Tribute to Some Marine Service Pros

Cruisers tend to be independent, self-sufficient people.  They like or need to do things for themselves. As they say, the definition of cruising is: fixing your boat in exotic locations. But, for even the most skilled DIYer, sometimes you have to enlist the help of experts.  Unfortunately, some of these “experts” turn out to be complete amateurs.  So when you discover a real pro, you celebrate their expertise and professionalism. In previous posts, we’ve referred to problems caused by technicians who turned out to be amateurs.  Here, we want to pay tribute to some pros, who have helped keep our aging vessel afloat.  

Jack and his workers at Jack’s Driveline (welding & machining in Brunswick, GA)

Jack and his employees have done several jobs for us.  These were small jobs on the scale of what they normally do, but they were big for us.  Over the past six or seven years, they reconditioned the steel base for the compression post that supports our mast (a pretty important part of the boat), fabricated an alternator bracket, and modified our engine’s mounting brackets to allow us to better align the engine with the propeller shaft. With all of these jobs, they asked a lot of questions so that they could understand exactly what we needed, then they did the work right then and there as we looked on.  And the cost for each of these jobs was extremely modest.

Two of the items that Jack and his crew worked on for us.  The top photo is of the bracket for our high-capacity alternator, showing the weld.  The bottom pic is of one of the engine mounting brackets that needed to have a slot cut into it so that its position could be adjusted from side-to-side.  

Tom the Electrical Guru (Renewable Systems Engineering, Woodbine, GA)

When Fulmar was designed and built, sailboats had few electrical gadgets. Fulmar had an electric pump for pressurized water, some cabin lights (which were used as little as possible), navigation lights, a VHF marine radio, depth sounder, bilge pump, and that was about it.  Instead of a refrigerator, it had an actual icebox. Oil lamps lit up the cabin.  Things have changed over the past 40 years, and so has Fulmar.  We have LED lighting, refrigeration, a reverse osmosis watermaker, a water heater, two GPS chart plotters, an AIS transponder, radar, autopilot, and a gaggle of personal electronic devices and cordless power tools.  So our electrical demands are much greater than what William Crealock (the designer) or Pacific Seacraft Yachts (the builder) ever imagined back in the late '70s and '80s.  Since everything electrical on the boat runs off of batteries, you can’t just keep adding gadgets without increasing the battery capacity.  Then you also need to increase the charging capacity for those larger batteries.  And the wiring throughout the boat has to be upgraded to carry the increased loads.  And, if you don’t do it correctly, you can set fire to your boat.  No big deal.  When we were getting ready to move aboard the boat and were planning upgrades to our navigation electronics, we realized we needed a major overhaul of our entire electrical system.  So we turned to Tom Chalkley, owner of Renewable Systems Engineering, Inc. Tom is way more than a marine electrician.  He’s a talented electrical engineer and is a cruising sailor himself.  So he really understands what cruisers need.  And he also understands the need to keep costs down so that there is some money left over to fund the actual cruising.  He designed our electrical upgrades, which included a 400 amp-hour bank of lithium iron phosphate batteries, new solar panels (640 watts, total) and charge controllers, a new alternator regulator, reprogramming of our smart battery charger, and extensive rewiring.  He even fabricated a strong and attractive mounting arch for the solar panels.  There aren’t many electricians who can weld aluminum arches.  He readily agreed to let us tackle the less technical parts of the project, which ended up saving us a ton of money.  And along the way he taught us a lot about the AC and DC electrical systems on our boat.  The results of this work have been a game changer for us.  We haven’t had to run our engine or plug into shore power specifically to charge our batteries since the installation was completed over 7 months ago.  (Obviously, we do use the engine for propulsion but we no longer need to run it just for the sake of charging the batteries.)  We have plenty of power and spend a lot less time worrying about our batteries’ state of charge.  Tom has been a great source of information and encouragement, far beyond marine electronics, and he has been very generous with his time, answering technical questions from us as we go about our daily tasks of problem solving aboard Fulmar.

Tom and Damon mounting the new solar panels on the frame that Tom built.

The new solar charge controllers that Tom installed. 

     

The new charge controllers connect to our cell phones via bluetooth, so we can keep tabs on each panel's output, battery voltage, and the amps being drawn from the batteries by all of the boat's electrical equipment.  Pretty cool stuff, in a geeky sort of way. 

Kelly the Alternator Guy (Titusville, FL)

When one of our alternators famously burnt itself up near Titusville, FL, we initially thought that it would take $500-$1,000 and more than a week to resolve the problem.  But then we were told by several people at the Titusville Marina to take our alternator to a guy named Kelly at the local NAPA Auto Parts store.  Kelly used to own an automotive electrical business in town and now he does this work on the side, from his house.  We brought the seized alternator to him at NAPA and he said he could fix it.  He rebuilt the alternator that very evening and had it back to us the next morning, good as new.  And the cost was under $100. We were so glad to have met Kelly.

