It’s been forever since my previous post due to various reasons, all of them equally unsatisfactory and one of them the beloved boat itself. It’s been causing lots of headache and is not even set to sea yet due to some technical reasons. We are optimistic, however, that we can still spend the holiday out on the sea. But in this posting, I will explain what can go wrong and why sometimes the boat is more like a curse than a blessing.
Where the boat should not be in the middle of June
The engineering part of the story is that the boat’s heat exchanger is old and leaky, and there are no spares available for such an old device within our time limits. The heat exchanger is a critical part of the motor: it’s job is to cool the engine using sea water and without it, the motor cannot run for more than few minutes at maximum. Our solution at this point is to continue life with the old device and hope for the best, even though every mechanic would tell me it needs to be replaced immediately. The old thing, however, might actually work but the dark side is that there is no guarantee. Enjoying the holiday while waiting for the worst case scenario to happen can be tricky: I have some experience of this and I will try to explain how it works for me.
Suspecting a technical problem in a boat’s engine is a multi-level pain in the bottom. First, it is not easy to enjoy driving the boat. Any unfamiliar sound or change in the running rhythm makes you skip a heart beat, so trying to enjoy sunshine and sipping beer while driving is not as fun as it would otherwise. One also needs to monitor the engine’s condition constantly through various gauges, such as oil pressure, engine temperature, or coolant amount. Any one of these moves a millimeter, and you start thinking the final crash (engine failure) is near. Second, one needs to prepare at least in the mental level for emergency stop where the boat loses all maneuverability and speed. In this case, the only possibility is to call for help -which is well available in Finland- and set the anchor before hitting a rock. This is always a hassle that one wants to avoid, even though it is hardly ever dangerous or life threatening. Third, the long term drive plan is at risk. If the engine fails in the beginning of one’s holiday, this can mean change in four weeks of plans unless the failure is somehow repairable. This really sucks, especially if you have joint-planned with friends, family, and so on.
Most of the boaters do not suffer from any of this. Engines run just fine and the newer the boat, the less risk there is. And even if the technology would be old, not many boaters expect the problems anyway, even though they perhaps should. But our boat is 40-years-old and, as explained earlier, we plan to start the holiday with a faulty heat exchanger which can cause all sorts of problems. There are similar situations outside the boating world: if you plan a trip with a car that is technically unsound, or are two days into your own wedding and feel a little bit sick, you would also face the same scenario. This means that everything is likely to go well, but you cannot be sure of this and you half expect a disaster until the plan is close to completed. Any small sign of a technical problem in the car or decrease in healthiness makes you hit the emergency button. But still, it is a risk worth taking!
The boat season is heating up in the Baltic sea and I hope to join the party! If it happens, I will write a more optimistic posting of how it goes and how the summer treats Finnish archipelago. If the engine fails in the first running hour, a change of holiday plans is required. But maybe that will be a story worth posting, too.