Sailing Vessel Karma

This blog is a stressful one to write. I imagine it is stress inducing to read. It gets solved I promise. !

We were beginning to understand the schedule that the Johnstone Strait required. That is, catch the ebbing tide early morning, instead of the afternoon ebb, to avoid the strong westerly winds that build. We tucked into Harvey Bay for the night then headed north to stage for a strong current channel. As the time approached, we checked the engine oil per usual…and found it ridiculously high. The incident is recalled here: link to engine post. Many details there but less here. It was a gear driven water pump failure and my sister was getting married, soon, and in Montana!

The salty engine needed to be flushed before we abandoned it for 2 weeks to prevent damaging corrosion. And our timeline was absolutely squished screwy because we had a car, ferry, and a plane depending on us to have Karma tied to a dock far away by Sunday night. It was Friday night when we diagnosed the issue and realized we can’t fix a part that needs replacing***. We only had 3 liters of extra oil and our engine takes about 5. We milked the tiny ounce of service we could get to look for solutions. I am confident this is a comprehensive list because our brains were easy bake oven racked to compile it.

1. Hire a Tow: An easy out but easily ruled out
   
   Cost? $2 – 3,000. Stress to the boat? Who knows. Then there was the issue of where to tow us – McNeill was 35 nmiles away, Kelsey Bay 20, and the closest marina, Lagoon Cove about 4. This option was eternally enticing as we knocked other possibilities out but it was a worse case scenario.
   
2. Call the trusty Coast Guard for a Marine Assistance Request
   
   We chatted with the Canadian CG on channel 83 to see what options we did have via CG and the radio. They took our info and put a Marine Assistance Request every half hour on ch 16 to ask for a tow to Port McNeill. Port McNeill was where the rental car was locked in and the public transpo is horrible so getting back to McNeill from eg Kelsey Bay would have been tricky. This was our back burner overly optimistic plan.
   
3. Run the engine (!!)
   
   We hypothesized that a fresh impeller might give us a slightly better seal than currently. Pair that with a half arsed oil change – 3 liters of saltwater/oil out and 3 liters of oil in – and we could run the engine to nearby Lagoon Cove. No services but they did have space and hosted one of the infamous Broughton Happy Hours, with prawns nonetheless. If things go alright? Great. They might have oil to flush the engine. If not? We are stranded wherever the engine blows up due to bad lubrication and have to hire a tow AND get a different engine! Still, this plan was extremely and sadly tempting at times.
   
4. Insurance deviance
   
   Functionally we had no insurance as they did not know we moved the boat from the Anacortes yard, and they don’t cover Canada. A company called C-tow has temporary and extremely affordable, $200/year, plans for BC cruisers. Four things though. 1) You cannot be towed for a ~pre-existing condition~. 2) It only kicks in after 48 long hours from sign up. Insurance companies am I right? 3) They would tow only to the closest Port of Repair but they do not have a readily accessible list of where those places are. 4) Making numerous, frantic, choppy “hypothetical situation” calls after midnight might not look good. Still, we figured we could fudge the 1st condition. It was only the 7th call at 1am on Saturday that we found out the 2nd condition. If we signed up right then, the earliest we could get a tow was 1am Monday. Should have signed up hours ago on the first call. Another company estimated 8 hours to get to McNeill. Hellish is the word I’ll choose to describe the kind of time we would have implementing this plan which requires enough time to dock the boat, catch the bus, and get to the rental car in McNeill by 10am. Let alone any moral or legal guilt…
   
5. Ditch Karma and get our bodies to Montana
   
   The boat is the ball and chain in this story so if we leave Karma we would be fine. Dink, swim, hitchhike on a boat, get a float plane ($$$), crash through the woods to Lagoon Cove and bam source a ride from there. The issue, annoying enough, was leaving Karma alone full of salt water for over 2 weeks in a bay well off the beaten track in who knows what weather conditions. We’ve never left the boat longer than 1 night alone on anchor so this felt like very bad practice.
   
6. Speaking of people, ask Lagoon Cove hosts for a tow!
   
   We beat around the bush to ask this question and they beat around the bush to say no. They offered their condolences, numbers to call, and ideas for bodily transport. They were kind then and beyond kind to us in the near future.
   
7. Sail our beloved sailboat
   
   Had we publicly claimed to be sailors? The inside passage is full of fast flowing water through narrow channels. Maybe we could deploy the dink and use the 1 gallon of dinghy fuel to nudge Karma in the right direction if things get hectic in the currents. The 1 gallon. Getting back to the highway, the Johnstone Strait, would be 8+ nmiles such an area. Then we get to the Strait and head West. Little to no wind in the morning on the ebb tide. Then 1-2 knots pushing us east on the flood tide. Then choppy waves and probably high winds on the nose on the ebb. Then headwinds and opposing currents at night on the flood. Then nighttime. In a draught restricted channel frequented by massive cruise ships and massive tugs pulling logs or barges. Maybe we go for narrow back channels instead of the Strait, try to time the currents well. Drop anchor under sail if we can’t. Never done that before. After either of those, to try to get into the planned affordable marina in Alert Bay! They assured us space is available but we, like most, would be rafted to other boats. Maybe that docking would be in daylight. We are sailors after all so we could just sail in circles until daylight. Maybe this tackful sail would go overnight, never done that before! The many “ifs” had us so so so stressed with this plan.
   
