Getting the Snot Kicked Out Of Us

We left Liberty Landing Marina with the promise of a good day.   The weather forecast was for 10 knots out of the NE, seas 2 to 3 feet.  As we left the Narrows and passed under the Verrazano Bridge, we clogged one of the 2 micron Racor filters.   The mechanic said we would.   No big deal.   I'm getting good at changing filters and bleeding the engines, and in just a few minutes I had a 30 micron in and the engine running, and we were off.   The weather was beautiful.

As we approached the Ambrose Channel, the wind veered to the east and kicked up to at least 15 knots, maybe more.    The waves were three to five feet and curling and Drift Away was getting bounced pretty good.   The Naiad stabilizers were doing a great job of keeping the boat from rocking side to side, but we were hobby horsing and taking spray over the bow.   I heard a crash in the galley and found a few things on the floor.   I put the breakable bottles on the floor and some small appliances and headed back to the helm, and then it happened.   We lost the port engine.   I dashed to the engine room, changed the filter, and got it running.   After ten minutes or so, it died again.   Back to the engine room.   At this point my memory is fuzzy as to which engine  died and when, but in the end, I changed five filters, and at some point we had lost both engines and were beam to the seas.    I'd manage to start one and it would run for a short time and then die. 

We decided to turn tail and run for relative safety behind Sandy Hook, running on one engine.   Just as we reached the point where land shielded us from the waves, that engine died and the ebb tide carried us back out into the snotty ocean.   We were close to the beach and I readied the anchor just in case.   Back into the engine room, trying to bleed the engines with little success.   The problem was the two engine filters on each engine.   I could get the first to bleed but not the second.   I finally removed the bleed screw on each engine's filter all together, which worked in the past, and after ten minutes or so, I got fuel on one of them.   I dashed up to the helm and got one engine to fire up and we limped the rest of the way into the Atlantic Highland Municipal Marina.   It looked pretty tight in there and so I handed the helm over to Pam and went back to the engine room to try to get the second engine bled.   I removed the bleed screw and turned on the electric fuel pump, and after just a minute or two got fuel.   I bled the rest of the lines, got the engine started, and we docked without further incident.

But this is the result of the crappy seas.

Needless to say, after spending a LOT of money to get the tanks cleaned, I'm not too pleased that we're still having fuel issues of this magnitude.  While we're in Annapolis, I'm going to buy a few cases of filters for sure.

I'm also considering rigging up a small tank, say 50 gallons or so, that I could fill from the main engine tanks through a separate filter using an electric pump.    I'll have to think about this more.