It’s Not Over Yet!

After finally receiving Jim’s passport and leaving Mazatlán, we were hoping for a smooth uneventful sail towards home, so that our next blog post would feature some of the things we did while passing our time there. That is not at all what we got. The joke among sailors is that cruising is just fixing your boat in a series of really nice places, and thus far we have been fortunate to not have many problems. However, this has been quite the season of equipment failures, breakdowns, and misadventures for us!

About 20 years ago when we bought Bailarina (then named Sea Major 🎵 ), she was virtually a derelict with a sea worthy hull. We rebuilt her to the best our budget and timeline would allow before setting sail under the Golden Gate Bridge for our first journey to Mexico aboard the newly refurbished Bailarina where she earned our trust in her sea-worthiness. One of the best (and most expensive) things we did was to repower it with a brand-new Beta Marine 4-cylinder 40 horsepower diesel engine—it is a marinized Kubota tractor engine. Having an engine you can depend on when everything hits the fan not only can get you out of a sticky situation, but also can grant you great peace of mind.

So, we left Mazatlán with the forecasted weather of moderate wind and seas out of the south/south-west. It seemed ideal, so ideal that we discussed passing up Topolobampo and continuing all the way to Guaymas if all went well. The seas were a little lumpy that morning, but there was plenty of wind for sailing, and we were making some pretty good speed. As the afternoon progressed, the seas got lumpier and were slowing us down considerably as things got uncomfortable. (I got terribly seasick in spite of having twice the recommended dose of Meclazine in my system to prevent it). So we started up the engine to boost our speed in hopes of making it a bit more comfortable, or at the very least get through it more quickly. As the sun set, and the winds died down, the engine became more critical since at slower speeds the boat will flop about to and fro and side to side more aggressively. 🤢

As I was terribly sea sick, I took a third Meclazine and laid down to rest while Jim took the first watch. As a sailor you body becomes in tune to the motion and sounds of your boat and alerts you to changes in motion and unusual sounds, (it’s noisier than you would think being on a boat, not unlike the noise of a big city, your mind filters out most of it). I awoke a couple of times to a change in the sound of the engine running. Jim, alert to the change was checking the gauges but could not find a problem. Around midnight after getting a couple hours of rest and feeling a bit better, I took my watch so that Jim could get some rest. Not a half-hour later and the engine revolutions slowed down again. Only this time it continued slowing until it sputtered to a stop and would not start up again—so much for Jim’s rest.

We still had our sails up and there were light winds, so we were still moving forward—albeit at a much slower speed. Speaking for Jim (as I must do), until you’ve tried trouble-shooting and working on an engine while bouncing around in sloppy seas at a time when your body would normally be sleeping, you haven’t really lived! I would say nearly all of our cruiser friends have “lived”. Ha! We had plenty of diesel in the tank. The engine’s fuel filter was replaced at the beginning of this season, and we don’t have a spare since we have a redundant pre-fuel-filter system. Jim replaced the pre-fuel filters in spite of them appearing to be clean, managing to splash diesel all over himself and the boat in the process. Speaking for myself (as I usually do), a strong smell of diesel does not go well with sea-sickness.

The engine started up and ran again, but for only about 20 minutes. Sigh. Back in the engine room for Jim. He did a few more things to the thingies, blah, blah (abbreviated version of what really went on due to a. my lack of mechanical expertise and b. my tendency to be a bit long-winded, and c. the possible disinterest in the science of diesel mechanics in my audience). This time the engine ran long enough for us to sigh a breath of relief…until about an hour and a half later when it sputtered to a stop again. Double sigh.

Two things became clear to us at that time. First, we were going to be limited to using our boat as a sailboat and be at the mercy of the wind for, at minimum, the next two days (a certainty). And second, if we used the manual pump to bleed fuel into the fuel injector and fuel filter, we could use the engine for at least an hour at a time before it dies (a hope). We bled the fuel to have the engine prepared for use in an emergency and sailed along towards our destination. There were times we made pretty good progress at 4 or even 5 knots, but for most of the time we slogged along anywhere from 1 to 3 knots. We put our settee cushions on the floor and wedged ourselves in for a long, slow, uncomfortable journey. Fortunately, the seas did flatten out after about 24 hours making it a bit more comfortable.

Now we had a decision to make. Knowing (hoping) that we had one more run of the engine, do we continue all the way to Guaymas, or do we stop in Topolobampo? If we continued on at this slower pace the weather forecast showed that, by our calculations, we could run into some winds in excess of 20 knots. Now that we are back in the Sea of Cortez, these kinds of winds typically, in our experience, mean terribly uncomfortable seas. If we stopped at Topolobampo we could go into the marina and take a bus to a bigger city to buy a replacement fuel pump (if that is the issue). But, the shipping channel is a long one, so we would need favorable conditions to sail most of the way through the channel, starting the engine as we approached the marina to get into the dock. As we got closer and closer to Topolobampo the seas were relatively flat making for a comfortable sail in spite of the light winds and slow pace. It seemed unimaginable that within 24 hours the winds and seas could boil up into a hot mess. We were so tempted to keep going. If only we could be assured that the conditions would remain as is. In the end, we took the conservative approach and used the current favorable conditions to sail down the ship channel. Besides exhaustion and desperation for a good night’s sleep, I don’t know why we decided to stop at the anchorage half way down the channel?? But it felt good to do something that sailors did for hundreds of years that we had never done before—we set the anchor under sail without the use of our engine. We realized that the light winds in a favorable direction coupled with a wide open anchorage with no other boats around was ideal (easy?), but in spite of that we felt very proud and accomplished!

