Sailing, that’s what we’re doing! Without touching the wheel! She was driving herself, but she was sluggish. We both knew this boat could perform better but it just wasn’t happening. Then, there was this moment when we were opened up at the lazarette AND the engine compartment and each of us had a different and somewhat horrifying view of the packing gland. We decided there was too much water coming in via the stern tube (where the prop shaft goes from inside to outside the boat). Way too much. This was reminiscent of our near-death along the inhospitable Oregon coast. No, no no no. That’s not going to happen again. We are learning creatures and, guess what, we learned this one. The stern tube slash prop shaft ecosystem has a stuffing box or packing gland, choose your language, that puts flax or its modern equivalent (teflon-inpregnated graphite fiber) into the gap. The packing material is supposed to ride against the prop shaft well lubed so that there are only one or two drips of cooling water per minute that the prop shaft is turning. Ours was dripping even when still and rather more like flowing when underway. James put a wrench to it and it got worse. September 11, 2001, was the date when our packing gland blew out on an offshore trip south of Newport, Oregon. Our bilge pump burned out. Our manual bilge pump tore both diaphrams. We barely kept ahead of the flood by hand-pumping with a tool designed for emptying your dinghy after a rain. There was no calling for help because our radio was abuzz with the chatter of the Coast Guard and the entire commercial fleet from every nearby port as they tried to track and save the boat of 7 people left to[…]
Read more