On August 19, 2016 we attempted to leave Newport, Oregon and catch up with our fellow Coho Hoho sailing rally members. Unfortunately, our engine lost oil pressure (we later learned she threw a couple of rods) and we limped back into port. Within a few days, we both had jobs lined up for the winter, to keep us busy and to help pay for the engine replacement. We were looking at around $30,000 to replace the iron jenny with a newer one on Three Quarter Time. Yet as luck would have it, and explained in a previous post, we found a donor engine on a farm outside Portland that had less than 2,000 hours on her, and she was offered at a fraction of the cost of a new engine! However, there is no lift available where we were at for recreational vessels, only commercial ones. This added to the complexity of our engine replacement. Paul had to remove the old engine by himself, using a block and pulley system, as well as the boom on TQT. But amazingly, he accomplished that task unscathed.
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| Getting ready to lift out the old engine |
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| Now we know why that hole was up there ;) |
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| Out with the old... |
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| Utilizing the strength and balance of the boom |
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| Now to cart the old engine up to the mainland |
Here is the donor engine we found on that farm. These types are really only used on old sailboats like ours, and in some old forklifts. We sure were lucky to find this one as most used ones are only found in Australia and New Zealand, which would have been a shipping nightmare, hence our thinking we needed a new engine instead. But here she is, and we could not have been happier on the two-hour ride back to Newport. We even found a fantastic diesel mechanic who would clean her up, paint her, and make sure everything else is in working order.
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| New-to-Us donor engine |
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Needs some cleaning, but she runs
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We dropped the engine off in mid-September and the mechanic worked on it during his weekends off. In the meantime, Paul would visit Debbie in Alaska over the winter months during his one week off each month. Once the engine was cleaned up and painted in the spring, Paul would make the trip down to install it on the boat, and have it in place for our preparation to depart that August, and incidentally join up with the 2017 Coho Hoho rallyer's.
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| All cleaned up |
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| Isn't she a beauty |
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| There was a captive audience watching as Paul brought the new engine down |
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| It's a little like playing "Operation," but messing up is worse here, if it were to happen |
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| Success!!! TQT's first, and hopefully only, heart transplant |
Debbie returned to the boat after Mother's Day, and Paul continued working another couple of months around the states. While he was gone, Debbie helped another mechanic shim up the prop and make sure all the connections were good to go. She had lots of spare time and also painted the cabin ceilings in both cabins, the galley and the head, as well as sand and prep the teak floors for a few layers of seatol for an updated look.
Once these upgrades were done, and after a few sea trials, they set the date of August 21, 2017 to depart from Newport and catch up with their (new) Coho buddies who were working their way down that same coast...coincidentally this was the date of the big SOLAR ECLIPSE that happened to start just north of, you guessed it, NEWPORT OREGON!
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