Drive in and the autopilot in my head drives right to the spot where she sits, and where I've just done two marathon sessions working until 5:00AM (yes, that's AM!) getting her ready. But wait, she's not there! Joy, oh joy she's got to be in the water! I've got a reasonable idea of where she'll be in a slip and it just takes me 5 minutes to find her. Do a quick inspection of my new transducer setup, no leaks. Check the bow thruster, which was next to worthless by the end of last season. Apparently the barnacle population WAS the problem and it's working great. Check the raw water strainer, antifreeze is gone and the engine a slightly warm, they've run her at least a bit. Fire her up, just to hear the engine and she sounds great. Can't wait to get her out on Saturday, try out the reconfigured prop.
End of the good news.
Saturday afternoon comes along. Still doing some work, cleaning and organizing, getting the USCG documentation numbers mounted, old Maryland numbers off, getting everything ship-shape. It's getting a bit late so, if I want to get a ride in today I need to go.
Slip the lines and head out of Norwalk harbor. Everything is great. Boat is handling well, engine sounds good. Push the throttle up to about half. She's accelerating well. No issues. Now it's time to see what this new prop's doing for me. Push her up to WOT.
I'm sure the look on my face as the RPMs topped out at 2500 was priceless.
WTF!!!
Then I look behind me. A cloud of black smoke is hanging over the water behind me. Not good. Back her down. Check temp - good. Open the engine hatch and look and listen - good. Throttle back up - not good.(This is the moment when the MORRON in the 30' cruiser comes roaring over to me to ask "Is there a safe way out of here? I've got to get out of the harbor and don't know where to go." Being in fact a nice guy, and thinking "And I think I've got problems", I tell clueless which buoy to head to and which way to turn to follow the channel. After he nearly rams me and I back down hard to avoid a nice crunch he and his family head off into the gathering darkness...right past said buoy and failing to turn thereby heading right for the rocks. I now discover that my feeble horn when sounded 20+ times followed by major arm waving WILL actually get someone’s attention. I, by way of big arm motions and yelling, get the weekend warrior headed to, at least temporary, safety) And now back to my story...
So I head back to the dock at 2000 rpms. Mad, perplexed and tired. Is it the new prop? Engine problem? At this speed everything sounds great. Get her buttoned up and head home to see if I can figure out what’s going on. Get out my copy of Peter Compton’s “Troubleshooting Marine Diesels” and check the “excessive smoke” section. It’s looking like it’s the prop (unlikely given Denis’s experience and my trust in the prop guy) or an injector problem. Which also seems unlikely to me given the solid performance at lower RPMs. I flip through the book and find my answer.
Have you figured it out yet?
If you guessed “turbo-charger” you win!
It seems that black smoke is caused by too much fuel/not enough air and a search of Boatdiesel.com had many examples of boats not performing due to turbo problems. Went down to the boat this morning and peeled back the funky foam cover on the air intake so I could see the blades of the turbo. Fired up the engine. Blades didn’t budge. Couldn’t figure out how to get the protective metal screen off of the intake without some major effort so I wasn’t able to see if I could get the damn thing to move. (Yes, I would have shut the engine off first)
So, we’ll have to wait for the morning to see what the yard has to say. In some ways I’m happy. It happened early, it wasn’t catastrophic, and I’ve got 3 weeks to get it straightened out before heading to BI. Not an auspicious start to the season but I’ll stay positive.
I’ll keep you posted as this unfolds.
(Note: If you DON’T have the book above, or a subscription to boatdiesel.com – I’d correct that now – both were very helpful and informative)
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