Ahoy Landlubbers!
The GGSR group + one addition (motor vessel ‘Starr’) have made our way out of the Inland Sea of Japan and after enjoying the following ports.
Hiroshima – For the worst of reasons, Hiroshima needs no introduction.
As WWII dragged into the summer of 1945, The US decided to deploy an entirely new weapon to force Japan to surrender. On August 6, 1945 the B29 Bomber Enola Gay dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima. It exploded at 8:15am, 580 m (1900 ft) above the city center. Tens of thousands of people died and many more suffered from burns, wounds and radiation exposure. The final death toll as offered by the Hiroshima Peace memorial museum is “140,000 plus or minus 10,000”. Our planned visit to the Peace Memorial Museum and park was delightfully interrupted by the annual Flower Festival which was awesome! A parade, floats, kids dancing, exhibits galore, street food…all held on the last day of a very big holiday in Japan, Golden Week.
Hiroshima’s Peace Memorial Museum presents a balanced narrative of events leading up to the war and the bombing. There are some pretty harrowing exhibits documenting the horror of what happened August 6th, 1945 and a depressing display showing the development of even more destructive weapons in the years since.
Photo of the A-Bomb Dome
We did tour the Hiroshima Castle…a replica of the original built 1589. Photos were exhibited inside of what was left of this massive fortress and equally as massive stone walls that surrounded the castle – after the A-bomb – nothing was left. An OMG moment…
It’s heartwarming to see how well Hiroshima is thriving today…a prosperous, cosmopolitian and very attractive city with a healthy nightlife!
Japanese chef cooking okonomikaki…delicious pancakes with the diner’s choice of separate layers of cabbage, bean sprouts, meat, fish and noodles…and, egg!
All too soon it was time to leave Hiroshima and sail for Fukuoka City on the island of Kyushu. We would have to exit Japan’s Inland Sea, somewhat like exiting the Chesapeake Bay at Norfolk, except there are strong currents in Japan’s narrow exit. The Captain’s met and discussed when to set off from our quaint Kasado Bay anchorage and correctly schedule our exit into the ocean considering the 5-7 knot current in this narrow passageway, Kammon Kaikyo and, of course, there would be lots of commercial traffic (no kidding!)
Arriving at Fukuoka we tied up in a nice marina beneath two large ferris wheels on Japan’s largest southernmost island, Kyushu. Japanese and their flights of fancy – ferris wheels…they appear in most of the larger cities we’ve visited, at least one and sometimes 2 or 3. We asked around about the attraction of so many ferris wheels and were told that not many dating couples have cars so the huge slow turning ferris wheels are the equivalent of the back seat of the car or at least that’s Braun’s take on it…consider the source!
We were not long in Fukuoka (say that three times!) when we rode the ‘Beetle’ (fast ferry) to Pusan, S. Korea and then took the high speed train to Seoul for a long weekend. We thoroughly enjoyed the contrasts. The three hour train ride north to Seoul offered nice views of green and hilly terrain and what seemed like miles and miles of greenhouses with a few villages here and there. Then…there’s Seoul, the second most densely populated city in the world just behind Tokyo. Love the energy in Seoul…it’s a rambling, crowded, exciting metropolis. The S. Koreans are far less reserved and more emotive than the Japanese, louder and a little pushy…in a nice way.
A Buddhist moment in Seoul…
As luck would have it, we happened upon the week long Lotus Lantern Festival in central Seoul. The festival is held to celebrate Buddha’s birthday on the eighth day of the fourth month of the lunar calendar and the scale of the celebration is beyond imagination. The climax of the festival is the Lantern Parade – which an estimated 300,000+ spectators attended. The paper lanterns for the over 2 hours long celebration vary in size, from smaller ones handmade by the parades over 30,000 participants to massive ones as in the photos. It was the biggest and most impressive parade we’ve been too!
