the system over the engine below it into the bilge. Just four more hours we had planned to spend elsewhere to unbolt the generator again, swing it out into the hallway, extract and replace the broken bolt, then jam it back into its hole.
We test-ran it for a few minutes before finally declaring victory and starting the lengthy process of re-installing the walls and ceiling on Monday. That evening as we celebrated by charging our batteries back up after a few days of deep discharge with out real charging capability, as the generator was sitting on the floor torn apart, Shanley heard a new sound – the now-familiar hiss and burble of fluid escaping from somewhere it shouldn’t. There was oil everywhere, from a cracked hose right by the back of the engine, which due to the joy of the tight installation required several hours of pain with arms wedged between exhaust hoses to trim off the damaged section and then attempt to mop up the mess.
We thought we had finally put all our problems behind us and could re-focus on the rest of our projects, preparing Sea Dragon for her long summer passages to Iceland and Sweden, far from a West Marine. A third round of fluid gushing from the generator is just what we need. Last night, of course, was that 3rd round of our darling Fischer-Panda belching fluids and making a mess – lousy timing with our planned departure to Bermuda today. Just one more thing to add to the checklist. Still, our summer crew should feel reassured, as we have now broken and replaced just about everything on the damn generator.
Generator or no, I can’t wait to trade the leers and whines of jetskis for the leaps and sighs of dolphins, the harsh lights of the waterfront piers for the twinkle of stars, and the awkward slamming of waves under the transom when Sea Dragon lies current bound at anchor in Key West for the low hiss and rumble of waves passing beneath my bed in the right direction. The myriad setbacks of maintenance pile up in harbor and have made me land sick, suffering from harbor fever, and the only cure is the sea. A few more hours replacing hose on the generator, and hopefully by the time you read this all the cares of shore will be washed away, left to rot on the bottom of the anchorage as we ride the Gulf Stream towards Bermuda.
– Eric Loss, Captain, Sea Dragon, May 1, 2014
