9/17/26: It never rains, it only pours

We left our anchorage at 5 am this morning as our next stop was 30 hours away and we wanted to reach it stop before dark. Tentatively we started the motor and it seemed to be behaving, so we got underway. However, after a couple hours, the cabin suddenly filled with steam and the smell of coolant. In our checking of all the seawater hoses last night, a hose got repositioned to where it was sitting up against a coolant line, eventually causing the coolant line to rip in half. We had extra coolant hose, so it wasn't a difficult fix, but it was the fourth time in 2 days we had the engine uncovered, which needless to say is a terrible ratio. We put the engine back together again and sailed on for another couple hours, and I went and took a nap, only to wake up to the sound of the engine being shut off and a knock on my bunk. This is always a bad sign. The engine was still losing its saltwater and overheating. Having gone through the engine last night and found no obvious issues, this was really starting to become a thorn in the side.

We still suspected that the engine through-hull fitting could be blocked, so we connected the engine to the head through-hull, but the problem persisted. Out of desperation I decided to replace the impeller that looked fine when just taking off the face plate. The impeller was fine, but after removing it, I realized that the plate that compressed the impeller to generate the pressure was worn away. It was actully so worn that the bolt that held it on was sticking through and damaging the impeller. This was a eureka moment; we had finally found an issue. For an immediate fix, we shimmed the plate to get the motor back up, and it worked! It was only temporary though, as we scoured the boat for a proper replacement. Eventually we found a used one, and I took the engine apart one more time to install it. Happily, the engine ran cool after this, leaving us with a total of 6 engine uncoverings within 2 days, which is bordering on catastrophic. Happily though, the rest of the day was good sailing, and we sailed through the night.

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