Photos of lit lanterns along the canal
We couldn’t visit Seoul without making a trip to the demilitarized zone, DMZ. Panmunjom is located in the Joint Security Area, which is in the DMZ, 35 miles from Seoul. The DMZ is the 150 mile long strip of land that separates North and South Korea. It has served as a buffer zone since the signing of the 1953 ceasefire agreement that ended the fighting during the Korean War…although the war itself has officially never ended. Located near the 38th parallel, the DMZ cuts the Korean peninsula roughly in half and separates the natural resources (in the north) from the breadbasket (in the south). Four kilometers wide, surrounded by barb wire and untouched by humans for over 5 years, the area has become an unintentional wildlife refuge. For us, the most interesting part of the tour was hiking underground and down 900 feet into one of the four infiltration tunnels discovered by the S. Koreans that the N. Koreans built in their efforts to invade S. Korea. This 3rd tunnel was discovered in 1978. It is large in scale and the S. Koreans claim that an army of 30,000 fully armed soldiers could pass through within an hour. The N. Koreans postured that they were not building a tunnel but mining for coal and painted the inside of the tunnel black…what they painted over was granite and certainly not coal. A 4th tunnel was discovered in 1990, and there is much speculation that there are additional undiscovered tunnels.
Our DMZ tour occurred on a rainy and foggy day, befitting the landscape and purpose. Once we cleared a few checkpoints, passports in hand, we didn’t see too much of N.Korea with the exception of some guard posts. All the S.Koreans we met speak optimistically and with certainty of an eventual reunification but when is the open question.
Photo taken from the observation deck viewing North Korea
Back in Fukuoka, Japan, Carol Argosy from ‘Seabird’ scored some pro baseball tickets. We favored the Hanshin Tigers as they were from Osaka and they’re pretty popular there. Man oh man – they love their baseball! Everyone’s decked out in their favorite team colors or, in fact the actual full uniform. Here it differs some from back home – but not really…for example, it’s loud, there’s beer and they have these young girls that I’m not sure were of age to serve beer, carrying a nice size insulated keg on their back from which they serve draft beer. They also sell sake in the stand from similar containers. In addition, there’s dozens of bento boxes to choose from at the concession stand! Yep, nothing says indigestion like a rice bowl and French fries washed down with a Japanese tall boy beer…ugh. We had a blast in spite of our team losing.
Japanese baseball fans! Carol, Steven, Don & Sharry..Ken & Roberta were
there, too.
And now for an anecdote as to why cruising is not all a bed of roses. While underway from the anchorage at Kawachi Wan to the city of Nagasaki we experienced what every long distance passage maker dreads – the engine stopped. We were miles from shore, five hours from our destination and trying to make an arrival deadline to avoid a fast approaching storm and suddenly no propulsion power!
For the engine to quit is extremely rare and over years of cruising thousands of miles across oceans this has happened only one other time. On this occasion we were in the company of fellow cruiser Scott Strickland who also is an aircraft pilot. Scott taught Braun what pilots do if an engine stops. They immediately run through this check list – 1. Aviate (stabilize the plane or boat) 2. Navigate (make sure you are not going hit something) 3. Communicate (tell interested parties what is wrong) and only then 4. Fix the problem. The obvious temptation is to get right to the problem but this can have disastrous consequences.
Braun reacted to the loss of power by following the check list. He observed that we were not in any danger of a lee shore, other marine traffic, shoals, etc. We were ok for awhile to just wallow in deep water. We then called our buddy boats on the VHF channel we all monitor and alerted them to our problem. And only then did Braun go to the engine room to fix the problem.
There are only a few things that will stop a marine diesel engine and most of the time an engine quits it is due to the fuel. Dirty fuel, lack of fuel, air in the fuel, etc. After we reached port we posted a description of our fuel problem and what Braun did to resolve it on the Nordhavn’s users group web site. We wanted to get some insight as to what caused the problem. Following is a copy of this posting. Warning, skip this unless you are really interested in technical details!
