Safely back home at Clear Lake

We arrived back home on Thursday, February 9 after an overnight stop at Galveston Yacht Harbor, including a wonderful dinner at Fisherman's Wharf. On the way home we ran the (bad) port engine at just above idle speed, which improved the handling. Once again, the new autopilot proved its merit by doing most of the piloting. With one engine at normal cruising of 1700 rpm and the other at about 800 rpm, the rudders were consistently 15 degrees off center to maintain course.



The engine work began on Monday, and as soon as the head was off, the extent of the problem was obvious.
The #6 piston (out of 6) just rattled around in the cylinder. This means "extreme wear" of the cylinder wall. THUS, the engine will have to be removed so that all of the cylinders can be bored out to a slightly larger diameter and fitted with new oversize pistons and rings. The picture shows the engine with everything removed (e.g. starter, alternator, transmission, etc.) in preparation for lifting it out.



This is a "worst case" scenario. If the wear had been minor, then the cylinder could have been polished in place without removing the engine resulting in a much simpler repair. The next stage involves bracing the deck and placing a large pipe A-frame over the hatch to lift the engine up. Stay tuned...

Day Three - Back to Galveston

Disappointed but not discouraged. We made it to Port Arthur to discover we have an engine issue. The port engine has a scored piston which can mean several things but none of them are good. After a discussion with our trusted mechanic we weighed anchor and headed home slowly. We should be back in League City by Thursday. As the saying goes...more will be revealed...but we are expecting this will delay our start until the Fall.

Here are some pics from the trip today:


The first is a picture of the flag flapping in the wind from our flying bridge.










The next is a picture of the white pelicans mentioned in yesterday's post.










The final picture is of a gull trailing behind us today looking for tidbits of food being kicked up in our wake.

Galveston to Port Arthur

Left the dock in Galveston at 7:15 am, and we are now anchored for the night just South of Port Arthur, TX. Today's picture is a toast last night to celebrate the start of the Great Loop (Thanks Shelly for the sparkling H2O). We had nice (overcast) weather with the temperature in the lower 60's. We are sitting in the salon watching birds feeding along the shoreline. We were going through salt marsh most of the day so we saw lots of birds, including one large flock of white pelicans (30+). Tomorrow we plan to go to Lake Charles, LA and stay at L'Auberge Casino and Resort. We plan to buy diesel fuel (and possibly food) before we venture into the casino...

Day 1. We're off...

We had a sea-trial of the new autopilot this morning that went well. Then after some last minute packing/unpacking, we left the dock at 12:20 pm with a small but enthusiastic group of well wishers. With the late departure we only planned on a short 3 1/2 hour cruise to Galveston, TX. It is here that we will enter the Gulf Intra Coastal Waterway ( aka the "ditch" since many parts of it have been dredged to make an artificial channel connecting natural bays, lakes, etc). We will spend most of the next month in the ICW as we go across the northern Gulf of Mexico.

Note: Rigorous honesty compels me to say that I was not terribly anxious to have an autopilot... However, I did use it for at least half of the trip today. The "skipper" needs to be watching for other boats, debris and of course dry land... However, the autopilot does afford one the luxury of (limited) walking around to stretch those "sitting" muscles. Okay, so I am now an advocate of the autopilot.

almost ready to start...

We now plan to depart on Monday, February 6, 2012. For me (John) it is a dream of about 30 years that is about to start for real. Yes, there have been many bumps in the road over that long period, but the dream was always there.

First a (very) little background. We purchased Lucky Us in July, 2006 with the idea that we had a few years to learn how to operate her with only the two of us and enough time to make some upgrades to her for the Loop. This meant adding some creature comforts like an all-in-one washer dryer and anchor windlass as well as the latest electronic navigation equipment. The boat came with a marvelous walk in glass shower, full galley and reverse cycle heating and air-conditioning so we had a god starting point. There are some who may think that we went a little overboard by adding a 32 inch HDTV with Blue-ray and Google TV as well as Wifi, but there are no "rules" that say one cannot really enjoy the experience all the time.

