A Delayed Start

Our lease at the marina ended on Wednesday, Feb 10^th. We decided that this would be our departure date. On Monday, Rob pulled me up the mast to replace a lower shroud that was damaged. The only chore we had left to complete before we could set sail was replacing the alternator, which we received in the mail Tuesday morning. We thought replacing the alternator would be an hour long job, then we could relax and enjoy our last day at the Regatta Pointe Marina.  Little did we know, Kairos had different plans for us.

When Rob removed the air inlet filter on the engine to give himself more room to swap out the alternator, about 2 cups of water came pouring out. We do not claim to be diesel engine experts, but as soon as we heard the rushing sound of water exiting our engine, we looked at each other with terrified eyes and started cursing. Our engine was flooded with water. How could this have happened? What’s going on? We just ran the engine yesterday during our final sailing lesson.

Upon further inspection, we realized that the hose from the vented loop on the engine exhausted system was submerged under water in our bilge. Let me explain why this is really really bad. During normal operation, the engine exhaust gases are cooled by injecting raw sea water. The cooled exhaust gases and water then leave the boat through a vent on the transom. Because our engine is below waterline, it is important that we have a vented loop installed on the raw water hose. Otherwise, after the water pump is shut off, a siphon will form and water will continue to flow and flood the engine.  If undetected this could even sink the boat. With a vented loop installed, air enters the water hose when the pump is shut off and prevents a siphon from ever forming.

Because our air vent was submerged in water, our vented loop did not let air enter the water hose and we created a siphon that flooded our engine. Well that’s an easy enough problem to fix. We simply cut the air hose to ensure that it would never be under water again. But now we had a flooded engine to deal with.

A diesel engine uses pistons and rods to compress air. Because water is incompressible, if you start an engine that is flooded with water, then you could easily break those pistons and rods.  We also can’t let sea water sit in the engine for too long.  It is extremely corrosive and will destroy an engine in a couple of days. Our sailing budget does not include $15,000 for a new engine, so needless to say, we were panicked. We had just spent the last two months working extremely hard to fix up the boat for cruising and we were about to lose our engine the DAY BEFORE we set sail. The timing of our misfortune was almost humorous; I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry at our situation. So I did a little of both.

We were able to get a hold of Rick at RNR Marine and he walked us through how to safely remove water from our engine using the decompression levers and a shop vac.  It took us all day, but we were finally able to remove the water and start the engine. The next day we had the oil changed just in case it too was contaminated with water. We dodged a big bullet!  Thankfully Rob removed the air filter and we discovered the issue before trying to start the engine. Thankfully we found the issue before it could cause serious damage.  It was a huge scare, but turned out to be another great learning experience. We are now intimately familiar with our engine.

Afterwards Rob was able to swap out the alternator, which did take less than an hour.  With our engine water free and the alternator charging our batteries, we left the marina around noon on Thursday, Feb 11^th. Only one day later than expected. Not too bad all things considered.