Chesapeake Boat Works Deltaville (Part 2)

After our fun weekend escape with Bill and Lydia, Bill dropped us back at BV on Monday 9 July.  We had expected the injectors to have been returned late on the Friday and that Mack would be working on BV imminently.  But, there was no sign of the injectors.  When Rick followed that up he discovered that the injectors had been lost in the post for a week; the repair workshop had only just received them.  That was really disappointing for us because the additional delay meant that there was no chance of us making it up for the last few days of the OCC’s New England Cruise in Company.

So, instead of preparing for being launched, we set about a few other tasks and, in between those, watching the football Wold Cup matches.  Nicky did a bit more varnishing whilst I replaced the wooded plugs covering the screws on the toerail (36 of them had come out with age) and did some minor gelcoat repairs on the deck.  Most importantly though, we cleared the backlog of blog entries, some of which were missing from as far back as March.  During the evenings we met up with Doug Selden from Ithakaand Mike and Cate. Doug was in the marina working on Ithaka projects and he very kindly allowed us to use his truck whenever we needed to.  Mike and Cate were anchored in Fishing Bay also doing some maintenance work, as well as arranging for some new sails to be made and sorting out a booking for Kealoha V to be lifted out for a month from 1 August.  Our evening barbeques were very pleasant and we were able to toast Mike and Cate's success at tracking down the water leak on their generator which had been a problem for them for over a month.

The refurbished injectors: not much of them is original

The injectors finally arrived late on Friday 13 March.  Mack was busy with a wedding over the weekend and so refitting the injectors became the yard’s priority for Monday morning.  Mack got on with the work pretty quickly and after everything was back in place he bled the fuel system.  With the air purged, the engine sprang into life!

Injectors and new glowplugs all fitted and ready for a test run

We had attached a hose pipe to the engine water cooling inlet and so when the engine had fired up we could open the tap to allow the engine to be run up safely.  It’s always seems a bit peculiar having the engine running when the yacht is out on the hard but it works and allowed Mack much more time to check that everything was as it should be.

Mack had one more task and that was to connect the crankcase breather to the air filter housing and so, whilst he went off to get the parts for that, the yard staff launched BV.  It was all very slick and BV was back in the water before lunchtime.  With several bits of pipework replaced and the new deck wash system fitted we did a very careful check that there were no leaks before we motored BV out of the travel hoists lifting straps onto the boatyard’s dock.

Once there, we were able to test the new deck wash system which worked perfectly.  All that remained was for us to pay the yard bill and then move out to join Kealoha V in the anchorage.

Kealoha V with Jenniebehind her anchored in Fishing Bay

Whilst the yard had been fabulous in getting our engine working and relaunching BV, pulling together the bill took a little longer, “It will be ready in the morning”, we were told. So, we stayed put for the night on the boatyard’s dock and enjoyed one last evening barbeque with Mike and Cate.

Deltaville, VA, USA