Unfortunately, an uninterrupted night of sleep was still not in the cards for us. At about one in the morning (why always in the middle of the night?!), Jim wakes me up out of a sound sleep so we can deal with yet another situation. The currents can get really strong in a shipping channel (and apparently also in this anchorage off to the side of the shipping channel). Jim awoke to some strange sounds of water rushing by the boat. When he went out on deck to check, the boat was sideways to the current and backward to the wind and the sound he heard was the water rushing by and slapping on the boat. When he checked the anchor line it was slack! His first thought was that somehow the anchor line had broken and we were going to be pushed ashore by the strong current. He felt some relief when he realized we were still attached to our anchor and not being pushed aground, but was not sure exactly what the problem was. The anchor rode appeared to be hooked onto something under the bottom of the boat. He woke me up when he realized he was going to have to get into the water and dive down to figure out what was going on.

So here’s what we think happened. Since we anchored without using the engine to back down on the anchor to set it, and unsure of how soon and how much high winds were coming, we anchored with lots of extra scope out. In the evening when the winds died out the boat was free to float about on top of our anchor line. When the current came in we think that the current was strong that it picked the anchor rode up off the bottom where it streamed along in the current until it got hooked between the hull and the rudder. There is a metal bar that is attached to the hull covering the space between the hull and rudder specifically there so the boat will slide over fishing lines and nets in the water without them getting stuck on the rudder. Of course that is if you are moving forward over said rope, line or net. In a situation where the rope is behind the boat (and raised off the bottom by a strong current), when the wind starts pushing the boat back off the anchor, it worked like a hook trapping the rope between the hull and the rudder. Jim was able to free the line and we were able to sleep the rest of the night without further issues.

Late the next afternoon we decided to try to get through the shipping channel to the marina while the winds and current were in our favor. We are assuming (hoping) that our engine would run for about 1½ hours and that it would be long enough to get us safely tied to a dock. We also know it is going to be a stretch as it is a long channel. We prepare for worst case scenario and had our anchor ready to drop in the event the engine failed before we reached our destination. If it failed while we are in the main shipping channel we hoped to drift to the side until the water was shallow enough to drop the anchor, and if it failed after we turned off the main channel (which as our regular readers will remember is relatively narrow and shallow, and that we have gotten stuck on the bottom there twice before), we will just drop the anchor where we are (or just drag our feet in the water to stop us, ha ha). If we had to drop anchor, we figured that Jim could prime the fuel pump again with hopes that the engine would start again and run long enough to complete the trip to the docks. We were as prepared as we could be.

Jim hauled up the anchor. Right before he got the anchor off the bottom I started the engine. (So far, so good) We were fighting the winds, current, and wind waves all the way from the anchorage until we were able to make our turn into the channel. We were trying not to push up the rpm’s on the engine thinking that it would extend how long it might run, but in the end had to rev it up just so it didn’t take a full hour to make it to the channel. (Just getting to the shipping channel was longer and harder than we anticipated) Once we made our turn, we lowered our rpm’s, lifted our stay-sail (a small sail that is easy to raise and lower), and now with the advantage of the wind and current made excellent progress down the channel at 6 to 7 knots—2 to 2 ½ knots of that speed was just the wind and current pushing us in. (Now we’re cooking) We took down our staysail once we turned off the main channel because the wind was blocked by the land and had mostly died out. As we make our final turn past the last channel marker buoys we get a visual on the docks. (We are almost there now baby!) We see an empty slot to head towards. I take the helm as Jim prepares the lines and bumper.

“Jim! Oh no, not now baby, not now!”

Yep we were right there—I mean literally within 100 feet of being safely tied to a dock, when the engine sputters to a stop. Jim assured me that we would be fine as long as we still had some forward momentum. He shouted steering instructions to me from the bow as he prepared to jump onto the dock to pull us in and stop the boat as soon as we were close enough. It was a very tense, nail-biting experience for me—that is if my nails hadn’t been digging into the wood of the tiller with a grip of death as I tried to maneuver our 11 ton, big bellied, full keeled boat up close to the dock (but not too close!). I should mention that with the loss of speed on our boat comes a loss of steering and maneuverability.

As is often the case in marinas, if someone sees a boat coming in they come over to help secure the boat. Fortunately, there were a couple of guys who saw us coming in and were walking over to help. Jim yelled over to them that we didn’t have an engine so they would be prepared to grab a cleat with the dock line for some mechanical advantage to “muscle” her into place. And as it turned out, Jim was able to throw the lines to the guys on shore and didn’t even have to jump off the boat until we were tied to the dock. We did it! Without an engine and without any damage to the docks or our boat, we did it!

The next step is to figure out what is going on with our engine. Jim called a technical support guy at Beta Marine/Kubota who says that the fuel pumps on these engines just don’t fail. Furthermore, since the engine will run fine for over an hour, he didn’t think there was a problem with the engine at all. He seemed to be pointing us towards a problem with the fuel (this doesn’t make sense to me since the engine will run fine for a time each time we prime it with more fuel—but what do I know, I’m just a girl), the fuel pre-filters or an air leak. So, we still have some work to do to try to isolate the problem. If anyone reading this has any ideas for us please shoot us a note. Remember, it is a marinized Kubota diesel engine (very common tractor engine), so you don’t need to be a sailor or a diesel mechanic to have some ideas (shout out to all our farmer friends out there).

Thanks again for following us on our adventures. Hopefully our next update will be from our home port in Guaymas—less than 200 miles to by sea to go. And if all goes well 🤞 there will be nothing to tell of the journey, and we can get to those land-lubber adventures we had in Mazatlán…