Sunday, Sept. 2, 2018
Brian’s Technical Update
Taylor (one of the mechanics) encountered a broken bolt inside the transmission seal after removing the shaft connection. He had to drill into the remaining bolt piece and back it out. Another small section of bolt was found in one of the other two remaining bolts. This took an extra few hours to resolve. Something hit the boat’s prop sometime in her history to cause these to shear off. Fortunately, this brand of transmission is a known for being very rugged. It operated for who knows how long with one-and-a-half bolts connected to the mounting flange instead of three, until it finally started to leak around the shaft seal. The mechanics finished the repairs late this afternoon. We went out for a test drive to make sure everything looked OK. I can’t say enough good things about Paul (the owner and chief mechanic) and his entire staff. They are a very friendly, hard-working, service-oriented group of people.
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The other story continues…
We last left off at Port Charles Harbor in St Charles MO on Wed. Aug. 30 after having visited the Arch in St. Louis. Our transmission repairs took a few days (Thurs thru Sat. – even on a holiday weekend!) and naturally included unexpected treasures like sheared off bolts that had to be extracted and replaced. Finally, the test drive on Saturday afternoon proved successful and Sunday, 9/2, we continued on our way for only a short day to make sure everything had settled in properly. Again we were sailing into a strong wind that made it a little lumpy, but it was a quick 2-hour trip to Alton Marina in Illinois. After inspecting the engine room, Brian declared transmission problems resolved!
Once again having used up some of our supplies for the long trip to Kentucky, we decided to ride our bikes to the local grocery store. Isn’t that what most sane people would do in the middle of the day when it’s a sunny 92º with a heat index of 101? It was not just the heat, but the 1.3 mile ride included 98 feet of vertical rise, so there was a bit of walking the bikes uphill too. The very friendly checkout woman said we looked like we could use a cold drink as we entered the store after having seen us ride into the parking lot on bikes, nearly dripping wet & exhausted. Restocked with bread, lunchmeat, cheese, fresh fruit - oh, and beer, diet cola and chips - we made our way back to the marina – a much easier trip! Once we cooled down, and freshened up, we walked a bit less than a half-mile to the Old Bakery Beer Company for delicious sandwiches and a cold one, or two :-)