Century Club: mike pitchford

So, we sold the Florida condo and bought a new bigger boat to cruise.  We needed more time on the water adventuring and less time tied to specific real estate.  All good.

We closed on the new boat, a Back Cove 37, in early March and waited on better weather and our final month in the condo before heading north.  We loaded the stuff from the condo along with some stuff for the new boat and headed north to Myrtle Beach, where the boat was home ported at puchase, on Monday March 28th. After stuff dropoff and a sleepover, we were off to Anapolis with the rest of the stuff.  Too much stuff.

On Friday , April Fools Day, we flew back to Myrtle beach to begin the ICW trip home to Annapolis with the new boat.  Saturday was a day of provisioning.  On Sunday  we headed to Wilmington Marine Center where Tom DeMann (who did the engine survey at purchase) did the past due maintenance on the intercooler and heat exchanger.  He also looked the engine over, replaced the impeller and water pump cam and the serpentine belt. It was about $4k and less than I had experienced up on the Chesapeake.  We stayed in a B&B in Wilmington for a couple days while Tom did the engine work and we did other work to be ready for the rest of the trip.

Along the first leg I could tell the ZipWake system was not working.  Turns out one of the servos is bad.  Imtra says the servos are subject to a recall and so sent me new ones ($1k saved).  I have to pay to have them installed and that will require hauling and blocking (cost unknown).

After we left Wilmington we headed for Homer Smith's in Beaufort.  No problems.  We added fuel at Jarrett Bay Boatworks after our overnight in Beaufort and headed to Belhaven.  No problems.  

On the leg from Belhaven to Coinjock we crossed the Albemarle Sound on a choppy, beam wind day.  Just a mile from the protection of the North River we suffered engine shutdown.  It restarted a few times but could not hold idle long.

After a couple rocky hours on the hook, TowBoat US came and towed us to Coinjock (my second tow in 41 years of BoatUS membership). You already know the problem: algae in the fuel that was stirred up on the crossing of the Sound.

With help from a good local Diesel Mechanic (Brian Scott), we replaced the filters but still had a problem getting higher RPMs.  Turns out that the fuel pick-up hose in the tank has a screen on it. There was a Back Cove issued service bulletin about this in the operating manual that the former owner left us. The bulletin said the screen was not authorised by Back Cove and should be removed.  

Of course the screen was almost completely blocked by the recently loosened up tank algae.  So Brian and his new Diesel Tech, John, followed the service bulletin and removed the screen.  They also called a fuel polisher and we did the full tank clean. Apparently the former owner did little to stabilize the fuel. 

Anyway, about $1k later (and almost 48 hours in Coinjock) we were on our way to Norfolk with a smooth running engine.     

There is an additional issue with the boat that I am also going to have to correct.  The stuffing box on the rudder leaks underway. It weeps a little at the dock but underway and under load it leaks more significantly. 

Since there is no bilge pump from the engine bay back, I hand pumped over 40 gallons out every evening after a day's travel.  I am surprised that the former owner didn't figure it out.  With the automatic float switch out on the bilge pump at the front of the engine (a survey discovery) this little leak could have become a bigger problem. 

Well, it's a boat!