I was first contacted by the new owner of a brokerage on Oregon to bring this boat down to Portland to be listed there. When I asked for recent survey I was given something from 2019. Truth is a lot can happen to a boat in two years.. In lieu of a recent survey I said I would go inspect the boat prior to agreeing to deliver it.

When I got to the boat for this inspection its was up a tiny shallow river called The Samish. The brown muddy water that floated this buff horse was barely as wide as the boat in question was long and nestled in with other apparently mothballed yachts.

“The bow thruster doesn’t work” the former owner said. Immediately i saw that it wasn’t the lack of bowthrust-ability that would be the problem but the fact that the water it was floating on was not marked and beyond any lateral navigational aids. Random pilings stuck up out of the Samish river’s slow moving muddy water, apparently complete with the universal signs for shallow or (relatively) deepwater ie spray painted thumbs up or thumbs down signs. This was not good news and my heart sank at the thought of having to tell the guy I couldn’t move the boat from where it was.

Memories of muddy banks like these from my youth on the Multnomah channel bubbled up in my nostalgic minds eye and made me smile. You can take the River Rat out of the river but you cant take the river out of the Rat.

“How do you get out of here,” I asked

“I haven’t taken the boat out recently,” said the prior owner. “it needs to be a 7-foot tide and you are fine”

After saying this he admitted he gave himself a 90% chance of getting it out of there and as it wasn’t his boat anymore he didn’t want to take the risk.

“How long have you lived here? “ I asked

“My whole life”..he responded “I learned how to sail out there” pointing as he did to the muddy delta

Going on he shared a few stories of drunkenly sailing in and out after dark running aground many times laughing about it.

I had seen what I needed to..or so I thought. I told the owner I wouldn’t move the boat from where it was but if he got it to Anacortes I could do it. Then I asked how the Ocean Alexander was coming along and that maybe could use the coming window to move it from Gig Harbor to Portland. (see previous log entry)

Two weeks later and he sold the boat and the new owner contacts me saying that the running light and the fogged windows had been addressed and the boat was ready to go in Anacortes. I saw a window coming up and called a recent student who hired me the weekend before to teach her some boat handling skills she would need as a yacht steward and said I had a learning opportunity and an adventure to share.

I arrived at the boat the afternoon before our departure date to go over some things and found that the fluids were low everywhere. The V drives transmissions and oil needed to be topped or filled and I had 45 minutes before the stores closed before the weekend. First I went to West Marine and they didn’t have the oil so I went to North Harbor Marine and big pro service yard in A town and they set me up.

enough wingnuts to give a surveyor a conniption

After topping the fluids that night I thought I would test the electronics and found that the batteries were dead. Upon closer inspection I found that a switch with a sticker on it that said “turn off when engine running” was off. This I surmised was the battery charger breaker switch. I flipped it and went to the Brown Lantern to get some long overdue dinner and the last beer for a bit. The next morning the engine batteries were still dead. The bank that had charged was the “inverter bank” this is what you would call a house bank. What was labeled house bank was nested with the starting batteries was what was dead. These batteries were AGM gel batteries and hooked up the “smart” charger. Well, this charger like many other modern chargers isn’t smart enough to charge a fully discharged battery. It needs to see some voltage before it will turn on so using some automotive jumper cables I jumped from the “inverter” bank that was now fully charged and lead-acid type and the smart charger lit up and started charging at 30 amps.

It’s 9 am and we are supposed to be underway to make it to Neah Bay safely before dark. It’s looking like it’s going to be noon before we can get going.

Underway

Two 3208 caterpillar engines pumping out 375 seahorses of trustpower, stinky smoke, and NOISE. At 2400 RPM it must have been 80 decibels and unless that is 80 decibels of Motorhead I’m spending my irreplaceable hearing on I’m wearing ear protection. (and cranking some Motorhead at the same time) my Bose noise-canceling headphones have been a game-changer. I have a pair of shooters noise-canceling earmuffs that I have used with earbuds which are good but the Bose are sweet and will connect to your phone via bluetooth so you can call your shipmate who is on the bow and share information like distances, traffic, encouragement, and instructions.

Noon thirty and we were underway and making 15 knots. We had a heavy dinghy on the back which I knew would slow us down and on top of that, the bottom still had river slime on it so we weren’t going to be hitting the 20 knots these monsters were supposed to be able to make.

The forecast and our late departure meant that we were going to hit some turbulence in the afternoon. I was thinking that it may be a good thing to see what the boat could do before bombing the Washington Coast. If we were going to stir up some tank goo into our filters it would be better in the straight with more options to bail. It was right when we hit some chop and I was regaling my crew and my captive audience about the Swiftsure Regatta and my experiences in the bay off our beam that the port engine died.

