Is it “sailing” when you are in a motor yacht or “motoring?” Anyway, the plan was to have Captain Jeff pick up the boat in Laurel Harbor Saturday afternoon and take it to Atlantic City. After hurricane Sandy, Laurel Harbor became very shallow, making it impossible to leave unless it was high tide. This meant that we could not get on the water early enough to make the trip in one day. We (Lyn, my son Chase, and his friend James) were to meet him Sunday morning and leave for Neshaminy, in Croydon Pa, our home marina.
We decided it would be fun to spend the night on the boat, so we went to Atlantic City Saturday night. She was docked at the Golden Nugget Marina which has a restaurant called the Chart House. Martinis and appetizers! A perfect way to celebrate our new adventure – until the phone call.
It was Captain Jeff, calling from his home. There was a problem with the boat. Every time he took the RPMs up over 2000 the temperature on the starboard engine would start to rise. As soon as he backed the engine down it would return to normal temperature. Because of this, he had to travel at 10 knots during the first leg of the trip. After docking the boat, he had taken a taxi back to his house to spend the night and come back with some tools in the morning. His hope was that there was something clogging the heat exchanger or, better yet, he picked up some debris in the intake strainer and it would settle out by morning.
Unfortunately, it was neither. We left Atlantic City at 9:00am and as soon as we tried to take her up on plane the temperature started to rise. Our choice was to stop somewhere to have the problem fixed, or keep on going at 10 knots.
We decided to keep on going. It would take an extra day to get home, and another day’s pay for the Captain, but that seemed much better than dropping the boat off to be fixed and having to reschedule the whole trip. Besides, the gas savings from traveling at hull speed would cover the Captain’s extra pay.
On a brighter note, the weather was fantastic, the water was incredibly calm, and I had a lot of time to pick the Captain’s brain.