———————————————————————–
Summary:
On my Nordhavn 62 with a Lugger 6125 main engine I recently had my engines stop while underway because air got into the supply fuel lines (main, wing, and generator quit). After some effort I managed to bleed the engines and get them all running. At the next port I tested all the fuel transfer pumps, filters, etc. and cannot recreate how air got into the supply lines. There are several aspects to this problem and I am trying to determine why it occurred and how to prevent it from recurring.
Details:
While underway I was attempting to polish fuel using the Oberdorfer fuel transfer pump which pumps fuel into the return manifold. I realized the pump was running but would not pass fuel. The only time this condition has happened before was when I inadvertently drained a fuel tank dry when transferring or polishing fuel and thus ran the Oberdorfer pump dry. On this occasion although I had not run a tank dry and the Oberdorfer was running it would not pump.
Previously when the Oberdorfer would run but not pump, I switched to the Walbro “boost” pump and run it for a few minutes which apparently primes the lines and then I can start the Oberdorfer and it will pump.
Although this time I had not run a tank dry, in order to get the Oberdorfer to work I started the Walbro and noticed numerous large air bubbles (the size of dimes and quarters) bubble up inside the Racor 900 transfer filter bowl, along with the swirling fuel. This amount of air has never happened before. Sometimes there will be stream of small bubbles at startup and then they will stop.
On the Nord. 62s the Walbro pumps fuel (and air on this occasion)through the transfer filter then into the supply manifold and as I was operating the engines at the time apparently this air entered the engine supply lines and the engines stopped.
——————————————————————–
Ok, so now back to being dead in the water and miles from our destination. I called Braun topside from the engine room because Don Stabbert on one of our buddy boats – Starr, had called on the radio to suggest that he tow us while we were trying to fix the engines. His suggestion was a good one because we could continue to make way toward our destination and have a better chance of avoiding the approaching storm. We have planned for the emergency of having to be towed or towing another boat and have rehearsed techniques and preassembled the necessary gear. We have a towing bridle which is a 1 ¼ inch nylon line with chafe guard and an oversized shackle that we rig through the port and starboard hawse pipes.
With the towing bridle rigged, Starr back up to us and heaved a 1 inch line that they normally use for a stern anchor, which we fastened to the bridle’s shackle. Considering the calm conditions and the short amount of time that we anticipated towing, this line was adequate. If we were to tow longer or in rougher conditions we would have rigged a much stronger and longer tow connection with some chain in the middle, another bridle at Starr’s end, etc.
The rig worked fine and we were soon being towed effortlessly at 6.5 knots, with me at the wheel hand steering while Braun went back to fix the fuel system as described in the users group posting above.
He had success and we let go the tow line and steamed ahead to make Nagasaki just over an hour later than our original planned arrival time. Not too bad all things considered but not an experience I would wish to repeat!
Presently, we’re in a sweet little marina, Nagasaki Dejima Wharf. We have a good friend on board, Pierce Klemmt. He is, in fact, the Rector of our church, Christ Church in Alexandria, Va. He’s on a sabbatical and we are delighted he’s here for some R & R.
Maybe we’ll get that extended ‘blessing of the fleet’ after all!
Sayonara for now –
Grey Pearl clear –
Tina & Braun
p.s. By the way, we do not use the greypearl@ocens.net email anymore – thanks!
The GGSR group + one addition (motor vessel ‘Starr’) have made our way out of the Inland Sea of Japan and after enjoying the following ports.
Hiroshima – For the worst of reasons, Hiroshima needs no introduction.
