Maple - “Everything is broken on a boat, we just don’t know it yet”

Who: Janet, Darryl, Ella & Iris
Where: French Polynesia
Multihull: Leopard 38
Blog: www.svmaple.blogspot.com

An oil change, a thorough engine room clean, followed by a quick replacement of some rudder bits. Easy peasy, done in just an hour or two. Might even have time to do the second engine and rudder, yes? Ha ha ha. You would think after nearly six years living on a boat, we would know better. After all Darryl’s favorite saying is “everything is broken on a boat, we just don’t know it yet”. We are pros at dropping the rudders having done it a number of times already both in and out of the water. Because this time could we get the rudder to budge? Nope. Finally, it broke free. What was the problem? The smallest amount of growth on the rudder post between the two rudder bearings. How could such tiny sea creatures cause us hours of frustration? Okay, scrape, replace, reinstall. Job well done. But this is not the end to the story. Mucking with the rudder means, water comes into the engine room and it is no longer dry. So empty out the bilge and then done! Easy. But of course not. The bilge pump that worked just mere hours earlier is not working. This is a good time to mention that engine “room”, it is a bit misleading. The engine takes up the vast majority of the space with perhaps a foot of clearance around the perimeter of the engine. This means trying to access anything on the bottom of this said engine “room”, involves Darryl straddling it and lying on the engine with his head and shoulders upside down. Any bilge pump is in the deepest, darkest recesses possible. He manages to remove the pump. From my perspective, he only waved the screwdriver over it and we have a functioning bilge pump again. Whew! We don’t have this spare and to buy any here in French Polynesia requires the need to mortgage the boat. And for today? The second engine oil change and rudder will have to wait. Darryl did have to fix the outboard engine when it sputtered, so he did not get the day off from fixing broken stuff.