LORD'S PRAYER LOG, Part 03:
January 27, 2000 (continued)
2200 Radio Station KWNM of the National Weather Service Washington DC, Marine Forecast Branch issues a Southeastern US NAVTEX Marine Forecast, which comesin over my weather fax:
"N OF 31 N BEYOND CONTINENTAL SHELF OUT TO 65 W *** GALE WARNING ***
TONIGNT  W TO NW WINDS 25 TO 35 KT"
January 28, 2000
0100 The sea surface is very rough and the night is pitch black. TheMonitor Wind Vane continues to steer the boat and there is only about two feet of jib pulled off the roller on either side of the head stay. The sail, in the loom of the spreader light, looks like a small diamond with the clews pushed out to either side by the whisker poles. The wind is gusting frequently as high as 40 kts; it never seems to drop below 35. The peak observed gust is 43 kts. Waves are breaking onto the boat. One wave literally fills up the cockpit with water. I am frightened. I get onto my knees on the cabin sole and ask the Lord to be with me because I am afraid. The storm seems to abate some. Through the course of the night I sometimes hear waves crashing onto the boat and then the prolonged sound
of rushing sound of water. All night I am tossed about.
0700 Daybreak. The wind is now 25-35 gusting occasionally to 37 kts. Air temperature is rising at 42. The water is 73 degrees - down a little from the 78 degrees in the center of the Gulf Stream. Things look significantly better in the daylight. I pull out just a little more of the dual jib to keep the boat moving. After breakfast I spend most of the morning with my weather fax (a new piece
of gear) trying to refine it's programming to give me what I want without a lot
of other stuff. Additionally I organize the weather charts in folders to make
the information more manageable.
1000 The wind is down to 20-30 kts now. Sometimes it stays at 30 kts for long periods and occasionally gusts a little higher. But clearly it is abating. The waves don't seem to have gotten any smaller though. They are probably close to 20' high and they look huge from the perspective of on a 34' sailboat.
1130 I notice occasionally that as the boat surfs down a wave she pulls in the spinner (for the towed generator) to the surface of the water at the end of the 80' torque line. As the propeller on the spinner looses its "bite" on the water the torque line acts like a rubber band that has been twisted; it suddenly
reverses direction and spins backwards throwing up a lot of spray. I know that this is not good and that the action is probably damaging the torque line. Last spring I was towing a spinner and almost lost it before pulling it in to check the condition of the torque line. This is a special "high speed" spinner and it has weights added on the shaft that are supposed to insure that it keeps operating.
So I decide to see if it can really do the job. I leave it in the water. I am quite tired and I lie down for a nap.
1330 On rising from the nap I check aft and find my rail-mounted generator is not turning because there is no longer a spinner at the outboard end of the torque line. I suit up and go on deck. I haul in the torque line and inspect the end. It is all wound up in a knot; it has failed where it had been attached to the spinner shaft just like what had almost happened last spring. There is a
piece of Sargasso weed fouled on the knot. I disconnect the torque line from the generator and drop the line over the side (it is not repairable). I still have one spare torque line and another spinner, but it is the slow speed spinner that had not really worked well last spring. There is no point in putting the slow speed spinner into the water, since I cannot maintain a steady forward speed with big waves like this and I am not anxious to cut the forward progress by perhaps as much as 30 - 50 percent in an attempt to avoid pulling the spinner out of the water. I want to get as far south as possible before the next gale blows through this part of the ocean. I will talk to the manufacturer when I get home from this trip about the problems I am having with his equipment and I will consider the available alternatives; afterward I will decide whether the rail-mounted generator will retain a berth aboard Lord's Prayer in the future.
1600 I spent most of the afternoon sending and receiving email. The radio connection was particularly bad and consequently frustrating. In one email, which I received from my brother, Bob in Maine, he had asked if I had found the problem I had mentioned to him over the cell phone as I was about to leave the Bay. I had told him that my diesel heater was putting fumes into the cabin and that I was uncertain as to whether I was going to be able to continue using it. Subsequent to his inquiry, I decide the seas have subsided enough that I might investigate this peculiarity. What I knew at this point was as follows: On the morning that I left Old Point Comfort to refuel at Salt Ponds, I had noted a faint odor of diesel fuel. It seemed quite odd at the time and I had noticed the smell one
time earlier - to the extent that this time I lifted the cockpit hatch for a look at the engine and the diesel cabin heater and I checked the bilge to see if there were any evidence of diesel fuel where it was not supposed to be; I found none. Nor did I smell the diesel fuel again. But later after refueling as I headed for the mouth of the Bay I noticed the presence of some fumes in the cabin. I became
aware that somehow fumes were being brought into the cabin by the diesel heater. For some reason, I did not connect the previous smell of the diesel fuel with what smelled like exhaust fumes - perhaps because I was no longer aware of any diesel smell. Initially I thought I had a problem with the diesel heater but in time I came to realize that the fumes were being delivered into the cabin only when the engine was running or for a period of time after the engine had been shut down. This led me to suspect there might be a break in the engine exhaust system that was allowing the diesel heater to pick up and deliver these fumes to the cabin. By the time I had arrived at these conclusions I was already offshore and no longer in a situation where I wanted to move any large hatches to