As WWII dragged into the summer of 1945, The US decided to deploy an entirely new weapon to force Japan to surrender. On August 6, 1945 the B29 Bomber Enola Gay dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima. It exploded at 8:15am, 580 m (1900 ft) above the city center. Tens of thousands of people died and many more suffered from burns, wounds and radiation exposure. The final death toll as offered by the Hiroshima Peace memorial museum is “140,000 plus or minus 10,000”. Our planned visit to the Peace Memorial Museum and park was delightfully interrupted by the annual Flower Festival which was awesome! A parade, floats, kids dancing, exhibits galore, street food…all held on the last day of a very big holiday in Japan, Golden Week.
 |
 |
We did tour the Hiroshima Castle…a replica of the original built 1589. Photos were exhibited inside of what was left of this massive fortress and equally as massive stone walls that surrounded the castle – after the A-bomb – nothing was left. An OMG moment…
It’s heartwarming to see how well Hiroshima is thriving today…a prosperous, cosmopolitian and very attractive city with a healthy nightlife!
 |
All too soon it was time to leave Hiroshima and sail for Fukuoka City on the island of Kyushu. We would have to exit Japan’s Inland Sea, somewhat like exiting the Chesapeake Bay at Norfolk, except there are strong currents in Japan’s narrow exit. The Captain’s met and discussed when to set off from our quaint Kasado Bay anchorage and correctly schedule our exit into the ocean considering the 5-7 knot current in this narrow passageway, Kammon Kaikyo and, of course, there would be lots of commercial traffic (no kidding!)
 |
 |
 |
A Buddhist moment in Seoul…
As luck would have it, we happened upon the week long Lotus Lantern Festival in central Seoul. The festival is held to celebrate Buddha’s birthday on the eighth day of the fourth month of the lunar calendar and the scale of the celebration is beyond imagination. The climax of the festival is the Lantern Parade – which an estimated 300,000+ spectators attended. The paper lanterns for the over 2 hours long celebration vary in size, from smaller ones handmade by the parades over 30,000 participants to massive ones as in the photos. It was the biggest and most impressive parade we’ve been too!
 |
 |
We couldn’t visit Seoul without making a trip to the demilitarized zone, DMZ. Panmunjom is located in the Joint Security Area, which is in the DMZ, 35 miles from Seoul. The DMZ is the 150 mile long strip of land that separates North and South Korea. It has served as a buffer zone since the signing of the 1953 ceasefire agreement that ended the fighting during the Korean War…although the war itself has officially never ended. Located near the 38th parallel, the DMZ cuts the Korean peninsula roughly in half and separates the natural resources (in the north) from the breadbasket (in the south). Four kilometers wide, surrounded by barb wire and untouched by humans for over 5 years, the area has become an unintentional wildlife refuge. For us, the most interesting part of the tour was hiking underground and down 900 feet into one of the four infiltration tunnels discovered by the S. Koreans that the N. Koreans built in their efforts to invade S. Korea. This 3rd tunnel was discovered in 1978. It is large in scale and the S. Koreans claim that an army of 30,000 fully armed soldiers could pass through within an hour. The N. Koreans postured that they were not building a tunnel but mining for coal and painted the inside of the tunnel black…what they painted over was granite and certainly not coal. A 4th tunnel was discovered in 1990, and there is much speculation that there are additional undiscovered tunnels.
Our DMZ tour occurred on a rainy and foggy day, befitting the landscape and purpose. Once we cleared a few checkpoints, passports in hand, we didn’t see too much of N.Korea with the exception of some guard posts. All the S.Koreans we met speak optimistically and with certainty of an eventual reunification but when is the open question.
 |
 |
 |
there, too.
 |
For the engine to quit is extremely rare and over years of cruising thousands of miles across oceans this has happened only one other time. On this occasion we were in the company of fellow cruiser Scott Strickland who also is an aircraft pilot. Scott taught Braun what pilots do if an engine stops. They immediately run through this check list – 1. Aviate (stabilize the plane or boat) 2. Navigate (make sure you are not going hit something) 3. Communicate (tell interested parties what is wrong) and only then 4. Fix the problem. The obvious temptation is to get right to the problem but this can have disastrous consequences.
