Chesapeake Boat Works Deltaville VA

Work on the engine problem stopped whilst Mack, the marine technician, ordered in some gaskets and seals.  Given the amount of work the yard had on we also knew that we would be on the hard for at least a week whilst the engine issue was resolved.  It was all very frustrating because we had been intending to head up to New York to anchor by the Statue of Liberty and to see something of the city before moving on north for an OCC Rally in New England.

The galley after Nicky took the locker doors apart

So, with time on our hands, we set to tackling lots of maintenance jobs that we have been putting off for far too long. The hull was looking beautiful [Ed: though there was still more polishing that could be profitably done with extra time available] and we had already completed the underwater maintenance jobs, so Nicky turned her hand to varnishing the galley area.  For a year or so now, Nicky had been saying that she was wanting to give the sliding locker doors a good sand and lots of layers of new varnish.  Whilst the job could be carried out with everythingin situ, it was a chore that would be easier if the locker was pulled apart into its component pieces.

Having pulled apart the 3D jigsaw puzzle, she set about sanding all of the doors and runners. As you would expect, it was dusty and very slow work but after a couple of days she was able to turn the saloon and forward heads into a varnishing shop.

Whilst it was a little inconvenient having the saloon out of action, we didn’t need to use the space on board because the marina and boatyard have a covered sitting out and barbecue area beside the swimming pool.  Each evening we decamped to this area for a swim and shower followed by a ‘grill’ dinner (note US speak).  Eating ‘out’ also had the bonus of not having the cooking heat inside BV, which was already more than hot enough with bright sunshine and an outside air temperature of over 32 degrees Celcius each day [Ed: and, of course, BV’s dark blue and so absorbs, rather than reflects, a lot of the sun’s rays].

Our good friends Bill and Lydia heard of our delays in Deltaville and conjured up a morale boosting trip out for dinner. Richard Farrington, an old acquaintance from work days, was in Fishing Bay on Escapade waiting for his wife Julie to fly into New York and get a train to Richmond to rejoin him.  So Richard was also invited along and the 3 of us were picked up by Bill and Lydia and driven to the south side of the Rappahannock River.  There we visited one of Bill and Lydia’s favourite eateries, Merroir, which specialises in seafood and, in particular, oysters.  It is a lovely spot and the seafood was delicious.  We had 3 sorts of oysters, some sweet (ie not too briney), some salty from different beds on the estuary, and also some that had been roasted.  Nicky had a large crab cake which seemed to be almost all crabmeat whilst I had some super-sized and very tasty scallops.  Eying each other’s dishes up with envy we decided to split them between us so that we got to try both orders.  Desserts ensured that we left stuffed but with just enough room inside us to give Richard’s malt whisky collection a good bashing back on board Escapade.  All in all it was a lovely evening with great company and once again we were indebted to Bill and Lydia for their generosity in looking after us.

The view out over Locklies Marina from the Merroir

Thursday 28 June was a day of highs and lows. Mack returned to work on engine diagnostics and, happily, found the source [Ed: one of the sources??] of our problems.  He pulled out all 4 injectors and took them away for testing.  One was terrible and just dribbled fuel, 2 were pretty poor and the 4^thwas okay.  His/our conclusion was that the poor atomisation of the fuel by the injectors had stopped the engine from starting properly and the unburnt fuel had worked its way past the piston rings and contaminated the oil which is why it looked a little strange.

However, that didn’t explain the higher than expected crank case pressure.  So, the next step was to check the rocker/valve gaps and make sure that the valves were operating correctly.  The gaps needed adjusting slightly but the valves all seemed to be working properly so Mack moved on to checking the compression in each cylinder.  This is where things turned bad and potentially very expensive. Three out of the 4 cylinders had good compression but on one it was down to about 2/3 of what it should have been.

The most likely cause is leaking piston rings on that poorly performing cylinder, gummed up with carbon from poor combustion due to the poor performance of the injector.  In a car you can normally take the sump off the bottom of the engine to pull out a single piston.  Sadly, in a boat there is just not the access for that and so it looked like we would need to have the whole engine taken out and sent away for a recondition and rebuild.  The repair job was suddenly looking like it would be in the multi-thousands of dollars bracket!

Worse too, it would take a lot of time. Mack estimated that the whole job would take about a month.  He’d take the engine out and refit it but, to get the best reconditioning work done, he recommended that we sent the engine away to the American arm of the manufacturers, Beta Marine.

In short, we had 3 options. Option one was to send the injectors off to be reconditioned, fit 4 new glow plugs and then put it all back together so that we could set off sailing again.  We’d then return in October to get the engine rebuild completed.  The downside was that we’d be using an engine with one poorly piston.

Option 2 was to stop now for a month to get the engine removed, reconditioned and then refitted.  Option 3 was to fit a brand new engine.  Faster than option 2 and, with the high cost of labour due to needing to retrofit various bespoke items onto the engine, perhaps not that much more than an engine recondition.

We agreed Mack and Rick would get together some quotes for options 2 and 3 but kick start our own analysis I called Beta Marine to see what the cost of a new engine would be.  I was put through to Stan who runs the reconditioning workshop and he was most helpful.  A new engine would come in at an eyewatering $16,200 and so, with fitting costs, we’d probably get little change from $20,000 for that option.  There were no reconditioned units on the shelf but Stan would happily work on our unit to restore it.  However, he couldn’t quote for that work because the task would depend on what he found when he pulled the crankcase apart.  It was all sounding like a depressingly expensive and slow fix!

However, Stan wanted to run through all of the symptoms we had.  The engine, he said, was low on hours and should be good for a lot longer.  We were already doing the right thing getting the injectors reconditioned but before we jumped at getting the engine removed for a rebuild, he had a suggestion.  Had it been his engine in this position, he said that he would fit the repaired injectors and new glow plugs, launch the boat and then work the engine hard.  His theory is that with the injectors working properly, the heat and pressure on the pistons rings should get them working properly again on the poorly cylinder.  Stan said that he has had good results with that technique, particularly with generators that have been run at low power settings, coked up and lost compression.  Of course, nothing is guaranteed, and we may well end up having to get Stan to recondition the engine for us anyway, but we are going to take his advice, not least because it puts off a very large bill for the engine to be removed and rebuilt and it gets us sailing again.

Fishing Bay Marina – it’s beautiful weather and we’d rather be on the water!

So, the injectors are away at a specialist workshop being reconditioned, the glow plugs are on order, Nicky’s varnishing shop is in full swing, and I’m slowly ticking off the ‘eventually get around to’ maintenance jobs.  How long will it take for us to get going again?  We don’t know.  The 4^thJuly holiday and celebrations certainly aren’t going to help but maybe by the end of next week; we’ll keep you posted.

The moral of the tale is don’t put off getting your diesel injectors serviced; get them pulled and reconditioned every 1500 engine hrs.

Chesapeake Boat Works, Deltaville, VA, USA