9 minute read
Preface
Jonathan says
Warsash, midnight!
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The phone rang.
‘Sea Start. How can I help?’
‘OK, I’m coming. Where are you?’
‘Yes, I’m calling you on my satphone.’
‘It sounds like a fuel problem.’
At which point the satphone went dead. He called back five minutes later. This cutting out of the satphone went on for the next two and a half hours, during which time I got the chap to change both fuel filters, clean the fuel line out to the fuel tank, which is where the blockage was, and get the engine running again to get himself to shore in northern Spain.
I asked him a few questions about the engine, did it have a such and such here or a pipe there? I was pretty sure he was looking at a Volvo MD21B. I pictured the engine in my mind and then took him through everything step by step.
I’d ask him to describe the fuel filter and then I’d know what I was dealing with and could tell him exactly what to do, even to the point of taking a pipe off and blowing back into the fuel tank to try and clear the blockage on the assumption that this was the problem and would buy him some time to get to the shore.
‘The fuel filter is a round filter, by the front of the engine up high on the left. Follow the pipe down from there and you come to the lift pump on the engine, now follow that to another pipe that comes down from the pre-filter on the bulkhead. That’s the one that will block up if there is a blockage and is it a rubber pipe?’
‘Er … yes, yes I can feel it.’
‘Well drain that out.’ …and then the phone would cut out. Then five minutes later he’d call back. This continued for some time until he reached the filter in the fuel line.
‘Now, is there any dirt on the filter?’
So he went off to do that and came back.
And then he put it all back together again.
And when we had finished and the engine was running smoothly once more, he was on top of the world. As pleased as punch with what he had been able to achieve. Starting off knowing nothing, he had been able to fix the problem. It would have taken the rescue services many hours to find him. It was fortunate that he had a satphone and thought of calling Sea Start.
I discovered later that he had had to repeat this process a further three times before he made harbour.
Preface 9
1
Introduction and philosophy
The idea of this book is to give you an introduction to engines on boats and their associated systems so that you can keep an eye on things and stay one step ahead of any problem.
It is not designed to train you to become a mechanic.
That said, we will take you through all of the essential jobs required to maintain your engine and indeed to service it. We will also outline what you need to check if a problem does arise, in order to fix it.
The key with all things mechanical, well anything really, is to stay on top of what they require to run properly, to look out for wear and tear and to replace a component before it wears out and fails. To think ahead.
A classic case in the domestic setting is when you leave batteries in a torch and then don’t use it for years. When you do try to switch it on, it won’t work and when you open it up you will find a nasty mess as the acid will have leaked out. The torch is now ruined. Had you removed the batteries when the torch was not being used then the torch would be ready to go as soon as you gave it some batteries with charge in them. So have a look round the boat, identify things that require batteries that you don’t use often and remove the batteries – tape the batteries to the item so you have them to hand. Your safety gear, for example, lights on lifebuoys and danbuoys – remove the batteries.
Of course, you should never forget, when trying to work out what goes where, that the manuals that came with your engine will be an excellent resource and guide to tell you what to do.
We will be covering both petrol and diesel engines and we will also include other elements beyond engines that you should design a maintenance schedule for – parts that wear out, corrode or clog that you need to keep an eye on. We can all be guilty of managing to keep up with the regular, advisory engine maintenance while ignoring other things that need our attention as well. We need to keep on top of every system, anything mechanical on the boat. Let’s not wait for things to fail before we address them because that is no fun for anyone; let’s maintain these systems and prevent problems from occurring in the first place. Your expensive electric windlass needs servicing, pumps for domestic fresh water, pumps for draining showers and pumps (automatic and manual) for bilges also need to be checked. Even the gas system: Is the regulator in date
p Batteries removed from lifebuoy light when not in use.
10
Stress-free engine maintenance
and OK? Is the pipework in date and OK? And of course, alarms for gas, smoke and carbon monoxide. Then of course there is the fridge and freezer, not forgetting the generator.
Fixing things at sea means you will be working in a confined space, possibly with a strong smell of diesel and probably with your body straining at every sinew and bent to an impossible angle as you try to undo that nut at the back of the engine. Not the ideal position to be in if you are apt to feel seasick. The only time I have had a ‘moment’ was when I was upside down in a lazarette trying to fix something. I had to get my head out quickly and take a breath of fresh air before getting back to it.
As long as we stay on top of the servicing, treat our mechanical equipment with care, understand how to use it to get the best out of it and to reduce wear and tear, then we will be in good shape.
Finally, I – Duncan Wells – am the student here, the one who makes all the mistakes (and I do) and Jonathan Parker is the expert. And so everything on these pages has had to be filtered through the fog of my non-mechanical brain. If I was able to understand how something was described then that description was fit for the book.
You will find that there is tremendous emphasis on checking things and adhering to service schedules and the service life of parts and indeed repetition of the need for this. You see, Stress-Free Engine Maintenance is really about preparation – just like every aspect of sailing – identifying potential problems and heading them off before they occur.
The book is structured in such a way that when you get to the chapter ‘How to troubleshoot a breakdown’ and the flow diagrams, you will have been shown in the preceding chapters how to identify and check everything that is mentioned and how to fix it.
Jonathan always has a story to illustrate every point and we include these at the end of each chapter. We will also have some of Jonathan’s life experiences ‘en passant’ throughout. These are not meant to be judgemental, in fact in most cases it is a question of ‘There but for the grace of God go I’, but they do drive home the point.
Jonathan says
The phone went in the Sea Start office and it was a sportsboat anchored in Osborne Bay, Isle of Wight.
He wasn’t a member. We always took the view that if we weren’t busy, we’d go out to anyone, but first the office had to take some details and take some money off him.
‘Yes fine, fine, but I need to get going.’
With a membership fee and a call-out charge paid – which came to quite a lot – I started to ask him questions to see if we could get the engine started.
He was quite insistent that I should come and see him and he didn’t really want to listen to what I was trying to tell him on the phone, he’d tried this, he’d tried that, he said.
So I said OK, I’d be there in about 10 minutes.
When I get there, he has all his family on this day boat and friends, about ten of them, and they were all looking expectantly at me. I glanced at the controls and then just moved the gear lever from forward into neutral and then fired up the engine. Well, the look his wife gave him told the whole story. And she said, ‘Do you know how much that just cost me?’ Clearly she had paid, as well!
I had asked him if it was in gear when I first spoke to him on the phone but for some reason he was panicking and just wanted me to come out and sort it. Had he listened, he could have saved himself, sorry his wife, a lot of money.
People often panic. They just don’t think. One of the favourites is a call to say:
‘Is the boat going round in circles?’
‘Um, yes? Oh right. OK, everything’s fine now!’
The caller has just realised that the autopilot is on and he is trying to fight it by steering the helm. With the autopilot off, he will regain control of the helm.