Braun reacted to the loss of power by following the check list. He observed that we were not in any danger of a lee shore, other marine traffic, shoals, etc. We were ok for awhile to just wallow in deep water. We then called our buddy boats on the VHF channel we all monitor and alerted them to our problem. And only then did Braun go to the engine room to fix the problem.
There are only a few things that will stop a marine diesel engine and most of the time an engine quits it is due to the fuel. Dirty fuel, lack of fuel, air in the fuel, etc. After we reached port we posted a description of our fuel problem and what Braun did to resolve it on the Nordhavn’s users group web site. We wanted to get some insight as to what caused the problem. Following is a copy of this posting. Warning, skip this unless you are really interested in technical details!
———————————————————————–
Summary:
On my Nordhavn 62 with a Lugger 6125 main engine I recently had my engines stop while underway because air got into the supply fuel lines (main, wing, and generator quit). After some effort I managed to bleed the engines and get them all running. At the next port I tested all the fuel transfer pumps, filters, etc. and cannot recreate how air got into the supply lines. There are several aspects to this problem and I am trying to determine why it occurred and how to prevent it from recurring.
Details:
While underway I was attempting to polish fuel using the Oberdorfer fuel transfer pump which pumps fuel into the return manifold. I realized the pump was running but would not pass fuel. The only time this condition has happened before was when I inadvertently drained a fuel tank dry when transferring or polishing fuel and thus ran the Oberdorfer pump dry. On this occasion although I had not run a tank dry and the Oberdorfer was running it would not pump.
- ANY SUGGESTIONS AS TO WHY THE OBERDORFER PUMP WOULD NOT PUMP FUEL?
Although this time I had not run a tank dry, in order to get the Oberdorfer to work I started the Walbro and noticed numerous large air bubbles (the size of dimes and quarters) bubble up inside the Racor 900 transfer filter bowl, along with the swirling fuel. This amount of air has never happened before. Sometimes there will be stream of small bubbles at startup and then they will stop.
On the Nord. 62s the Walbro pumps fuel (and air on this occasion)through the transfer filter then into the supply manifold and as I was operating the engines at the time apparently this air entered the engine supply lines and the engines stopped.
- HAS ANYONE HAD THIS HAPPEN BEFORE? WHAT CAUSED IT? HOW TO PREVENT IT FROM RECURRING?
Ok, so now back to being dead in the water and miles from our destination. I called Braun topside from the engine room because Don Stabbert on one of our buddy boats – Starr, had called on the radio to suggest that he tow us while we were trying to fix the engines. His suggestion was a good one because we could continue to make way toward our destination and have a better chance of avoiding the approaching storm. We have planned for the emergency of having to be towed or towing another boat and have rehearsed techniques and preassembled the necessary gear. We have a towing bridle which is a 1 ¼ inch nylon line with chafe guard and an oversized shackle that we rig through the port and starboard hawse pipes.
 |
The rig worked fine and we were soon being towed effortlessly at 6.5 knots, with me at the wheel hand steering while Braun went back to fix the fuel system as described in the users group posting above.
He had success and we let go the tow line and steamed ahead to make Nagasaki just over an hour later than our original planned arrival time. Not too bad all things considered but not an experience I would wish to repeat!
Presently, we’re in a sweet little marina, Nagasaki Dejima Wharf. We have a good friend on board, Pierce Klemmt. He is, in fact, the Rector of our church, Christ Church in Alexandria, Va. He’s on a sabbatical and we are delighted he’s here for some R & R.
Maybe we’ll get that extended ‘blessing of the fleet’ after all!
 |
Grey Pearl clear –
Tina & Braun
p.s. By the way, we do not use the greypearl@ocens.net email anymore – thanks!
SUBJECT: RE: Grey Pearl Bridge Report
Very cool. Thanks for sharing this with us
Stephan Quinn Cassaday, CFP , CFS
President
Cassaday & Company, Inc.
Please don’t keep us a secret! I am never too busy to be a resource for you, a family member, friend or colleague.
