Well, not exactly broke down but that’s the best Dead song to title our visit to San Francisco. We sailed southeast for about 24 hours back towards the coast without much energy or thoughts towards what the problem might be, at least on my part. At sea the basic necessities are really all I can manage (so far?) and just changing course towards land and getting some more sleep seemed like huge accomplishments. Point Reyes sticks way out there and as we passed it there was talk about rock formations and geology, a funny subject for sailors but Leo especially has lots of knowledge to share.
As we approached the entrance to the bay the wind funnels and accelerates into the entrance and the seas were pretty choppy with the current against us. We took down the jib and the guys cleaned up the bow to make things a little easier. Should have gotten those fenders out before the sails got stuffed in there.
Going under the Golden Gate was perfectly unreal. There was just a little swirling fog, the sun was shining, 2 fighter jets passed overhead, and wings and kites were racing back and forth around us.
We sailed past the St Francis Yacht Club on the South side of the entrance to the bay, dropped the main, and motored into San Francisco Marina with the wind dispersing much of what would have otherwise been embarrassing smoke. The nicest harbor master on the planet caught our lines, helped us into our slip, and made sure we had everything we needed- he even went out to get a bag of ice for us. We cleaned up, had some pina coladas and pasta on board, and I was in bed before Griffin. Gavin and Leo did their part and went out on the town to have all sorts of adventures until the early hours.
The next morning I got down to business researching and chatting with friends about what we experienced with our engine. It seemed like the possibilities were endless and the much of the diagnosis depended on what color the smoke was and how much of it there was. Trouble was it’s so windy and we were always moving so it was really hard to gauge any of that. Could be a blown head gasket, worn ring, stuck valve… the list goes on. To add on to the fun, when we put the main away we noticed the webbing that wraps around the clew ring had significant wear and only about half the material remained. We had the main fully gone over at the loft not many hours of sailing ago, pretty annoying to find this now but way better than finding it out on the ocean. Sunday at the marina was nice, fog swirled, boats sailed around, but the engine didn’t share any secrets.
The guys went walking around town and saw lots of sites during the day while Greg and I got our stuff together. For dinner the second evening we walked to a fun pizza place and then walked around the Palace of Fine Arts for the 1915 World Fair which was right across from the marina.
Paul has a connection at the KKMI boatyard, Brad was on a BMW Oracle campaign and manages the yard here in Richmond when he’s not out foiling on the bay. We stayed 2 nights downtown and then motored up to KKMI to get help with a diagnosis. On the way up there we ran the engine at full throttle for about 5 minutes 3 times and POOF! No more smoke after the 3rd time. Big thanks to Holm for the suggestion! Did the ring un-stick itself? Did a valve start to behave? Other than the smoke there wasn’t another symptom… oil and coolant levels, temp, everything was normal. I did notice the tranny fluid was a little low so I filled it up but now that’s leaking out a little, likely a leaky seal. Maybe I should ask Holm what to do about that. Watch out Holm, better get out of cell range soon.
At the dock at KKMI we still had Brad and the mechanic come on board and chatted about what’s going on. The mechanic doesn’t have any love for Isuzus, the first person we’ve met that had a negative opinion of them. He heard our story and thought that it was likely our prop is a little over pitched for our engine which definitely doesn’t still put out it’s rated 70hp. We decided to haul and change the prop pitch just a little, that could happen that next day. The guys helped get the main off and rolled it up so nicely. North Sails had a van up near where we were and they picked it up the next day. Greg had a good chat with Aimee at North, she’s going to give the sail another good look over Ironically, Aimee worked with Paul and Brad on the same campaign in Valencia for BWM Oracle. Good people here down here.
Gavin, Leo, and Griffin went on a walk around the hills near the yard and met us at a Mexican restaurant nearby. Gavin and Leo were leaving the next morning, they didn’t need to stay while we figured out things. They hung out in town and ran into another sailor from Seattle too, small world. The next morning they flew home early, it’s sad to see them go! Leo left a bunch of his gear so I believe he’ll be back. Gavin has got a big boat trip of his own coming up soon so it’s less likely we’ll get have him on board again, bummer.
We didn’t end up getting hauled out until fairly late in the day. When we finally got over to the dock at the fairway for the travel lift and stepped out onto the dock looking at the port side of the boat Greg noticed a bite out of the leading edge of the port rudder about 10″ down from the top- another thing to fix while we’re out of the water. With that fix in mind too we decided to hang in the slings overnight since by now they didn’t have time to do the whole prop re-pitch before closing.
I got the rudder bite cleaned up, filled, patched, faired, and primed before diner. After another round of mexican food I got a few layers of bottom paint on it spaced out a few hours- grateful for the warm weather and sun! We watched a movie hanging in the travel lift slings and then slept pretty well.
Some boatyard scenes below, I like the resin and glass pothole filling here.
In the morning they finished the prop, plopped us in the water and we tested out the speeds at rpm to compare it to pre-adjustment. We were a little slower but came much closer to max rated rpms for the engine and with less black smoke at full throttle. Success!
Griffin took me for the same walk that he did with the guys, lovely views and some nice hills to huff up. Grateful to relax and move without feeling like I should be fixing something instead.
We waited for high tide to head down to a different marina in a shallow area to hang out at while the weather window opens up and crew can come back. I will catch up with another update soon now that we have the wifi password as I’m trying to save Starlink data for being away from land.