Day 23, Year 1: Success
Date: Wednesday, November 9, 2005
Weather: Too Busy to Notice
Location: Oxford, Maryland, Tred-on-Avon, SailAway Marina

I started the day thinking that I would go next door to the Hinkley marina to do laundry and take advantage of their wireless internet to do some long overdue e-mail replies. While I was doing that, I thought Mark could be working on preparing the boat for engine removal. But plans quickly changed.

It’s not even 5:00 o’clock and we are already winding down from an amazing day. Our “engine doctor”, David Laux, arrived at 8:30 this morning to begin the removal of our beloved Perkins 4-108 engine. The first job was to move the boat to a different slip at high tide. We had to move another boat belonging to a friend of Dave’s and then slip in behind so we would be next to a bulkhead as this would facilitate engine removal. We started the engine and tried to get out of the slip that had taken us all afternoon and evening on Monday to get into because of the shallow depths. Of course, we hit the sandbar at the entrance to the slip right off, but with persistence, we were able to make the move. By 9:30, I realized that I would not be doing laundry today. We were really going to remove the engine, so the process began. We started taking anything off the engine that could be easily removed and by 1:00 we were ready to take the engine out.

I found the whole process amazing. The engine probably weighs about 500 pounds with the transmission and other parts removed. Somehow, Dave, Mark, and I were going to wrestle it out of here and into Dave’s truck. All I could think was, “Fat chance.” But I was wrong. With a ? ton chain hoist attached to our mainsail halyard and the use of our boom, we were able to lift the engine out with very little effort and swing the engine to land and into the back of David’s truck. It was unbelievably easy and I would never have imagined that it could have been so. Let’s just hope the installation of the new engine goes as smoothly.

Here’s a side note . . . Last Monday as we were preparing to leave Lewes, Delaware, I walked up to the City Hall to pay the final dock fees. As I was counting out the money, a woman walked up to me and said, “Hello, Judy.” I looked at her and just couldn’t place the face. She explained that she knew me and my children, Heather and Justin, and I still couldn’t figure out who she was. She then told me she was Gail Riggs, the secretary at the Seaford Kindergarten, where I had taught before moving to New Hampshire. I was so surprised and so pleased to see an old friend. She gave me the phone number of fellow teacher that I had been very close to when teaching in Delaware and I promised to contact Sally Moneymaker. Tonight I called Sally and explained that we were now in Oxford, Maryland. She asked where we were docked and I explained that we were between the Hinkley Yard and Cutts and Chase and she said, “You are in SailAway Marina. We own the slips there along with a couple of other people.” And all I could think is, “What a very small world.” And it was great to make contact with old friends again.

As I look out into the night sky, I see a perfectly half moon. Could we possibly have the new engine installed before full moon? That is my secret hope. Well, I guess it is no longer my secret, but I will say “our” secret.

051109 Day 23 Boston to Norfolk, USA–Old Perkins Engine Out