investigate- because of the rough conditions. Bob's email got me thinking about the problem and focusing on the situation. And I thought maybe now I would at least have a look at the engine from inside the cabin. This required moving a ladder and a large hatch in a boat that was still doing a considerable amount of tossing about and it meant carefully securing them elsewhere in the cabin such that they did not get tossed around and do damage. Lifting the cockpit hatch over the top of the engine, as I had previously done before heading offshore, was not an option at this point in time since water was still slopping into the cockpit. As soon as I had the hatch open from within the cabin, I saw a pool of fuel underneath the engine. I checked the bilge and there was fuel here also. Carefully and deliberately I cleaned up all the fuel and inspected the engine all over, or at least as well as I could do from its forward end. I am certain that an experienced mechanic would know instantly where the fuel was coming from on the engine, but I could not tell. I pulled out a powerful work light but nothing was obvious to me. I cleaned under the engine and to the sides. In the process I found the head of a bolt of some kind that clearly had been sheared off but I did not see any place it might have come from. Finally after cleaning the fuel out of the bilge, I was ready to try starting the engine. When I did, the fuel leak was impossible to miss. Diesel fuel was spraying from the spot where the fuel line connected to a fuel manifold. I shut the engine down. Everything was crystal clear to me
now. The fuel was coming from the spot where a mechanic bleeds the fuel line after doing maintenance on it. The threaded portion of the sheared off bolt was right where it had been when the head unexpectedly broke off. A small gasket was still attached to the head of the bolt. It seemed almost miraculous that I was able to turn the threaded portion of the sheared off bolt out of the engine with my fingers. In retrospect this makes sense because if the clearances were tight, it would not serve as a very good bleed point. Now all I had to do was to find a bolt that was the right size to go back into the engine at this point. I first checked my box of spare engine supplies - but no joy! Next I pulled out all the spare bolts that I carry onboard. None were metric - like the engine. I pulled out the
repair kit for the Monitor Wind Vane thinking I might find what I need in there. Nothing helpful. Meantime I am sitting on the cabin sole amid all the parts, sliding back and forth as the boat rolls about. It occurs to me that I have about ten hours of battery time left if I cannot get the engine repaired and restarted. I shut everything down except for the light I am using to do the work
and the Collision Avoidance Radar Detector (a marine radar detection device). For the second time in the same 24-hour period, I say a prayer and ask for help. I go back through all the engine related parts. I find a bolt that has the right threads. It goes in and out of the engine bleed point without difficulty but it is not threaded all the way to its head and as such it is not useable. I have not got a clue what this bolt goes to or why it is onboard. I wonder if I can modify it. I have a tap & die kit onboard that had once belonged to Grumpy, my deceased father in law. I pulled it out and confirmed what I had suspected - none of the tools in the kit are metric. In my big supply of nuts and bolts I found a nut that could take the metric bolt half way through. What If I were to force the nut onto the bolt, cut the head and unthreaded section off my bolt and thread it into the engine in the opposite direction. That seemed like a possibility, but the nut did not look like it would be square and whatever I used would have to be square to make the seal. I had a bunch of washers that could be put onto the bolt but they were too large to make the seal. None of the options appealed to me.
I again asked the Lord for some help using the words we often use in church when we ask that our leaders be "endued" with wisdom, I asked that I be endued with some of it too - particularly so that I not make a grave mistake. I was also thinking of that now famous astronaut prayer that is quoted in the book "The Right Stuff". And it was then that it occurred to me that I have lots of metric bolts
on the boat - all sorts and sizes. They are on the engine. All I had to do was to find one I could "borrow". And that is what I did. I took a bolt from the idle-stop. It was about 1/8" longer than the original bleed bolt, but maybe it would work without having to cut it. I was able to slip the seal from the original bleed bolt onto the "cannibalized" bolt and secure it into the bleed hole. The other metric bolt that I had previously found in my supplies was used along with a half dozen washers to re-secure the idle-stop. I started the engine. No fuel leaks! I ran the engine up to 3000 rpm. No sign that the longer bolt might be restricting the flow of fuel. THANK YOU LORD!
2330 With all systems back in operation, everything returned its place onboard and the batteries recharged, I retired for the night.
 January 29, 2000
0631 Sunrise.
0700 I awake with pangs of hunger in my stomach and I fix a good breakfast. Air temperature is 55 degrees; water 71. Wind is still out of the NW but has abated to 15-20 kts. I spread the dual jib to give the boat more speed. And about mid morning give her the full spread of the canvas from that jib. I again spend most of the morning overhauling and organizing the information that has come in via the weather fax. I make more adjustments to groom what is received and I modify the organization of the material so that I may understand it.
1100 I take a short nap.
1200 I have my first hot meal in several days. It really buoys the spirits.
1300 I perform an on-deck inspection of all the gear topside, looking for wear/potential problem spots. I find wear on the Monitor actuator lines. They will bear close scrutiny in the days to come and require replacement upon arrival in the Caribbean - if not before.
1704 Sunset
1726 First ship contact in two days - crossing left to right. CPA: 1 NM.
1935 My position is 32-30N 068-25W. Waypoint #5 is 158 NM ahead. I am currently 32 NM right of the great circle route between waypoints 4 & 5.
END OF LORD'S PRAYER LOG, Part 03

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