One simple project is never just one simple project...
An oil change, a thorough engine room clean, followed by a quick replacement of some rudder bits. Easy peasy, done in just an hour or two. Might even have time to do the second engine and rudder, yes?!
Hahaha...you would think after nearly 6 years living on a boat, we would know better. After all D’s favourite saying is “everything is broken on a boat, we just don’t know it yet”.
We are pros at dropping the rudders having done it a number of times already both in and out of the water. This is always one’s downfall...overly confident...because this time could we get the rudder to budge?! Nope. Hitting it with a mallet got us nowhere. D trying to pull it down from under water. Nope. More hitting it with a mallet....finally it broke free and dropped out.
What was the problem?! The smallest amount of growth on the rudder post between the two rudder bearings. Gah!? How could such tiny sea creatures cause us hours of frustration?
Okay, beauty, scrape off the growth, replace rudder parts that started this whole mess and reinstalled. Job well done...
But of course this is not the end to the story. Mucking with the rudder means, water comes into the engine room and the now newly cleaned engine room is no longer clean and dry. So just a quick clean, empty out the bilge and then done! Yes?! NO!!
Of course not...suddenly the bilge pump that worked just mere hours earlier with the first clean is not working. Right.
This is probably a good time to mention that when I say engine “room”, it is a bit misleading. It is an area where the engine takes up the vast majority of the space with perhaps a foot of clearance around the perimeter of the engine. This means trying to access anything on the bottom of this said engine “room”, involves D straddling the engine and basically lying on the engine with his head and shoulders upside down.
And of course any appropriately located bilge pump is in the deepest, darkest recesses possible. D manages to remove the pump. From my perspective, I swear he only waved the screwdriver over it and voila like the magician he is, we have a functioning bilge pump again. Whew! That is one spare we don’t have and to buy any spares here in French Polynesia basically requires the need to mortgage the boat.
And for today?! The second engine oil change and rudder will have to wait for the pain of yesterday to fade. But not to worry, D did have to fix the outboard engine when it sputtered and died on the girls and I, so he did not get the day off of fixing broken stuff.
