Victory!

Vero Beach, FL

27 29.77 N 080 22.38 W

Well, we splashed this morning. Everything worked as it should. Even better, we motored up to Vero at the blistering speed of 6 knots. We could have done 7 knots if I pushed it. Never before since owning Tarwathie have we been able to motor so fast.

With our original Perkins 108 engine, speed was limited by overheating and vibrations. With the new Beta engine it was limited by vibrations. I guess that means that it was never properly aligned from the beginning and that we accepted it because of lack of reference point.

Overall, this little stop for repairs cost us about $3,000. Ouch. However, one mustn't begrudge money spent for boat equipment and maintenance. We spend about $10,000 per year on direct expenses for the boat, and we think that is a reasonable number.

I must confess that as we splashed, I was very nervous. I just finished paying the bill and I whined to Woody, the boatyard manager, how complex the Max Prop is. Woody said, "We don't want our boat yard guys to get involved with those. Even the professionals put them together wrong 50% of the time." That was not what I needed to hear because I was so fearful of making the same mistake.

When we did splash the first item of business was to check for leaks around the shaft log. Check -- totally dry. Next was to start the engine. Check -- started fine. Next was to check for adequate cooling water flow. Uh Oh, no water came.

I took a quick peek and saw that I forgot to reattach one of the cooling system hoses. The engine was pumping cooling water all over the inside of the compartment instead of into the muffler. Embarassing, but quick to fix. 5 minutes later, the proper hose was attached and away we went.

All in all, we think we did well. We'll celebrate on Monday by eating lunch out at a restaurant.

p.s. Monday pre-dawn there will be another space shuttle launch. Oh boy. I would love to dinghy over to watch it from the beach.