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SITREP APRIL14 (BIRTHDAY!) S15"55.9 E150"08.6 BEATING 25KNTSE N WILLIS IS 150NM LAST 24HR PROGRESS GOOD F:)

Off !!! (????)

After a few hours of running the engine in the bay to confirm that 20 horse
power aren¹t going to push 10T into the winds, didn't dagnose anything worse
and finally decided to leave Townsville and start sailing. f:)

FW: Guilty Siphon breaker!

a brand new diesel filter that leaked

Townsville this morning. No wind

Msgnetic island shores (just to change from engine pictures!!!)

Any one knows how many pulses a Bosch 24V alternator produces per engine revolution ? The old tachometer was using oil pump rotations and had to be replaced by a pulse-based tachometer that plugs into the alternator. Calibration was rough! How many revs does this engine sound!!!

Wet exhaust with no siphon. BAD.

wet exhaust now with siphon 65 cm above the waterline, hopefully better once  have replaced the siphon breaker.

brand new Bukh engine. The 40 years old one got killed by the siphon because of age, this one made it through the leak. Regular oil checks throughout running the engine are a must to detect warning signs early

The siphon, or more exactly the siphon breaker, It’s the guilty one in the system and my lack of systemic analysis to put the finger on the problem!. Headed out with a brand new engine this morning, did a routine oil check to only discover that water had come into the oil again. Pure Milk!! I nearly fainted. Could just have been a bad nightmare and I was just going to wake up (7am!) but it wasn’t... Arrgh.

After 4 oil changes (pump the oil completely, including the sump and run the engine for a few minutes to cycle the new oil through), the engine was confirmed to be OK. Stock up on cleaning rags, plastic bags and engine degreaser!!! Lucky the Bukh is an old really tough construction and could take a few dents for a short time (according to the agent), it did. Another guy at the marina ceased his Volvo engine for the same siphon breaker failure reason. Result: complete replacement. A Kubota engine probably wouldn’t have stood to water going in, so it was lucky. Milky Oil had clogged the oil pressure gauge so it took a clean with kerosene to get it running again but all came up fine after the cleaning and 150$ of oil for flushing, spent in one day! Boats.

What happened on the KUNA: relative height of exhaust siphons

Explanation: The way the siphon breaker was set with the previous engine (just 6 inches above water line, just after the water pump and before the block inlet) seemed to just work OK for 16 years. So what changed ? The waterline. The boat is fully loaded with camera gear and 700 L of water, the siphon was not high enough and the breaker valve failed as it stuck to the top and didn’t let air in when it should have. A better alternative is to have a permanent hole on the top of the siphon and hook it to a small pipe which lets water down wherever convenient. If there is water coming out of that little pipe, it means the breaker hole is working OK. It is also a way to monitor that cooling water is running through the engine It is now placed above my head, but the siphon breaker model shown needs replacement due to valve failure!

Shame 3 knowledgeable diesos had checked the whole system after the installation before we headed out, not pointing that detail out! Bugger!

------ End of Forwarded Message

Some TLC for the old head...

Some phosphoric acid is eating the salts out of the cooling system in the manifold. Most holes were completely clogged: advice get fresh water cooling with a heat exchanger, though the holes in the heat exchanger are smaller than those in the engine  and they can also get clogged! Tough choice!

Hard to see on this picture but the water that made its way through the head gasket had pitted the metal (bottom left). The top of the piston was also pitted and a grove can be felt in the cylinder

Cork gasket material cut for the sump gasket.

Head and manfold reassembled and painted, etc

little Shala next door cooked us some pancakes!

After spending a fair few days rebuilding and cleaning the old engine
(cracktested the head, cut new gaskets, acid cleaned the salts from the
cooling system: never chose RAW cooling!), using the yacht decks as workshop
benches, the parts did not look like they would arrive early enough so a new
Bukh is going to replace the old one, flown out of Sydney tonight
(argh!!!!). That's the price of deadlines!!!

All up, it was a great mechanical course and the new "Bukh" is exactly the
same as the old one, so it's great to know how to pull it apart- just in
case!

April 4th: The Bukh engine may be on its way back in...

From the picture, it does not look like this engine will be coming back in but once the daunting task of pulling the engine apart is overcome, things looked a bit less gloomy.

