Pulling into the boatyard, 194 days since we left Alaya in the spring, Lucas and I were very nervous. How’d she fare without us? Was she full of squirrels? Full of water? The boatyard had checked on her while we were gone but this is the longest we’ve ever left her alone.
We scavenged a boatyard ladder and climbed aboard.
Surprisingly, she was in wonderful shape. She was a bit dirty on the outside and dusty on the inside. There had also been a few leaks in trouble spots we knew of last spring. All of this was to be expected. Most importantly, no squirrels!
We spent the rest of the day recommissioning systems, starting with the refrigerator and water system. We wanted to get these basic systems running as soon as possible as we were about to embark on some major boat projects.
While we both really enjoyed our boat work break while we were on Mackinac Island, we were excited to dig in. What projects were on the agenda? Our initial list included the following:
- Engine work
- Finish rebuilding the transmission
- Remove Pierre’s (our engine) existing transmission
- Replace the damper
- Put everything back together
- Install new propeller
- Hull work
- Install a thru hull for our new forward-looking sonar system
- Sand hull
- Apply bottom paint
- Communications work
- Mount Starlink receiver
- Run wiring
- Convert Starlink from 110v to 12v
- Electrical work
- Remove old AGM house bank batteries
- Install new lithium house bank batteries
- Rewire house bank system to accommodate new batteries
- Run new wiring for forward-looking sonar
- Install new instrument panel at the cockpit helm
- Install new alternator regulator (that will allow us to better recharge our batteries when the engine is running)
Now that you’ve seen the list, let’s talk about the timeline…This was our first extended boat work period without hard deadlines. We were trying to manage our (my) expectations and not overextend ourselves. In hindsight, this project list is insane but at the beginning of this boat work period, we were hoping to be sailing around Thanksgiving.
We started with the engine work since that would be the most disruptive to our living conditions. Lucas spent our second day on Alaya prepping Pierre to come out of his hole. We had the lifting contraption in place and step one of Pierre’s lift done by the end of day three. The next day, we executed the tricky maneuver of pulling Pierre across the floor so that we could rest him on a board and separate the engine from the transmission.
Once Pierre was sitting in the middle of our living room, we turned our attention back to the transmission rebuild. The transmission rebuild took place on the ground level, using the trunk of the VW and our awesome work cart as our workshop. Not many sailors have decided to rebuild their own transmission. Our friend, Sean, who sailed on SV Pokey last year, is the only other sailor we know who has done this project, he graciously acted as our offsite technical support. Other than Sean and the original manual, there wasn’t a ton of information online about our transmission. Lucas found a few obscure YouTube videos that we used as references. At one point, we got stuck. Lucas found the phone number for one of the YouTuber’s businesses. The owner, Hal, picked up on the second try and answered our question. Turns out his shop was only 30 minutes away from the boatyard if we needed anything – such a small world!
Overall, the transmission rebuild went pretty smoothly. Unfortunately, we ran into a speed bump during final assembly when we slipped and tore the last gasket. Fortunately, another “famous” transmission shop, which was also close by, had a spare gasket. Once the transmission was fully assembled, we had to get the old one off the boat. Cue some creative rope work. We spent an entire day carefully lifting the 200 lbs transmissions in and out of the boat. We also removed three heavy AGM batteries and brought up our two new Lithium batteries. Kizer Co Cranes to the rescue!
As you can imagine, during this engine work, Alaya was a mess inside. It would have been tough to live on the boat while she was so torn up. Lucky for us, Aunt Fran and Uncle Marty, Lucas’ great aunt and uncle live about an hour from the boatyard. They were kind enough to host us for about two weeks as we started our projects. Every day, we had breakfast with Fran and Marty and then headed to the boatyard. We would work all day and then head back to the house. Fran made dinner for us on multiple occasions, which was so wonderful. It was also lovely to spend time with them in the evenings.
With the new transmission in the boat, we installed the new damper (disk between the transmission and engine block) and then mounted the transmission. The next major hurdle for this project was figuring out how to apply 240 ft lbs of torque on a big nut at the back of the transmission. This nut secures the transmission to the propeller, so it is really important. It is naturally free spinning, so inherently difficult to torque. 240 ft. lbs is A LOT of torque. After much noodling and a few attempts, Lucas got it. Was the jerry-rig sketchy? For sure. But it worked!
Over the past sailing season, we had been managing a few engine oil leaks. Pierre is an old engine and some of his gaskets have gone bad. Lucas was pretty sure that one of the worst leaks was coming from the oil pan seal. The oil pan is, of course, at the very bottom of Pierre. It can only be replaced when Pierre is out of the bilge. Since we are hoping to keep Pierre in his hole for a long time (knock on some teak!), we decided to replace the gasket now. It took us two full days of scraping to get the old gasket off, including hours folded under Pierre scraping above my head. Boat life, best life.
With the bulk of engine work completed, it was time for a short break. We drove 12 hours west to visit Lucas’ brother, Noah and his family in Burnsville, North Carolina. Noah, Mikhaila, Adi and Rowan welcomed us into their home only a few weeks after Hurricane Helen wreaked havoc on the area. Luckily, their house was undamaged but so much around them was still in recovery mode. We spent a fun two days hanging out with the family and then headed back to Alaya.
Vacation over, it was time to put Pierre back in his hole for good and to move onto the boat. We reinstalled Pierre on November 11. We did a few bench tests on our transmission before it was installed but the real test couldn’t occur until Pierre was completely reinstalled. After a few tense moments, Lucas was able to get the transmission to shift into forward, neutral and reverse…success!!
We spent the next day putting the boat back together. By that night, we had our living room back in order and slept in our own bed for the first time in months. Thank you again to Fran and Marty for being such generous hosts! We enjoyed our time with them immensely.
