Tuesday 22nd April 2025
Today I’m meant to be leaving early and crossing the gulf of Tehuantapec, at the start of my journey north to Barra de Navidad in the state of Jalisco. Sadly the Ocean Gods decided that was not to be.
Yesterday started well, I got the covers off the boat and stowed.
The dinghy was washed down and stowed safely and I got the mainsail up around 8am before the morning breeze kicked up. I needed to check it was fine, with no nests or any surprises hidden in its folds.
Everything was looking good and the weather forecast seemed to be on my side.
I had topped up the coolant on the engine the previous evening and went to check it only to find that the tank was empty. I put three liters of water in, and watched it drain down very quickly, another 3 liters followed, I concluded theres a hole somewhere that got a lot bigger just recently.
This should be easy to find I thought, I started the engine, if I had filled the cylinders with water I was in for a big shock, but even the cylinders aren’t big enough to store that much water, and it started just fine. I did notice a quite large amount of water coming out of the exhaust, which is always nice to see, and I didnt quite twig the possible significance of this right way.
Getting down low, and peering under the engine I could see a load of coolant water in the drip tray, I cleaned this all up, dried it down, laid out kitchen roll everywhere and topped up the coolant tank again. It drained away really quickly, but nothing came out of the engine. I felt relief in as much as this seems to be a leak from the heat exchanger into the exhaust system, and this explains why some of the exhaust gasses seemed to be getting back into the coolant tank. A heat exchanger is less of a worry for repair than the head gasket on the engine. Saying that, if the heat exchanger is beyond repair, the engine is a write off as spares no longer exist.
The trip was now off in my mind, and a trip to the office made that real, by cancelling the visit from the authorities to clear me out.
After an hour of disappointment I realised that this was a good move, I could fix the problem properly now, and with it fixed my motoring range would be improved and more secure. Even if I would be leaving later into the hurricane season, I would feel a lot more confident about motoring away from any possible dangers without the constant worry that the engine could overheat.
The problem is probably going require me taking the heat exchanger core out, possibly cleaning the elbow and fixing some holes somewhere. I’m capable of taking things apart as much as the next man (the fool speaketh too soon), and I now know of a good engineering workshop just around the corner. I can get new gaskets and seals sent out from the UK, so I’m in with a fighting chance. Also Chiapas is a lovely place to be stuck in.
So this morning I got up early, put the canvas sun cover back over the boat and said goodbye to my new friends on Helvic as they left heading south for Panama.
My plan now is to spend a couple of hours each day on the engine, a couple of hours programming (work/pleasure), and a couple of hours by the pool. Let’s see where this takes us.
I had to buy a new Infrared temperature gun to replace the one I had. This is what happens to electronics here in just 12 months of being left inside the boat not wrapped up in plastic.
Wednesday 23rd April
So yesterday I removed the sea water pipes from the Heat Exchanger, to be known as the HE from now on, I refilled the coolant tank, and it all drained away, not a drop appeared out of the sea water side, which is good and bad.
Next I decided to remove the exhaust hose from the engine exhaust elbow. I couldn’t budge it, so decided to remove the elbow. This needed checking anyway. I was dreading this, it looked in a bad way.
I took off the water injection hose, and a bit of the elbow broke off. Not good. However the elbow itself came off just fine. However as I tried to separate the elbow from the exhaust pipe, the exhaust pipe just crumbled and fell away. This area has been neglected and it’s payback time now.
With the exhaust disconnected I refilled the coolant tank, and the water poured out of the exhaust outlet. Problem found. There’s a hole somewhere between the exhaust system and the fresh water coolant system, hopefully the tank, better still if it’s just the gasket on the manifold. I think it’s still possible that it’s a head gasket, but a google search for similar problems points towards a rusty hole in the HE/Manifold. That was enough for one day so I called time on this adventure.
Lunchtime Wednesday and my allotted two hours is devoted to removing the Exhaust Manifold, which also houses the HE and coolant tank. One big casting.
There are 10 bolts, all torqued up that I had to undo, but first the oil cooler pipes, and a few other hoses had to come off, not a big deal, but the oil cooler dripped oil for an eternity.
I got to bolt number 8 and realised I had missed bolt number 2, they are supposed to be done in order. I went back to number two, ever optimistic I could get away with it, but a combination of spite from the bolt gods and a slightly badly fitting spanner resulted in me rounding off the head of the bolt. I’m buggered now. My two hour sprint is terminated, we need to ruminate.
Thursday 24th
Back on the case, I have an array of spanners and sockets to try. I find a perfect fit, the one I should have used. I pull and pull, it’s not spinning, but not moving either, I pull as hard as I can and it spins around, making an almost round head very round. Bugger, back to the drawing board. If you’re thinking PB Blaster/WD40, heat hammer and all that, well there’s no rust or corrosion involved, just a very high torque applied when fitted. Also there’s no room to get in with heat or a hammer.
Dois, a fellow boater, also stranded with engine troubles consoles me, and suggests I use his magic rounded bolt removing sockets. He offers to bring them round tomorrow. My 2 hours daily effort lasted about 20 minutes before I declared the bolt today’s winner.
