Alaska Day 1 Adventure – misadventure
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Submitted Monday evening, May 24
We---Alex and his son Kai, and Granddad David---got a wonderful send off just past the crack of noon on Sunday from our slip in Bellingham. It was variably overcast, not unusual, with very roughly 20 to 40% of full sun solar input. Wayward Sun is well provisioned with food and water and so is a little heavier and lower in the water than usual. We were traveling ~ 5 knots using about 1300 W with our 4000 W Torqeedo motor.
About 2 hours out Alex spotted whale watching boats and we took a brief detour to see whale spouts, a few flukes and black backs, we’re not sure, maybe humpbacks.
About an hour later the sun came out briefly providing 1400 Watts to our, at the time, 1400 Watt throttle. We were running 5 knots on sunshine alone until the hole in the overcast closed up.
About half an hour later a rumble developed that was proportional to the throttle setting. The rumble got worse quickly and caused a tiller shaking that fed back somewhat violently into the steering wheel. Both adults on board had driven over 2000 miles in solar electric Solar Sal Boats powered by Torqeedo electric motors. You’d think we knew something. However, we were stymied, but our batteries still registered full! We started drifting near Eagle Cliffs on Cypress Island. Alex, wearing goggles and nothing else, jumped overboard into the frigid water and could find nothing wrong. He watched as David put 1000 W to the motor but nothing good seemed to happen and the boat didn’t move.
We were drifting toward the shipping channels so we threw the anchor over in 167 feet of water, called for a tow and puzzled over our plight. Captain Richard with Tow Boat US showed up quickly and towed us back to Bellingham. Alex emailed Torqeedo and they started puzzling over our problem too.
Day 2 Dockside
One possible explanation was a broken internal spline in the propeller. Torqeedo technicians agreed and Alex, in a new ¾ wet suit went overboard again making a lot of free dives to remove the old propeller and replace it with one of the two spares we carried. The old prop looked fine, the new prop worked well and the motor was mysteriously working again but the shaking was still there.
Together we noticed that the bushing in the lower tiller gudgeon was part way out and the gudgeon was bent, maybe 25 degrees? Last year, when the boat was on a trailer, the rudder scraped on the road at a dip in the driveway. Ah-ha. Alex got a piece of wood and a hammer and pounded the bushing part way back into the gudgeon. Some improvement! Alex called Sam Devlin, Wayward Sun’s master builder, who found the part number for the gudgeon and found one, not near Bellingham but in Seattle. Sam suggested we not start a 1000 mile journey with a bent gudgeon and a loose bushing. So Alex drove to Seattle where a heroic friend got the part before Fisheries Supply closed.
Meanwhile Daniel at Torqeedo worked out a way to overnight us a new Cruise 4.0 pod motor here to Bellingham, listing tools and procedures we’d need to make the replacement. Phew, great folks to work with at Torqeedo! We are grateful.
Alex couldn’t find a place to haul out the boat so he arranged to rent a truck and get the trailer so we could pull it out at a ramp. Then an opening for a haul out showed up so we scrubbed the truck rental. Our best guess is a strange interaction between the motor and the loose rudder caused our problems, but we don’t really know. Our “plan” is to fix it all in the morning before a reprise of Day 1 on Day 3. We’ll see.
End of Day Two. Back in Bellingham awaiting motor repairs