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From: blog-17828-comments@t… [mailto:blog-17828-comments@t…] On Behalf Of tina@p…
Sent: Saturday, May 29, 2010 10:28 PM
To: Grey Pearl
Subject: Grey Pearl Bridge Report
Ahoy Landlubbers!
The GGSR group + one addition (motor vessel ‘Starr’) have made our way out of the Inland Sea of Japan and after enjoying the following ports.
Hiroshima – For the worst of reasons, Hiroshima needs no introduction.
As WWII dragged into the summer of 1945, The US decided to deploy an entirely new weapon to force Japan to surrender. On August 6, 1945 the B29 Bomber Enola Gay dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima. It exploded at 8:15am, 580 m (1900 ft) above the city center. Tens of thousands of people died and many more suffered from burns, wounds and radiation exposure. The final death toll as offered by the Hiroshima Peace memorial museum is “140,000 plus or minus 10,000”. Our planned visit to the Peace Memorial Museum and park was delightfully interrupted by the annual Flower Festival which was awesome! A parade, floats, kids dancing, exhibits galore, street food…all held on the last day of a very big holiday in Japan, Golden Week.
Hiroshima’s Peace Memorial Museum presents a balanced narrative of events leading up to the war and the bombing. There are some pretty harrowing exhibits documenting the horror of what happened August 6th, 1945 and a depressing display showing the development of even more destructive weapons in the years since.
Photo of the A-Bomb Dome
We did tour the Hiroshima Castle…a replica of the original built 1589. Photos were exhibited inside of what was left of this massive fortress and equally as massive stone walls that surrounded the castle – after the A-bomb – nothing was left. An OMG moment…
It’s heartwarming to see how well Hiroshima is thriving today…a prosperous, cosmopolitian and very attractive city with a healthy nightlife!
Japanese chef cooking okonomikaki…delicious pancakes with the diner’s choice of separate layers of cabbage, bean sprouts, meat, fish and noodles…and, egg!
All too soon it was time to leave Hiroshima and sail for Fukuoka City on the island of Kyushu. We would have to exit Japan’s Inland Sea, somewhat like exiting the Chesapeake Bay at Norfolk, except there are strong currents in Japan’s narrow exit. The Captain’s met and discussed when to set off from our quaint Kasado Bay anchorage and correctly schedule our exit into the ocean considering the 5-7 knot current in this narrow passageway, Kammon Kaikyo and, of course, there would be lots of commercial traffic (no kidding!)
Arriving at Fukuoka we tied up in a nice marina beneath two large ferris wheels on Japan’s largest southernmost island, Kyushu. Japanese and their flights of fancy – ferris wheels…they appear in most of the larger cities we’ve visited, at least one and sometimes 2 or 3. We asked around about the attraction of so many ferris wheels and were told that not many dating couples have cars so the huge slow turning ferris wheels are the equivalent of the back seat of the car or at least that’s Braun’s take on it…consider the source!
We were not long in Fukuoka (say that three times!) when we rode the ‘Beetle’ (fast ferry) to Pusan, S. Korea and then took the high speed train to Seoul for a long weekend. We thoroughly enjoyed the contrasts. The three hour train ride north to Seoul offered nice views of green and hilly terrain and what seemed like miles and miles of greenhouses with a few villages here and there. Then…there’s Seoul, the second most densely populated city in the world just behind Tokyo. Love the energy in Seoul…it’s a rambling, crowded, exciting metropolis. The S. Koreans are far less reserved and more emotive than the Japanese, louder and a little pushy…in a nice way.
A Buddhist moment in Seoul…
As luck would have it, we happened upon the week long Lotus Lantern Festival in central Seoul. The festival is held to celebrate Buddha’s birthday on the eighth day of the fourth month of the lunar calendar and the scale of the celebration is beyond imagination. The climax of the festival is the Lantern Parade – which an estimated 300,000+ spectators attended. The paper lanterns for the over 2 hours long celebration vary in size, from smaller ones handmade by the parades over 30,000 participants to massive ones as in the photos. It was the biggest and most impressive parade we’ve been too!