The piston rings and bore didn't look too bad. The head gasket had ruptured, but on the dry side and the Bukh agent was adamant that the two o-ring at the bottom of the cylinder sleeve did not leak water so water could only have come through the gasket. The head is being pressure tested now.  Not the best coffee table in the cockpit! We will lift it with the boom to have better access.

The change to Diecon option quickly died because it required to change the prop and there was not way to get around on the slip and slim chance to take prop off underwater. With all the minor adaptation required, costs would evened between a new 24 HP Bukh and the lower quality non marine designed Diecon (Bukh uses a left hand prop, old fashioned!!!!) so still trying to save on cost by fixing the old Bukh as long as it can be done quickly. Spares cost is a killer though

 A great thanks to Jock, from boat next door, who's is being fantastic help throughout and generously shared his expertise and time!

Comms on the Kuna

While stuck in the marina, not being able to do much on the engine room at night, thought I'd do something useful:

Here's is a summary of my findings on means of doing email, receiving weather information, service providers (mostly), that I trawled through. It was hard to pick and chose as I was limited by my computer systems: an old windows 98 labtop (which still runs well and is robust) and a brand new Mac Powerbook. HF will probably be the best and cheapest means of long range communications for the Kuna in the long term but a fast and simple solution was to get an Iridium satellite phone for voice and email. It has the advantage of going with you in case of an emergency though does not let you tune in to get the weatherfax and is NOT cheap! All up a compromise.


Software for the Mac
To be over and done with the Mac topic: Marine Software for Mac is currently being developed actively (charting and email compression software) and even Garmin had their own developers working on “Bobcat” to upload and download GPS data, waypoint, routes, etc.. Useful is all you have is a Mac
http://www.globalmarinenet.net provides a good summary and links of what is available for Mac, and provides the only compression software existing for Mac at this stage (Maxgate, the Mac version of Xgate), though Ed Wilgoose from MailASail is currently developing one.

I am only using the Garmin software on the Mac but seriously considered buying a copy of MacENC (electronic charting for Mac, because it also enables to read grib files (please see further for grib). But no chance of finding the charts for free so far except for the US coast (available from NOAA website


Windows and Hardware
So back to Windows: why am I still on using a windows 98 computer ? Though old, it is robust and also has a SERIAL port. Most more recent computer do not have a serial port anymore and although USB to serial adapters are available, one has to get careful advice on which one to purchase to maintain proper communication when connecting either GPS or Iridium phone to the computer. The installation of a standard windows 19200 kbps modem was sufficient for the iridium and it worked both through the COM1 serial port or the COM4 (USB port equipped with a serial to USB adapter containing a “Prolific” chip, as advized by one of the Iridium email providers. Having the USB port working for the phone enables me to run C-Map with the GPS permanently plugged into the serial port. Nowadays, there are GPS which are specially designed to connect to the labtop via USB but some do not seem to talk to C-Map.



About setting up an Iridium phone for email

1/ First, get a phone. Don’t get it on ebay unless you are absolutely sure of the source and ABSOLUTELY don’t get it from Indonesia. A lot of American reliable ebay stores provide phones for a good price (1100 to 1300 US$) but most are reluctant to send the phone over to Oz due to phones disappearing through customs.
If you are in Australia managing a business in remote area, you may be able to get a 900$ government subsidy for the phone but, BEWARE, the subsidy often ties you up to also buy airtime/plan with the retailer providing the phone and the saving made with the subsidy quickly vanishes. Submit subsidy application early too!
If you want to do email, you’ll need to get a Data Kit for the Iridium. Make sure the data kit corresponds to the phone model you bought (9500, 9505, 9505A), as they are different. The phone capabilities differences between the three phones are minute.

1a/Once you’ve got a phone, get a SIM card. This does not have to be from the same provider as the phone provider (although it often makes it easier as they set up the phone for you). Once getting a SIM, you activate it (by paying then pay for airtime!). Watch SIM activation fee and deactivation delays as they can be quite high!


2/ Get some Airtime. Avoid phone plans, they cost a mint, especially Telstra’s!  It is possible to buy some prepaid time, which means 50, 100, 500 minutes to spend over a given period of time (example: 500 minute for 12 months). This proved to be the best approach Kuna’s needs. Iridium airtime is charged in 20 second blocks, but certain Iridium providers charge a minimum of a minute. Currently, with a 500min/12month prepaid airtime , the Iridium minute costs about 1.50$US.  The cheapest airtime I found was from a US company called Global Comm (620$US for 500 minutes) but it looked like they were charging 1$ per iridium sms so sms usage is restricted!


