| Ending my two weeks summer vacation it was time to go for a last ride. | |||
| For the first week weather was acting quite a bit, but the second week was much better and we got on the bubble every day. Reason for not reporting other operations you'll understand after reading this one. | |||
| Weather was just about perfect: no wind, sun shine, more than 26C (79F). Just the weather you expect to have when on summer vacation. | |||
| There were quite few boaters out there too and everyone seemed to be just plainly enjoying the perfect weather, just as we did too. There were just two of us onboard and Explorer was practicly flying in calm weather. | |||
| We circulated around small islands (very rocky waters) and noticed a family of swans. Parents and six new babies swimming in a area surrounded by island. I decided to stop the engine and let craft float not to disturb their peace. We watched them slowly swim away from us and when they were far enough i started the engine to go back to hoverport. | |||
| But, but, but engine just coughed and wouldn't run. Normally when it spins it starts but now it didn't. I applied more throttle and tried again. Now i got it running and headed to open sea to get back home. Just after maybe 20-30secs of starting i looked briefly at the gauges. Temperature needle was clearly in red area, reading over 120C and i immediately shut down the engine. | |||
| Now what ? I checked the radiator - it was empty. Luckily i had some coolant with and i poured it to system. You can imagine my disappointment when it came out as steam from valve cover breather hoses... | |||
| First thought was that this engine is really finished, i mean totally melten from inside. Next thing was to start thinking how would we get out of there. I had my cell phone with me and phoned to my father-in-law who was at hoverport close his small boat. He left immediately to pick us, but his boat is about 4,5m and has 5hp Yamaha outboard. Someone, who had a summer cottage close by, had watched the steam coming from the engine and asked if we'd need help. And we did need help. He got into his boat and i tried to paddle the craft to less rocky location. His boat was 8m with inboard and it was better for towing large craft like Explorer. | |||
| We started towing and proceeded better than i thought based on towing we did about year ago with my own 40hp Yamaha outboard. We got to half way when my father-in-law met us and we changed the tow boat. I can tell you, after the switch we really had time to viewe the scenenary and take it easy. It took 10minutes for the first 1,5km (1mile) and it took and hour for the last 1,5km (1mile). Also because of so small tow boat our trace was quite wiggly. At this point it was good time to call in helpers to drag the craft ashore when it was time to do so. I called my father and brother and they both agreed to come and help us. I advised my brother to take a hoist with him. | |||
| By the time we got to hoverport my dad had already been there for an half an hour or so. My brother just arrived and picked him up from the other side of the river. He had a heave chaintackle in the trunk of his car and we hauled it to row boat. But when we got back to the otherside there was already a large wooden sheave block installed to large spruce and they waited for me to tie it to the craft. Also some smaller logs was already placed as bearings under the intended path of craft. I tied to ropes to the aft of Explorer where there is stronger wooden edges underneath the thin fiberglass. We started pulling and it was quite easy with many people and ratios and steps used in wooden sheave block. | |||
| After we got it in place we checked that it was resting evenly on logs and started disassembling the engine. Reason for all the steam was quickly found - one of the water plugs had popped off. But at point when there wasn't any coolant in the system since there wasn't any mixed with the oil. We left it like that and decided to give it a try after installing a new water plug the next day. | |||