Photos of lit lanterns along the canal
We couldn’t visit Seoul without making a trip to the demilitarized zone, DMZ. Panmunjom is located in the Joint Security Area, which is in the DMZ, 35 miles from Seoul. The DMZ is the 150 mile long strip of land that separates North and South Korea. It has served as a buffer zone since the signing of the 1953 ceasefire agreement that ended the fighting during the Korean War…although the war itself has officially never ended. Located near the 38th parallel, the DMZ cuts the Korean peninsula roughly in half and separates the natural resources (in the north) from the breadbasket (in the south). Four kilometers wide, surrounded by barb wire and untouched by humans for over 5 years, the area has become an unintentional wildlife refuge. For us, the most interesting part of the tour was hiking underground and down 900 feet into one of the four infiltration tunnels discovered by the S. Koreans that the N. Koreans built in their efforts to invade S. Korea. This 3rd tunnel was discovered in 1978. It is large in scale and the S. Koreans claim that an army of 30,000 fully armed soldiers could pass through within an hour. The N. Koreans postured that they were not building a tunnel but mining for coal and painted the inside of the tunnel black…what they painted over was granite and certainly not coal. A 4th tunnel was discovered in 1990, and there is much speculation that there are additional undiscovered tunnels.
Our DMZ tour occurred on a rainy and foggy day, befitting the landscape and purpose. Once we cleared a few checkpoints, passports in hand, we didn’t see too much of N.Korea with the exception of some guard posts. All the S.Koreans we met speak optimistically and with certainty of an eventual reunification but when is the open question.
Photo taken from the observation deck viewing North Korea
Back in Fukuoka, Japan, Carol Argosy from ‘Seabird’ scored some pro baseball tickets. We favored the Hanshin Tigers as they were from Osaka and they’re pretty popular there. Man oh man – they love their baseball! Everyone’s decked out in their favorite team colors or, in fact the actual full uniform. Here it differs some from back home – but not really…for example, it’s loud, there’s beer and they have these young girls that I’m not sure were of age to serve beer, carrying a nice size insulated keg on their back from which they serve draft beer. They also sell sake in the stand from similar containers. In addition, there’s dozens of bento boxes to choose from at the concession stand! Yep, nothing says indigestion like a rice bowl and French fries washed down with a Japanese tall boy beer…ugh. We had a blast in spite of our team losing.
Japanese baseball fans! Carol, Steven, Don & Sharry..Ken & Roberta were
there, too.
And now for an anecdote as to why cruising is not all a bed of roses. While underway from the anchorage at Kawachi Wan to the city of Nagasaki we experienced what every long distance passage maker dreads – the engine stopped. We were miles from shore, five hours from our destination and trying to make an arrival deadline to avoid a fast approaching storm and suddenly no propulsion power!
For the engine to quit is extremely rare and over years of cruising thousands of miles across oceans this has happened only one other time. On this occasion we were in the company of fellow cruiser Scott Strickland who also is an aircraft pilot. Scott taught Braun what pilots do if an engine stops. They immediately run through this check list – 1. Aviate (stabilize the plane or boat) 2. Navigate (make sure you are not going hit something) 3. Communicate (tell interested parties what is wrong) and only then 4. Fix the problem. The obvious temptation is to get right to the problem but this can have disastrous consequences.
Braun reacted to the loss of power by following the check list. He observed that we were not in any danger of a lee shore, other marine traffic, shoals, etc. We were ok for awhile to just wallow in deep water. We then called our buddy boats on the VHF channel we all monitor and alerted them to our problem. And only then did Braun go to the engine room to fix the problem.