I passed the helm over to my shipmate and dived into the engine room telling her to try and keep the bow into the waves. My first thought was that we had clogged a filter and I switched the valve on the parallel Racor filter. After a little time cranking it was apparent that it was going to take some more work to get it going and as it was the roughest bit of water we had been in yet it would be better to try and do any work in the relative shelter of Clallam Bay conveniently off or just forward of our beam and the subject of my recent yarn. I admit that the main thoughts in my mind at this time were what are we going to do if the port engine clogs a filter now and how many cranking amps do we have in these, so recently abused, batteries and can I jump them or should I switch them with the other bank and also how much of a wide berth I was gong to give the rocky point and our leeshore before I cut into the bay. Clamam Bay is small sportfishing town where many wife free weekend warriors flock to get a chance to catch a fish large enough to take a picture with. This is about all that is going on in the little “town” of Sekiu. The last time I went into the dock it was to get fuel in a 32-foot trimaran and even that ultralight boat had multiple people telling us we couldn’t tie up there. I knew it was going to be a problem but I didn’t want to risk anchoring as the windless was battery-powered and may draw the batteries down more. It’s easier to ask forgiveness than permission so I told my shipmate that I was going to be in the engine room and to be as sweet and charming as possible to whoever walked out to kick us off and to buy as much time as she could.

First I opened the top of the Rocor we had been running on before the engine died and I switched it to see how bad the fuel was. It was bad and more important it was half empty. Assuming the worse that it had sucked air through a seal after it clogged and introduced air into the system. After a little more cranking on the new filter, I decided to open it up and although nice and clean it was also half full. As many readers will know: air is bad in a diesel engine’s fuel line. It has to be removed by bleeding the line by opening an injector line and cranking the engine.

That’s when it hit me. Was the Port tank fuel gauge really broken? Did the owner really fill it up before we got to the boat as he said? Did that previous owner really dip the tank as he said? A moment later I was squeezing over the still quite warm Port engine to tap on the tank with a wrench. Empty.

At this point, it was looking like we needed to squeeze into the tiny fuel dock that was (thanks be to Neptune) still open and to do it on one engine. Now like anything there are tradeoffs in boat design. Boats with two engines are much more maneuverable than boats with only single engines but not all twin screws are created equal. The further that “wheels” props are apart the easier it is to maneuver in tight spaces that those with props closer to the centerline but they don’t track well when only one engine is available.

This was the case. On par with the maneuvering approach, I had to master when working as a Vessel Assist captain I turned the boat around and around as I was now not an “anbiturner” but unlike Zoolander I could only turn to Port. The trick to going straight with a boat like this is to get enough speed that both the rudders are working. Combined with the surge in the area and the tiny landing dock and the random piling to be woven through I was not happy about the situation the owner’s poor prep had put us in.

Now we see why the tank was empty. The fuel is not going into the tank at the speed it should and after an hour we had 37 gallons and enough to make it to Neah Bay. The vent is clogged no doubt and will require more time and boat yoga than we have daylight for dodging trees on the way to Neah Bay.

Another unfortunate aspect of this situation is that the delay and pit stop has confounded our ability to calculate the fuel economy (or lack thereof) I wanted to know before hopping to Astoria down the Washington Coast.

high tailing in to Neah before it gets to dark to see the trees floating by

The CAT 3208 proved to be a popular diesel engine for trucks through the early 1990s and boats through the late 1990s. Production ended by 1999 mostly due to the engine’s inability to meet global emissions standards established by clean air regulation at the time. The use of the engine was widespread and its performance was reliable. As a result, many vehicles equipped with the CAT 3208 remain in service long after production of the diesel engine ceased.

I can attest that at 2400 rpms two of these under your feet sounds like a diesel power jet airplane and reframes that brochure image in your mind with the bikinis and all as an experience far from relaxation. BUT I am a bit of a sailor snob so theres that. Thunder in paradise it will be.

Caterpillar also offered a marine version of the CAT 3208 diesel engine for yachts, leisure boats, and commercial trawlers. Larger vessels would be powered with twin-turbocharged diesel engines. The marine diesel engine version was modified with bigger heat exchangers, exhaust manifolds, turbochargers and seawater pumps to cool the engine oil. However, the engines were known as gas guzzlers, and consequently, they did not meet the criteria of internal combustion exhaust emissions regulation. Production of the marine CAT 3208 diesel engine ended in 1999 and outlasted production of the diesel engine version for heavy-duty trucks.

Between 15 and 17 knots we went Kate and me with our noise-canceling headphones

My co pilot Kate. Soon to be Captain Kate to you

We came into Neah Bay just as we were losing visibility and it was pitch black by the time we were approaching the dock. Not something I wanted to be doing. Even a harbor as familiar as Neah Bay is to me, risk increases exponentially once you lose visibility. There are two sides to the page. One side is risk or con (broken) and the other side is assets or pros. Things that may seem totally unrelated but the fact that they are on the con side of the page can have a huge effect on each other listed item of concern. It is a captain’s job to assess and reassess these risks constantly. We were going to have to have a serious conversation with the owner in the morning. We found. a spot with power to tie up which was key to a hot dinner as the generator wasn’t working and the inverter bank was not functioning right after finding a short where an outlet was missing on the aft deck.

Unfortunately one of my favorite breakfast places. The Warm House” had not survived the pandemic but a small homely galley was kicking out breakfast burritos and coffee in the Harbormasters office. We paid our night moorage and back at the boat I crawled in a pooka where the fuel vent hose lived and cut the hose off the barbed fitting to clear it out with a piece of wire I stripped from the spares box. After it was cleared we moved to the fuel dock and top off for the trip south. After so much delay fighting the poorly prepared boat, our weather window closed and did not allow us to get the boat further south than Westport.

Some boats are more ready to go than others.