Monday, May 7, 2018

Coinjock NC to Solomons MD

—Blogpost written by Bob


Coinjock NC to Norfolk VA



It is Saturday, May 5, 2018. This morning’s temperature was a cool 66 degrees as I washed down the accumulation of dark mud on our sailboat’s decks. We are looking at only a 38-mile day today, so we are taking our time leaving the dock. We’re planning to snag a free slip just south of the Great Bridge lock for the night and go through the lock first thing on Sunday morning. 

We helped a single handler get his sailboat, a Kaiser 34 built in Wilmington DE, out of the crowded dock this morning. The tidal current was moving south and the wind was blowing north. In terms of moving a sailboat, the tidal current usually determines the most about the boat’s motion. We’ll be motoring against this tidal current when we leave.


Transiting the ICW after leaving Coinjock. 

We left Coinjock Marina at 8:30 AM, a very late start of the day for us but it was nice having a leisurely morning for a change.

We motored away from Coinjock, briefly into the Currituck Sound and then, into the North Landing River. It was windy but not nearly as windy as yesterday with its 15 to 25 knots of wind.  There was about a one foot chop on the water’s surface.  The helm was very manageable today.

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Our chart plotter is not producing tracks any longer. Yesterday I got an error message about memory for the track being exceeded—I had no other option than to click “OK” to the error message and continue on. I forgot to look into it further last night. (I guess I was just so overwhelmed with my hot shower and excellent prime rib dinner.) I’ll have to look into it further when we stop for the day.

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As we crossed into Virginia, the river narrowed and eventually became a man-made canal, the Abermarle-Chesapeake Canal.


Entering the lock at Great Bridge VA on May 5.


We went through the North Landing Swing Bridge (which opened on the hour and half hour) as well as the Centerville Turnpike Swing Bridge which opened on request since it was a weekend.

As we got to the bridge at Great Bridge, it was opening.  So, we proceeded right into the lock and right past where we originally planned to stay for the night.  We exited the lock at 2:20 PM and by 3 PM we were through the Gilmerton Lift Bridge!


The Gilmerton Lift Bridge opens for three
sailboats, including us, to pass under.


We anchored in Norfolk VA at Hospital Point (MM 0 on the ICW) at 4:30 PM. We had a nice grilled dinner after a somewhat hair-raising anchoring experience in soft black mud.


The view looking east from our Hospital
Point anchorage in Norfolk.  Waterside 

is on the left side of this image.


One of the many shipyards in Norfolk.


We decided on Deltaville for tomorrow’s destination because that is about one third the distance to Galesville, where our boatyard is located.


Norfolk to Deltaville



The rain started at 3 AM this morning, Sunday, May 6. It rained hard at times. We finally got underway at 8 AM after bailing out the dinghy and retrieving the FORTRESS from his resting place on the bottom—it held us fine last night though I was concerned about the soft mud bottom. It was still racing hard when we left our anchorage. 


Leaving Norfolk in the driving rain. 


It took us two hours to get from Hospital Point in Norfolk to the Chesapeake Bay. Along the way a large guided missile destroyer was on it way in to port and a large container ship was on its way out of Norfolk.

It was an absolutely miserable day on the water with rain in the morning and fog in the early afternoon.  The fog was so thick that we had only 100 feet visibility at one time.  We had to navigate by instruments alone.  As we approached Deltaville the fog cleared but then reappeared a few hours after we arrived.


We arrived in Deltaville VA at 4 PM and got
a slip at Dozier's Yachting Center.


Deltaville VA to Solomons MD



We left Doziers Yachting Center in Deltaville VA at 7 AM on Monday, May 7. It was a cool 58 degrees and the sky was overcast as we traveled out the channel, into the Rappahannock River, and turned north on the Chesapeake Bay.  Visibility was about 2 miles.  The wind was blowing 12 knots out of the northeast and, of course, we’re headed almost directly into the wind.  The trip ahead of us today is about 53 nautical miles.

We passed Windmill Point at 9 AM when we changed shifts at the helm. It was a rocky ride in the 2 to 2-1/2 foot chop. 


Taking on a wave on the choppy bay.


There are a lot of crab pots around the mouth of the Rappahannock—we put a throw cushion on the helm seat (acting like a booster seat) to give us a little more visibility of the crab pots.  At 2300 RPM (our normal cruising engine speed) we are only doing 5 knots of boat speed into the chop, at least 1-1/2 knots lower than normal conditions.

About 12:30 PM I went below for some reason and I was shocked to see the bilge covers floating and water gushing out of the spaces between the floor boards.  I quickly removed the bilge covers and started the bilge pump.  I went outside and started pumping with the manual bilge pump until I had removed all the bilge water.  Then I checked the float switch and found that it was sticking--so, after using it up and down a few times, it worked properly again.  After I dealt with the large volume of water and sought out the source of the water--it was coming from the shaft seal.  We slowed the engine down to a crawl and the in leakage virtually stopped.  As soon as we applied some load on the engine, the leakage started again.  I adjusted the collar on the shaft seal so as to apply more compressive load but it did not help at all.  In addition, we had no propulsion, even though the shaft was able to rotate.  At 1 PM we called TowBoatUS on our cell phone to get towed into Solomons.  We arrived at Zahnizer's Marina at 10 PM in the dark.


It took 5 hours for us to be towed into Solomons.

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While being towed, I wrote down all the information relevant to the situation we experienced so that we could carefully examine everything in the morning with Zahnizer's staff.


Symptoms in Order



After leaving Norfolk yesterday, our boat speed wasn’t up to normal. Despite a favorable tidal current, we could only do 5.5 knots.  We thought this was very unusual. (Our normal cruising boat speed is 6.5 knots at 2300 RPMs without any tidal currents.)

This morning after leaving Deltaville, we experienced the same low boat speed. At one point we noticed that our bilge level was alarmingly high. The float switch got hung up. We used the electric bilge pump and our manual bilge pump to pump all the bilge water out. 

After cleaning the float switch the automatic bilge pump worked fine.  However, there was a lot of water coming in through the shaft seal when underway.  There also appeared to be a lot of engine vibration regardless of RPM.  The leakage was so great that I didn’t think the bilge pump could keep up with it.

We shut off the engine and I adjusted the collar on the shaft seal.  We restarted the engine and the problem persisted.  At this point, we could not get the boat to move forward with the engine and we heard a (squealing) noise come from the transmission/shaft seal area.  We immediately shut down the engine at this point. (Without the engine running we had no shaft seal leakage.)

We called TowBoatUS for a tow into Solomon’s at 1 PM. I called Luke at Hartge's Yacht Yard for advice and he thought the excessive vibration may be caused by something wrapped around the prop, which in turn caused the shaft seal to leak.  Maggie dove into the cold water and checked the prop—she found nothing wrapped around it but noticed some barnacles on some of the prop blades.

While we were waiting for the tow boat to arrive we sailed around our phoned in position using the only our jib.  At this point, I noticed the shaft turning freely.  Putting the transmission in forward or reverse made no difference to the shaft spinning.

As we were being towed into Solomons the shaft spun freely without leakage from the shaft seal and there were some strange (clanging) noises coming from beneath the hull.

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Tomorrow morning we will try to resolve the problem.  Stay tuned...


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1 comment:

  1. Cutlass bearing, flopping causing vibration and shaft wandering in the seal. Sorry to hear. We are still in Oriental, sitting out weather.
    Chuck and Mary.

    ReplyDelete