3/ Get an internet provider
Like on land, Internet Providers for sat phone email charge a monthly fee gives you access to one or several email addresses/accounts for sending/receiving messages. Filters and forwarding capabilities do vary. Most prefer that you buy Iridium airtime with them, though it is not compulsory, so you can negociate to get more competitive price on airtime. Most also sell an email compression software to improve the transfer time on the very slow Iridium data link.


Here are the main few providers I looked into, ranked. All had very good technical support and offer very similar services

2/This is the provider I ended up selecting:
AST (Applied Satellite Technology)
Wright Technologies Limited in New Zealand.
www.wrights.co.nz
e-mail: andreww@wrights.co.nz
The Software ASTMail is free and was the only one to install successfully on my OLD win 98, so my choice was done for me! AST mail is just another name for AmosConnect but is not found as freeware on the web. AST also sells their own compression software called ZAP email.


The installation and connection work well, provided one has 5 bars (full signal) on the iridium handset (hard on a moving yacht, and mast antenna, extra 500$ is recommended!) I use the little car Antenna through a hatch but have to be patient. The dial up AST server is located in Holland and works well. Andrew Wilson was excellent support and also showed how to install a connection to the Iridium internet server, to then reach email on the AST server via internet.

The main constraint of the system is that I had to purchase AIRTIME through AST, for the email software to work. It turns out rather costly because the minimum fee is 1 minute but most email connections last no more than 40 seconds. So I have to line up a large pile of emails to make the most of my minute. I did not manage to send and receive a grib weather file within the one connection because AST closes the connection as soon as there is a gap in the receiving. The trick for that is to schedule grib weather reports or use the alternative internet connection which lets you decide when to stop, but that connection proved definitely slower.


1/MailASail: Overall best compromise
http://www.mailasail.com
tel: +44 20 70432832
Based in the UK, Ed Wildgoose ( Ed Wildgoose <ed@mailasail.com>)   was extremely helpful but the “Express mail” compression software (included in the package) did not install on my Win 98 computer and he had not released the Mac version yet when I had to get started.

Express Mail works whether you are on Satellite connection or on land with any form of internet connection. It basically compresses your emails and saves you $. The internet provider fee is reasonable about 25 AUD/ months and includes a blog with position mapping and email updates, which other providers make you pay for the as GMN (GlobalMarineNet). The prepaid airtime fee was also reasonable, specially because connections are charged in 20sec block, mo minimum fee, so if email is quick, it’s cheap!
MailAsail server also sends an sms to your iridium phone (free) to notify you of the arrival of mail so you do not connect  for nothing.

3/GMN more expensive option but good for Mac users
http://www.globalmarinenet.net/
They were quite competitive with the internet provider fee though you have to buy the Xgate compression software for an extra 60$ and any other extra service such as weather and blog also do cost.  They do not support windows 98 anymore and I was not game enough to try connect the Iridium to the Mac because of reported issues.
Saying this, Luis Soltero was an extremely helpful guy (<lsoltero@globalmarinenet.com> or info@globalmarinenet.net>) for dealing with technical issues and they ARE the best for Mac. If you need a package deal (sat phone and airtime and internet), their prices are quite competitive. They were also prepared to negociate competitive prepaid airtime price. server also sends an sms to your iridium phone (free) to notify you of the arrival of mail so you do not connect  for nothing.


4/Uuplus:
UUPlus Support
(p) +1 805 534 1425
(f) +1 805 534 9502
(w) www.uuplus.com
(e) support@uuplus.com

American. Their monthly fee was rather high, 30 or 35$$/month for a individual but the service for a group of people for several separate emails adresses was reasonable. Support was also good.

That’s it for tonight! More on weather gribs tomorrow...
Cheers
fred

The "Bukh" engine was retired

After 40 years of good service, The Bukh is sadly diagnosed with terminal illness, would probably take too much work to rescucitate, let alone out limited time before the charter time and $. After carefully labelling every wire and pipe, disconnected the alternators, drained the oil, it was lifted out of its burrow (well engine room) by the way of block and tackle. Thanks to careful thinking from the boat builder Steffen: The steel frame above the engine room was originally threaded to hook large blocks and the engine lifted straight up!