If you read my previous post, you know that I hit a log on Saturday morning 2024-10-19 while running in the dark.
I had scheduled maintenance on the boat on Monday 2024-10-21. While the mechanic was working in and around the engine room, we both noticed more water in the bilges than is normally there. The mechanic tracked down the source of the leak, the rudder post on the starboard side. It was a very slow trickle, but it was definitely leaking.
It appeared that the log strike had damaged the seal on the starboard rudder post and water was leaking in there.
Having water leaking into your boat is never a good thing. It was a slow leak, and I could easily keep up with it. I decided to schedule a haul out right away to get this taken care of.
The haul out facility here in Ketchikan is at Air Marine Harbor, located about 8 miles NW of town.
I ran the boat out to Air Marine on Sunday afternoon and left it there overnight. The haul out was scheduled for 11 AM on Monday.
The yard requires you to sign papers attesting to the fact that they have no liability for damage to the boat during the haul out or the relaunch activities. That means if they drop your boat, they are not responsible.
This yard uses mostly old fuel drums to support the boat on its sides. There are huge blocks of wood directly under the center of the keel on which most of the weight rests. My boat weighs about 20,000 lbs (10 tons) without fuel, water, people or gear.
Faraway is officially grounded for a time. Disappointing, and expensive. But, when you consider that I've made 33 trips this year so far, and logged over 1500 miles, I guess eventually you have to pay the piper.
The mechanics quickly got to work pulling both props and both rudders. The starboard prop was clearly damaged. The port prop may have been, we couldn't tell. The machine shop will repair them. The rudder posts may have been bent, again we could not tell. But the machine shop has equipment that can detect if the posts are no longer perfectly straight.
The mechanics identified the seals that sit on the tops of the rudder posts and ordered new ones. Thankfully they are coming from Seattle rather than somewhere like the UK.
Now it is a waiting game, waiting for the parts, and waiting for the verdict from the machine shop on the props and on the rudders. And then when the parts come in and the props and rudders are repaired, waiting for the mechanics to have time to put them all back together.
I don't like being grounded.
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2024-11-14 Update:
Faraway is fully repaired and back in her slip.
It turned out that the port side prop was indeed damaged as well, but the rudders were not.
We also discovered that there was fiberglass damage inside both prop tunnels.
The repair bills broke down into 4 categories:
Fiberglass repair
Mechanics time and materials to take everything apart and put it back together
Boat yard costs for hauling, blocking, and relaunching
Machine shop costs for repairing the props and testing the rudders
Yes, I do have insurance and it does help some. But there is a high deductible for this type of damage, so it does not cover all costs.
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