Day 13 – 13th says it all…

Wow…Day 13…that explains it all!! I’m not superstitious….but…..

Today did not go as planned. We are right back where we started. Sometimes that happens on a boat. Often cruisers will joke “our plans are written in jello”. Well that sums up today.

This morning – after motoring south into 20knot winds gusting higher, for only 15min – the engine started revving uncontrollably. By chance – I just happened to be beside Mike. He screamed ”turn it off – now now now”…the controls were near me but were not responding. “Emergency, emergency” he yelled. I had no idea what was happening except the engine was screeching at an unbearable decibel level. Mike lifted up the Cockpit floor (which is the hatch to the engine bay)….where he pulled the backup engine shut down cable (nicknamed the “kill switch”)….it did nothing. Now the heavy cockpit floor is manually being held (no time in crisis to tie it off) – So I grab the heavy hatch behind me while still trying to steer us forward. So Mike was free to move around and figure out a solution. Mike, in desperation to get this engine off, picked up his street shoe and turned it upside down over the engine air intake. It worked! Quiet at last…except for the howling winds, white cap waves and us drifting in a narrow ICW channel. Mike dashed forward to drop the anchor…right in the middle of the channel!

So…we were floating…we were safe….kids were awesome and sat in the salon taking care of themselves while all this happened. The first thing out of Emma’s mouth was “is our trip to the Bahamas cancelled?”. Hopefully no…but delayed yes….

We shamelessly called Tow Boat US having just paid for the “unlimited towing” option just in case of running aground somewhere. Truthfully, we could have easily sailed back 1 mile to the anchorage with the prevailing winds of the day, but hey… when professional assistance is free, why not call! We should mention that the White’s have never been towed in 5yr owning the boat…sadly we broke their record on day 13….yes day 13.

To sum up the rest of the day…Mike spent a hot 6.5hrs hunched over and around the hot engine investigating/fixing and generally covering himself from head to toe in diesel oil and sweat. I stayed on the boat as his support person…clean enough to get what he needed from inside the boat. Susan and Greg, the angels of the day, came and picked up Henry and Emma (who were doing jumping jacks at the thought of having Susan and Greg to themselves for the day!). The 4 of them went off exploring a local wildlife refuge to see alligators, turtles, great blue heron….then had fun in the pool…got to watch a movie. Totally awesome day. Mike and I joined them all for dinner (2 homecooked meals now!) and then shuttled us all back to the boat this evening.

So….now to see what tomorrow brings! This is end of tonight’s blog….for those techie’s out there wondering “so what is wrong with the engine?”…I now pass the laptop to Mike for the full description. The rest of you may want to say goodnight at this point!

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Here’s Mike:

Google “runaway diesel” and you’ll get a good Wikipedia description of what was going on in our lives today. Remember that upcoming weather window to Bahamas? Forget about it!

Our low pressure fuel pump or, more likely, our high pressure injection pump leaked fuel into the engine’s oil and overfilled the crankcase until a fuel/oil mixture spilled out the top and into the air intake. With unlimited fuel now pouring in, the engine did as it pleased until my upside down shoe’s insole choked it off. Thanks to Peter and Elisabeth Stoffel who lived through this same issue 15 years ago, I was more prepared than I would have been to react, though I’m not sure Peter used a shoe! Luckily this all only lasted maybe 20 seconds though it felt like so much longer. Much longer than that and the engine could have failed completely.

While the warm Florida sun and 150 degree engine made for hot work, we had what we needed. Low pressure pump was changed, 2 gallons of oil/fuel were pumped out, one gallon of fresh oil replaced, and we restarted and found a new issue. One fuel injector also failed, causing a terribly loud engine knock after we got the restarted, but luckily Reid had just bought some spare injectors which were pressed into service. With new injectors the engine is running again – though with the root cause not solved just yet. Progress would have been slower if not for teachers Greg and Susan.

Now it’s time to find and fix that that faulty injector pump and make sure it doesn’t leak into the crankcase again. I’ve rented a car for the morning and we’re taking an old/failed injector pump that was stored on the boat to Fort Lauderdale to be rebuilt ASAP so that we can swap it on early next week. We’ll then likely get the one that caused today’s adventure rebuilt as well, just in case. We could get them both fixed faster by dropping them off at the same time in Lauderdale tomorrow, but that would leave us anchored out with no engine and no backup battery charging possibly for 4 straight days. It’s just not worth the risk in our minds.