Water Pump Woes and Dodging a Hurricane. What else could possibly go wrong?

• September 23, 2023 by BoatFools Sailing |
• Language: EN
• Play Time: 00:20:48
• SAILING YOUTUBERS

@boatfools  #hurricanelee #mainesailing #stormwarning #enginework #murphyslaw

Water Pump Woes are a real thing, especially if you forget to reopen your raw water seacock. Our best laid hurricane preparation plans did not go so well. Or, rather, did not end so well...

It was quite a week: Hurricane Lee, Mr. Murphy, and Our FUBAR Engine...kept us all quite busy. Hurricane Lee blew through last weekend so there was a lot to be done. Plus I had a friend visiting whom I hadn't seen in 35 years - since we graduated high school. He, and his wife, traveled all of the way up from Kentucky for a week in Maine - only to arrive just ahead of Hurricane Lee. I had been promising them a sail on Penobscot Bay since their trip planning began back in March! Turns out that the panic set in around mid coast Maine and everyone decided to haul their boats - so there was no way we would be able to. At one check, there were 70 boats ahead of us. So, we went to Plan B and moved Va Bene (our Morgan 382) back to her mooring in Rockland, stripped her down to bare poles, and closed all of her seacocks. It was a lot of work! 48 hrs later, Hurricane Lee blew through - though she did track farther east which saved our bacon. We were so psyched she made it through unscathed that we threw back on her sails, got everything in order, and decided to fire up her engine...But we forgot to do one very critical and important thing...

Needless to say, I had to get my friends out for a sail, and Josh, one of my co-owners of the boat was in town from Vermont, also wanted to sail badly. We thought everything was OK with the old Perkins 4-108, but they were not...We had to sail from Rockland to Camden with no engine. But we did it and we had a great sail. My friends from Kentucky had a ball. BUT, we still had an engine to deal with. The impeller was pooched and we were very worried we'd done additional damage...

So Josh and I dug in and did our best to figure it out. It was a great learning experience - and let's just leave it at that.

Thanks for watching!

BoatFools Sailing

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Water Pump Woes and Dodging a Hurricane. What else could possibly go wrong? Location

• Camden (44.2097928,-69.0647838)