Engine – Third round

[English translation by Heidi]

Here I am, (Romain) to tell you more about our last happenings with (or against, depends the way you see it) our Perkins 4.108M, coded name behing which hides our diesel engine (note from the translator (heidi) : I will remind our readers, if needs be that this is a “made in england” engine ;-)…)

A few days ago, we left Gove to head to Darwin, across the Arafura sea. This area of Australia presents a lot of islands, which means that we have to cross a number of channel and passes between islands and island and main land.

We were to go through one of these channels, Cumberland Straight, so we left Gove around 5am, so that we could go thru with a favourable tide.

Tides in the Northern Territory are noticeably bigger than on the east coast, ranging from 3m in Gove to 7m in Darwin. Those tides give birth to huge currents in the channels, going one way with rising tide and the other with lowering tide.

We were trying to reach Cumberland straigth so that the currents will push us thru the pass…

Cumberland Strait

We enter the Channel between the 2 islands, and…surprise !…the current seems to be totally against us…Wrong time calculation? (we have problems familiarizing ourselves with the various times of australia and way the tide tables are written in relation to them…) or wrong understanding of the way the flow goes? (ebb and flow stuff…seems the oz express the way the current goes the opposite as the french do…would that be an inheritance from the english?)

Anyway…we are bang in the middle of the straight, which is only 0.8 miles (1.5km) wide, fighting against the current.

Our speed ranges from +0.3 to – 0.6 kn, with a very interesting “round and round” sort of direction…

Note of the translator : here, Romain goes into further details on the behaviour of the water, which implies a lot of hydraulic engineering vocabulary…and I don’t have my engineering french-english dictionary handy…so let’s say we hit eddies, places were the current and the wind opposes, giving birth to choppy seas and more generally, all the variety of turbulences you can meet at sea…(a good learning ground for young sailor, that’s for sure…especially with the island looming closer with each mistake of the helm’s man!)

We are already under full sails, with a reasonable wind…we need more power…Let’s start the engine!!!

Guess what?…it starts no problem (not that we had any doubt about it…)…

So we kept figthing against the flow…we thought we were doing a good speed, looking at the quantity of water going past us…but the GPS tells us that no, we are staying at the same location, and even going backward slightly…

Have you ever been in a train at the station, when the train besides it starts? It is exactly how it feels…

6.30pm, night is falling, and we still have 2.5hours to go until even seas, where tide changes and we can hope that currents will help us go out of this trap…

And then…putt putt putt…oh oh…what are those changes in the engine rythm ?

We slow down on the lever, then push the speed up again…the engine keeps going nicely until, 10mn later…putt putt putt again…then 0, nil, nothing…engine stopped totally.

As usual, we open our bed side book –our bible should I say- :THE Hand book for repairs of Marine diesel Engine 4.108M, page 36 “Trouble Shooters for functionning problems”

(Note of Translator : this is a free translation of the french hand book title, althought, as I said earlier, there is probably a handbook in english, given that this engine is english…)

Meanwhile, Heidi was helming, trying her best to go round and round and stay away from the land, reefs and so on…

Possible cause of this highly unwelcolme failure of the Perkins are varied : cogged filtres, diesel pump not properly in place, leaks, etc (Note of translotor : I don’t have my french-english mechanic dictionnary either…so I keep it simple)

All of the above looking very much complicated for our limited knowledge of mecanics (Note Of Translator : I agree 100%!!! ;-)), the captain decided that it was air in the circuit and we needed to get rid of it (this is about the only thing we know how to do!(Note of the translator : the above is NOT a comment from the translator!))

So here is Vincent, head first in the engine, hands in the diesel, while we kept fighting on the deck against wind and currents.

By the way, we are in pitch dark, given that it is new moon tonight!!!

After various swearing, we try to start the engine and –YESSSS- it works!

By this time it was about 9pm, time for even seas, so we got out of the channel without too many problems.

So it was air in the circuit…ah ah…we’re cunning mecanics, aren’t we???

A few days and nights after this happening, the wind being a bit low, we decide to put the engine for a little while, just to get to the mooring before nightfall…

Guess what?…it starts no problem (not that we had any doubt about it…)…Hadn’t I told you we know how to deal with that thing, now!

But then…putt putt put…oh oh…is that air in the circuit again? No prob, we know how to do it!…But where does this air come from???

All the circuit is perfectly closed, filtres in place, etc…The diesel level indicator is on high…Hey pretty good : 16hours since Cairns and nearly no diesel consummed…what a good engine (Note of transl. : You POM can be happy, now!!)

Just then we realised that the pipe between the Starboard and port tanks is closed and that we have been filling and checking the starboard tank while emptying the port tank which was now empty…hence the putt putt putt and the air in the circuits!!!

The taps which isolate the 2 diesel tanks !!!

After all of this, we have 2 conclusions :

1. Good news : if you put diesel in and batteries are plugged, this motor works very well…
2. Bad news : with cunning mecanics like us, even the best of engine would end up giving up!

(Note of translator : those conclusions have been carried out without my help and I would refrein from any comments whatsoever…)

02:40 - 2/11/2006 - Ajouter un commentaire