Apr 24 2010
Cheated Death Again
Safely returned from another Hawaii trip. 16.5 days for the Hunter 456 to cross from San Diego, CA to Ko-Olino, Oahu, HI. A strange weather year. The trades never really filled in for us, dispite sailing well south. The only real trouble we had was when the brand new genset hydro-locked due to seawater entering the exhaust. The recent installation was supposed to have addressed this problem, but failed. I drained the water from the Verna-lift and pulled the glow plugs to clear the cylinders. Once we got the generator running, we noticed the distinct smell of burning electical insulation. We burned through one of the feed wires from the genset to the distribution panel, which opened the circuit and ended the fire. Without the generator, we had to run the main engine for 4-5 hours a day to keep up with the electrical draw from refrigeration and auto-pilot usage. No worries, we had plenty of fuel. We ate well and were sheltered by a fully enclosed center cockpit. We spent two days washing and polishing the boat before leaving it and flying home. My little row boat was waiting patiently at the dock when the taxi dropped me off and I rowed home to Tawodi out on her mooring.