s/v Jedi

Update fom Jamaica

Ahoy!

As we’ve been in the final stages of the work we want to do aboard Jedi here in Jamaica, we saw the weather forecasts turn pretty bad. The Colombian Basin is now predicted to reach gale status with 14’ (4.20m) seas and 35 knot winds. Very glad we don’t have to go through there again but it also means we’re stuck here for a while as we have about 12 hours exposure to these seas and winds before we reach some protection from Haiti and the first part to the east point of Jamaica is straight into it. So we’ve stopped rushing and are taking it easy now.

After arriving here we found two more issues to go on the project list. First was the overheating diesel generator. We decided to replace the thermostat and check the heat exchanger as well as the injection elbow for scaling, soot and debris. Consulting the workshop manual, we learned that in order to get to the thermostat, we had to remove the coolant expansion tank and that this tank is integrated with the diesel exhaust manifold :-o We never took it that far apart! The good thing is that the heat exchanger and injection elbow are both also bolted to that, so after confirming we have exhaust manifold gaskets aboard, we went ahead and took it off. This went surprisingly smooth and even the gasket was in such good condition that we decided to leave it in place and use again. The raw water side of the heat exchanger was clean but there was some mud-like residue on the coolant side. The exhaust elbow had some soot so we went ahead and cleaned everything and put it back together with a new thermostat. Now we found that our electric raw water pump (a March LC3) had lost prime again. This pump is not self-priming and every time the cooling system is worked on, it needs to be primed again but we also found that it had lost prime after the rough passage. Not liking that, we decided to switch back to the standard impeller pump. After a new impeller was installed and some hoses re-routed, we started, saw it prime and then the impeller pump started to spray some water around. It’s water seal had failed and I remembered that this had been the trigger for installing the electric pump. We may be crazy but we do carry two (!) spare water pumps so we replaced it with one I knew to be good and all was back up and running. We added more and more load while checking the temperature and while it all seems perfect now, we’re not stressing it while far away from service.

Of-course it wasn’t gonna be that easy. Up until this point we had been rationing our water to only use it for the galley and personal hygiene. We can make water using the inverter with the engine spinning our big alternators but that is an emergency mode that I didn’t want to visit yet. Now that the generator was in service again, we could activate the watermaker in normal operation again, so we did. We sat in the cockpit with big smiles listening to the genset powering the battery charger and watermaker, as well as the watermaker producing 21 gallons of clean water per hour from the seawater when we heard a distinct change in sound. We open the lazarette and see water spraying around, coming from the high pressure hose of the watermaker. Yes, this hose had been installed wrong back in 2003 and we discovered that about 6 years ago. This hose vibrates and it had chafed against something, damaging the outer rubber covering, but not the first steel braided layer so all should be fine on the inside. During the preparations for this passage we looked at this and decided to wait with replacing until we arrive in Florida where this is readily available. It had been working fine for years. But not anymore obviously;-) We already had some bad luck with it as one of the two new membranes was bad when we received it, so we have to run it at half capacity and now the hose burst.

We had a leftover small piece of hose with connector and as these are field-attachable stainless steel connectors, I tried to remove one. I failed so I guess they are not reusable even though I think they are supposed to. Next option was cutting the bad pieceout and mending the hose. We found a brass 3/8” diameter coupler with hose barbs and four small (not too hefty looking) stainless steel hose clamps, so we put it all together and wondered if it would take the 800psi working pressure. Until now it did and we managed to do all the laundry, cleaning, showering etc. while bringing water supply back up to more than 200 gallons.

The last project concerns the mizzen sail. Like for the main, we’re re-sewing all the webbing attachments to the mast track cars and adjusting (shortening) the full battens. After that we’ll wait for a good weather window for our last sail from the Caribbean to the Bahamas.

Jamaica, Port Morant, at anchor

Ye mon, this is Jedi reporting from Jamaica :-)

Today we have been busy with government officials and still not completed the clearance process. At around 10am, the coastguard patrol boat came alongside and we received a pretty quarantine officer from the health department. After she established that there were no rats aboard, no signs of the plague, and got our assurances that none of the deceased on this trip died from diseases, we were cleared and allowed to take the yellow quarantine flag down.

Now that we were considered safe to handle, the JDF Coastguard boarded us for inspection. They were very friendly and we discussed all safety equipment aboard like life vests, radios, fire extinguishers, guns, flares, life raft etc. everything was found to be in order.

At around 1pm the coastguard called us on the VHF radio to come over as a Jamaica Customs officer had arrived. After all the paperwork was done, it was decided that nothing aboard needed to be sealed and we were good to go. This officer was a bit surprised that immigration had not been over yet which was worrisome and when we had waited until 4pm, we went over to ask. Immigration was called and they seemed to not have received the word that their services were required. That explained a lot, but they confirmed to be on site tomorrow at 10am.

Of course, waiting for officials to arrive, one can not do any boat projects so we’ve been relaxing a bit and finding some spare parts we need for repairs. Hopefully our genset will be up & running again tomorrow so we can make water for more laundry and washing the salt of the boat... we’re covered in a crust of salt!