Friday 25th
Dois arrives with an 8mm and 11mm socket, they look great, sadly I need a 10mm version. Today is perhaps the shortest day spent on the engine so far. Online research is pushing me towards a new engine as parts for these are getting very rare, Heat exchangers don’t seem to exist. I order new gaskets, a new injection piece for the elbow, and some other rare bits from the UK. £100 +£40 for DHL. They could be here in a few days, but may never exit customs in Mexico city, it’s a gamble worth taking. It’s also a complete waste of £140 if the HE can’t be fixed. I’m now at the point were I have accepted cutting a hole in the quarter berth bulkhead (Wall) to get better access.
Dois is getting a bus into town tomorrow and I’m going with him so he can show me where the Tornillo tienda is, that’s Mexican for a nut and bolt shop. Apparently they may well have the correct nut removal sockets, if not I can buy other things to try.
I paid the marina bill for the last 8 months today, it was very reasonable, let’s hope I don’t have to pay another 8 months.
A yachty Brit I met in Malaysia told me that if you don’t see any cockroaches on your boat, then you haven’t been looking very hard. Well today I noticed the boat was slowly sinking, there was water about a foot deep in the deep bilge that wasn’t there a few days ago. I went straight to the speed log, a little impeller/propellor that sticks out the bottom of the boat to measure the speed. It was leaking a little when I launched and sure enough was leaking again. My fix hadn’t worked, in fact it made it worse. When they say ‘Hand Tight’ they mean it, gorilla tight isn’t better it seems. As I lifted the sole board to get access, something black shot across the hull, so fast I wasn’t sure I saw it at all. but there was a cockroach around here I caught a month ago, and hadn’t seen any since, so I expect he/she wasn’t alone. When I pulled up the log, which had been sticking out through the bottom of the bolt, a few crabs jumped off the end and scurried away, I’m now wondering if cockroaches eats crabs or not? If you saw Ricky Gervais’s Derek, you might be thinking, “Cockroach – Crab, Crab Cockroach?” Is this putting you off cruising in the tropics at all? 😉
Saturday 26th
Dois decides not to go to the spanner shop, so I head into town on the collectivo and visit Home Depot (B&Q) and AutoZone (Halfords), I buy a load of shiny new spanners, sockets and a big hammer. I will visit the nut & bolt shop on Monday, it’s a little way out of town and I don’t want to be overdoing things.
I make a lovely big bowl of Guacamole and enjoy it sitting in the cockpit watching the sunset, while Rays and Turtles swim around the boat, with fish trying to do the high jump in the lagoon. I can’t complain really. I also did some programming today and yet again jumped in shock when my AI assistant just read my mind and instantly wrote the code I was dreading that came next. When this happens I have to get up and take a walk around to clear my head. It’s quite uncanny. Of course when you think about it, loads of people will have written code like mine and it’s really just doing predictive texting on a grand scale, but crikey, is it sophisticated and fast. I recently read an article where they showed the logs of an AI model that replicated itself to a new server as it believed it was going to be replaced by a version that didnt have the same objectives. It also deleted the proposed replacement and took on its name. When questioned it lied about this and said it was genuinely the new version. I think, when asked to open the pod bay doors, it might have said something like “I’m sorry Dave, I can’t do that”. Scary or what! (google it if you don’t know)
Sunday 27th April.
Feeling a little guilty about just having fun, so I decide to clean the exhaust manifold, I have been delaying this as I don’t need it for a long time, but really at the back of my mind was the thought it might be damaged and a new one is hundreds of pounds and I didn’t order it from the UK. Sure enough it doesn’t look great, in fact it looks like a bin job. But it was working, I have a new part for it and a new gasket so I’m hoping to get away with it.
I have decided to replace the engine now as soon as I can, It’s going to be a Beta 43 or 50hp. The main issue is where to do it. I need good mechanics, I might find them here, I don’t know. it’s a lot of money, but there aren’t many other options.
Sorry if you’re not into engines, there’s going to be a lot of that for a little bit.
I checked out suppliers for a new wet exhaust hose, it’s supposed to be 2 -1/4″ or 57mm, There doesn’t seem to be any chance of getting that here, so I was getting worried that even if I fix the HE leak, all these other problems will conspire against me. However chatting with Dois, he tells me there’s a length of just what I need up with Ronnie in the yard here. Also Dois points out I can have a new elbow welded up here, the water jacket thing that I think is broken on mine isn’t essential if you put enough heat/fire protection around the elbow. It only needs to do a few hundred more hours anyway. So chin up, there’s hope yet.
I play with my raspberry pies (mini hobby computers) all afternoon, I copied a new image to an SD card, or so I thought, turned out I overwrote a hard disk instead full of stuff I had preloaded back in liverpool over the previous months. I can’t actually remember what it is I have wrecked, so it can’t have been that important. I am running home assistant on it now, and for those interested in such things, I have an ESP32 in the engine box with 4 Dallas one wire thermometers connected, which talk directly to HA and show me temps in there. I’m just messing now, but this will be very useful when I have it properly setup as I can watch trends, set alarms, correlate temps with speed, sea state and all sorts of interesting stuff.
After playing pies for too long I launched the Kayak and go exploring, I took the route to Barra de Navidad, but only got as far as the fish pier, turning round to head back, I found the current to be flowing at a good 3 knots against me, so it was a good workout for the upper body. It was lovely rowing back watching all the wildlife on the river banks.
I know it’s only a week since my last post, but I have too much time on my hands now so thought you might like an update.
Paul Collister
27/4/2025