8. Tow Karma with our trusty dink
   
   If only we had more than 1 gallon of fuel. We had tried it before ourselves. 35 nmiles trek. Sail most of the way ideally. We have a 6 hp 2 stroke Yamaha. With the inboard diesel fully throttled just days prior, we barely squeaked into Kelsey Bay’s harbor against the afternoon Johnstone chop and winds. We could dink 4 nmiles for fuel in Lagoon Cove but would use a decent amount of fuel on that stretch back.
   
9. The ~cool aunt~ solution
   
   This came in the wee hours of the Saturday morn, immediately after finding out the 48 hour insurance rule. Hey, what if one of us rowed the dinghy to tow Karma? The food we had on board was instantly seen as an infinite fuel source. We can navigate the narrow channels, sail when we can, and row Karma to the slip! Not convinced, Liam wanted to test it out. I tried to swing Karma against the small 1 knot current. No control and I was exhausted. We crashed hard until morning.
   
10. The Hail Mary
    
    Er, The Harmony Bay. This is the one where we flag down unexpecting boats and guilt them into helping us. We saw two fishing boats the day prior. Around 7am we called the Coast Guard to put in the Marine Assistance Request. Now to hail passing boats. The first didn’t respond and ignored our waves. The second boat looked like a cruising boat. We hailed them blindly on the radio, not seeing their boat name, and Liam told them the situation. They said oh sorry that can’t be us. Welp. They headed into the narrow Chatham Channel as we stood on deck sadly watching them go by. Independently they figured there must have been a miscommunication and retreated. Liam mistakenly told them the name of a Bay in Desolation Sound many miles away instead of Hadley Bay. Within two minutes of coming over, the Nordic Tug named Harmony Bay had fenders and lines staged for a hip tie. 9:10am we were underway. “Oh we used to sail. Of course we will tow you no problem. We’ve been towed myriad times.” :”’)

Two gallons of fuel and two hours later, we were docked. Harmony Bay wouldn’t even let us pay for their fuel top up. We got to work and bought 13 liters of oil from the small store. Drained 4l, add 3.5, wait, add 3, drain 4, add 3, drain 4 or 5, add the same.

Folks on the friendly dock had all, at different times, heard our story, and most offered advice or help. “Fat chance but does this spare for my 70HP pump fit?” It was cool to look at but no. Another contender was someone’s water pump for a Westerbeke 20HP generator. Seriously close. It was a 4 bolt mount instead of our 3; maybe we can tap into the block? The shaft might not have matched, who knows. We were more than satisfied with the oil flush and the $25/day moorage offered for the “honeymoon” dock by Kelly and Dan, the very kind Lagoon Cove owners.

Karma was set. It was Saturday afternoon and we felt like we had a world of time to get to Port McNeill by Monday morning for the rental car. We enjoyed the Happy Hour with some cold IPAs from Harmony Bay, prawns from Dan and Kelly, and notably a pumpkin cake. Liam made sour dough balls for the pot luck. We had a relaxing night sharing boating stories.

Liam and I watched sunset at the end of the dock. A man called Mike brought over freshly caught crab, asked if we wanted some. He gave us two and taught us how. Liam succeeded in the method…eventually. Mike worked on prawning boats as a regulator, checking fishing practices and doing inventory of the prawns size and sex to inform the end of the season. Usually they last 35-45 days. Prawns change sex throughout their lives so there are multiple sex classifications. When there are more females in the populations caught, they end the season sooner than later. They were nearing day 30. We would see and catch up with Mike post season as he was headed out to go surf just when we returned to Lagoon Cove.

We were so happy that night to have Karma tied to a dock with helpful folks around! The trek to Montana was to begin tomorrow and that mess is detailed in ~part two~.

***We probably would have tried this if we had thought of it then: If you cannot get a replacement pump, simply re plumb your water pump lines through a scavenged pump.
We would probably use one of our bilge pumps; we even have an impeller driven pump which would do nicely. The 2QM engine we had during this issue, had a gear driven water pump which would make this trickier than a belt driven one since the oil in the engine can potentially escape the unused pump housing. Either through the weeping hole or the water input and output. I think it would be easy enough to get creative with sealing the oil in if that actually became an issue. If you have a belt driven water pump that malfunctions, even easier. So long as the wheel isn’t seized. If it was you could just change or ditch the belt but still use the neat pump swap.