Here are some pictures of some the the more recent preparations:

Lucky Us is 43 feet long on deck and with a dingy on the swim platform and counting the bow pulpit we are closer to 50 feet. A scary (for me at least) sight is seeing the nearly 20 tons of boat being lifted out of the water in preparation for new bottom paint.

However, as you can see in the next photo, the bottom was successfully cleaned, sanded and painted. We also had additional work done while she was out of the water.

All things considered boats float very well, but when they are bigger, there are a lot of holes (intentionally) in the hull. Holes below the water line are necessary for raw water to cool the engines and for the reverse cycle HVAC. These holes have seacocks on them which amount to an on/off valves. Our seacocks were all stuck in the open position, which means that if a hose ruptures we cannot stop the water with the valve. Note, we do carry a selection of tapered wood plugs that we can hammer into holes (in theory...). I have included a picture of a new seacock since several of the old ones were broken in the attempts to unstick them. I have learned a lot of "facts" in my boating experience, and some of them are more important than others... If this 1 1/2 inch hose completely severed, about 2,600 gallons of water per hour would enter. We have three bilge pumps that could handle this amount (in theory) assuming that we had battery power and there was no clogging, etc of the pumps... We sold the house in Bryan, but for comparison, that swimming pool held about 26,000 gallons of water. That number got my attention!

One last set of pictures to briefly describe the updates to the electronics. Within the last year we have added new a GPS/Chartplotter with a 12 inch color screen on the flybridge with a monitor(repeater) at the lower helm station. We also have a 24 inch digital radar, depth sounder, satellite (XM) weather, autopilot and AIS (automatic identification system). There are advances in all of this technology at least on a yearly basis so we waited to upgrade until now so that we would have the latest gear. All are networked together, and as for me, I still have quite a bit of learning to do. The last 2 photos show the top and bottom of the radar mast. The 24 inch HDTV antenna has a digital booster, and at our home dock between Houston and Galveston, Texas, we get 69 digital channels over the air. This is up from about a dozen channels in the pre-digital era. The other view of the radar mast shows a hinge on the bottom. We installed the hinge so that we could lower the mast, and thus lower our air draft. The draft of a boat generally is used to refer to distance below the waterline to the lowest point on a boat. It turns out that boats have an air draft that is the distance to the highest point. This is important for getting under fixed bridges, and there are several important ones on the Great Loop. If you want to go through downtown Chicago, you have to be able to go under a bridge with a clearance of 15 feet. Of course, you could go around Chicago... However, one of the highlights of the trip is the view of the city from the river. Hence, the addition of a hinge to be able to lower our air draft in just a few minutes.

Well, enough information about the boat. Stay tuned for regular updates on "Lucky Us Adventures".

During the same week that our refrigerator in Bryan died (after we included it in the sale of the house but before closing on the house) the refrigerator on the boat also cratered. This is our second trip down this road fortunately and it was much calmer this time. The back door opening is too small so we have to take the whole door out - frame and all! Last time, John used the circular saw to make this happen but this time we only had to undo a few screws and loosen some caulking (only a 2 hour job compared to a 2 day job previously). This refrigerator sticks out a few more inches into the small galley but the additional refrigerator space makes it worth while!

The adventure of a broken gear in the transmission

In mid-August we had the port transmission lock up just as we were preparing to anchor at Redfish Island for a Saturday afternoon. Janice Crockett was along so we went ahead and anchored. After lunch we launched the dingy and went ashore. I called Land & Sea the next week, and a mere 11 weeks later the transmission was reinstalled on Monday, November 2. The gear was evidently still available, but the shaft for the gear was not. They bought a rebuilt transmission to scavenge for parts, including the shaft that we needed. To celebrate the new(ly rebuilt) transission, we went back to Redfish Island for an overnight the very next weekend... All is well once again.