The seized alternator.

Re-installing the reconditioned alternator.

Trip the Tow BoatU.S. operator (Brunswick, GA)

We started to head north from South Florida for the summer season in April.  Our plan was to take our time and stop for a few days at our homebase of Brunswick, GA before continuing northward.  A 90th birthday party had been planned on St. Simons Island for Damon’s Aunt Sue, and we could attend if we got a move on.   We had been motor-sailing and were within a few miles of Brunswick, when suddenly there was this horrible sound of metal shattering and grinding, and we lost propulsion from the engine.  Janet likened the noise to a salad fork being stuck in a garbage disposal.  Damon thought it sounded more like a pitchfork being tossed into a cement mixer.  In any case, we were in a bad spot, approaching St. Andrew’s Inlet from the Intracoastal Waterway on an outgoing tide.  St. Andrew’s Inlet is notorious for its shoals, rough seas, and strong tidal currents.  So we immediately gybed the boat around and sailed against the tide, back into the estuary.  Once we clawed our way to a sheltered spot, we dropped the anchor and took stock of the situation.  It quickly became obvious that our gearbox transmission had failed and there was nothing we could do about it out there. Given the dicey conditions in St. Andrews Inlet (which we would have to cross) and the fact that we would then have to pass under the Jekyll Island Bridge and transit through the Jekyll Creek Narrows at dead low tide, we knew immediately that we would not be making that trip under sail anytime soon.  So we called for a tow to Brunswick Landing Marina.  The great thing about being back in familiar waters was that we knew the towboat operator, Trip Durant.  Trip is a great guy who used to be one of the captains on the Sapelo Island ferry when Damon worked at the UGA Marine Institute on Sapelo.  Trip recently bought the local Tow BoatU.S. franchise and started working for himself.  It sure was nice to have a familiar face come out to get us, and to know that we were in capable hands.  Trip soon had us in tow and brought us through all of the tricky spots on our route without incident. We were back in Brunswick in time for Aunt Sue's big birthday party. As soon as we were safely tied to the dock, Trip was headed right back out. He's a busy guy. His response area is from St. Catherine's Sound, GA to Nassau Sound, FL. That's a lot of water to cover!

Another outing with the "Red Boat of Shame." (This photo was actually of our previous meeting with TowBoat US, off Titusville, FL.  Our trip with Trip looked pretty much the same...except for the breaking waves in St. Andrew's Sound.)  

An actual photo of our chart plotter as Trip towed us through the shallowest section of Jekyll Creek.  Yes, that number circled in yellow indicates that the water depth was half a foot shallower than the bottom of our keel.  This is one of the reasons why we opted not to sail through here at this time.  Jekyll Creek is a notoriously shallow and shifty section of the ICW, but Trip knows it like the back of his hand.  Despite the shallow water, we never felt the keel touch bottom.  Trip brought us through so carefully and the mud was so gooey that we never touched down on anything firmer than split pea soup. 

Drew & Daniel from Mariner Marine Services (Brunswick, GA)

The morning after our transmission demolition, we called Drew Orr, owner of Mariner Marine Services (it was a Saturday morning).  We explained our situation to Drew and he said that he’d come to our boat on Monday.  Of course, we were incredulous; for the past few years we have heard countless woeful tales of boat owners waiting months for mechanics to come fix their engines.  So you can’t imagine our surprise when we heard a cheery knock on our hull at 8:00 on Monday morning.  It was Drew and his lead mechanic, Daniel.  They immediately dove into the engine compartment and in less than an hour, they had sussed out the full extent of the damage.  They walked us through our various options (we decided on getting a new transmission and drive plate) and ordered all the necessary parts and supplies right on the spot.  The parts arrived at Drew’s shop on Wednesday.  They prepped everything on Thursday and by 10:00 AM on Friday, we were back in business.  We were flabbergasted and thankful for the great service and professionalism of Drew and Daniel.  

The back of the engine with the transmission and drive plate removed.  Check out the debris that came out of there.

A close-up of the debris that came out of the space where the drive plate used to reside.  That is chunks of steel and chewed up bits of rubber.  Not good. 

Broken gears and sheared bolts of the old drive plate. 

Daniel showing off the brand new transmission just before installation.  Prior to working for Mariner Marine, Daniel was a ballistic missile mechanic for the U.S. Air Force.  For someone who knows how to fix missiles and aircraft armament, repairing diesel engines and gearboxes must be child's play.    

The new transmission installed and ready for duty.

When your cruising plans suffer a serious setback, such as the breakdown of major equipment, the quality and swiftness of the service you receive can be the deciding factor between continuing on and pulling the plug on your entire life's dream.  Thanks to all of these people, we have been able to keep our cruising dreams afloat.  And we know that they help other sailors like us every day.  Besides technical competence, all of these people take an interest in their customers and do everything they can to help them realize their goals. So, to this entire group of pros, we say THANK YOU.