There are only a few things that will stop a marine diesel engine and most of the time an engine quits it is due to the fuel. Dirty fuel, lack of fuel, air in the fuel, etc. After we reached port we posted a description of our fuel problem and what Braun did to resolve it on the Nordhavn’s users group web site. We wanted to get some insight as to what caused the problem. Following is a copy of this posting. Warning, skip this unless you are really interested in technical details!
———————————————————————–
Summary:
On my Nordhavn 62 with a Lugger 6125 main engine I recently had my engines stop while underway because air got into the supply fuel lines (main, wing, and generator quit). After some effort I managed to bleed the engines and get them all running. At the next port I tested all the fuel transfer pumps, filters, etc. and cannot recreate how air got into the supply lines. There are several aspects to this problem and I am trying to determine why it occurred and how to prevent it from recurring.
Details:
While underway I was attempting to polish fuel using the Oberdorfer fuel transfer pump which pumps fuel into the return manifold. I realized the pump was running but would not pass fuel. The only time this condition has happened before was when I inadvertently drained a fuel tank dry when transferring or polishing fuel and thus ran the Oberdorfer pump dry. On this occasion although I had not run a tank dry and the Oberdorfer was running it would not pump.
1. ANY SUGGESTIONS AS TO WHY THE OBERDORFER PUMP WOULD NOT PUMP FUEL?
Previously when the Oberdorfer would run but not pump, I switched to the Walbro “boost” pump and run it for a few minutes which apparently primes the lines and then I can start the Oberdorfer and it will pump.
Although this time I had not run a tank dry, in order to get the Oberdorfer to work I started the Walbro and noticed numerous large air bubbles (the size of dimes and quarters) bubble up inside the Racor 900 transfer filter bowl, along with the swirling fuel. This amount of air has never happened before. Sometimes there will be stream of small bubbles at startup and then they will stop.
On the Nord. 62s the Walbro pumps fuel (and air on this occasion)through the transfer filter then into the supply manifold and as I was operating the engines at the time apparently this air entered the engine supply lines and the engines stopped.
1. HAS ANYONE HAD THIS HAPPEN BEFORE? WHAT CAUSED IT? HOW TO PREVENT IT FROM RECURRING?
——————————————————————–
Ok, so now back to being dead in the water and miles from our destination. I called Braun topside from the engine room because Don Stabbert on one of our buddy boats – Starr, had called on the radio to suggest that he tow us while we were trying to fix the engines. His suggestion was a good one because we could continue to make way toward our destination and have a better chance of avoiding the approaching storm. We have planned for the emergency of having to be towed or towing another boat and have rehearsed techniques and preassembled the necessary gear. We have a towing bridle which is a 1 inch nylon line with chafe guard and an oversized shackle that we rig through the port and starboard hawse pipes.
With the towing bridle rigged, Starr back up to us and heaved a 1 inch line that they normally use for a stern anchor, which we fastened to the bridle’s shackle. Considering the calm conditions and the short amount of time that we anticipated towing, this line was adequate. If we were to tow longer or in rougher conditions we would have rigged a much stronger and longer tow connection with some chain in the middle, another bridle at Starr’s end, etc.
The rig worked fine and we were soon being towed effortlessly at 6.5 knots, with me at the wheel hand steering while Braun went back to fix the fuel system as described in the users group posting above.
He had success and we let go the tow line and steamed ahead to make Nagasaki just over an hour later than our original planned arrival time. Not too bad all things considered but not an experience I would wish to repeat!
Presently, we’re in a sweet little marina, Nagasaki Dejima Wharf. We have a good friend on board, Pierce Klemmt. He is, in fact, the Rector of our church, Christ Church in Alexandria, Va. He’s on a sabbatical and we are delighted he’s here for some R & R.
Maybe we’ll get that extended ‘blessing of the fleet’ after all!
Sayonara for now –
Grey Pearl clear –
Tina & Braun
p.s. By the way, we do not use the greypearl@o… email anymore – thanks!
You can access the blog entry here.
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