The account of my sailing adventure to St. Helens & back.

My dream for independent sailing was to be able to tackle the mighty Columbia via sail power and to learn the art of motor sailing. This boat our family bought is great for both, but being a “hand-me-down” from several owners and having been rebuilt by our crew, I thought it prudent to do a “shake-down trip.” With any pre-big adventure you need a shake down trip. To tell you where to “beef up” or upgrade. In hiking trips, you find out that your 20 yr. old back pack just doesn’t cut it anymore. In Biking you find out your chain doesn’t spin anymore. In sailing you find the loose turn buckles, loose nuts, motor glitches, and other stuff.

Our trip took off with quite a surprising fo-pah. The motor didn’t start… I pulled and pulled and pulled and nothing did it. With a can of starter fluid at the ready I pondered the inner-workings of a marine outboard. The answer came to me briefly before what the problem might be… Flooded engine. Fuel had pooled into the cylinders and the motor was too soaked to start. Of course there’s your problem so what to do about it? Let it drain? That might take hours and we didn’t have that… Solution 2.. Pump it out. Through a stroke of genius I pulled the motor cord 6 or 8 times with the gas hose not connected. I saw that oily, gassy, filth run out into the river (sorry) and once convinced I re-hooked up the gas and gave it a pull.. Nothing for the first pull, but the second pull turned that innate lifeless motor into a bustling, vigorous, powerful machine. Beaten and bloody.. I collapsed in the cockpit to tend to my busted knuckle. Tink came around and was pleasantly surprised to see that Honda rumble in the water, “Let’s turn it off and turn it on to see if it’ll do it again!” she exclaimed. I sat there lifeless, but the pain in my right hand turned into bewilderment… “you want me to do what?” I remarked sarcastically “Oh.. I guess since you got it running you don’t want to turn it off huh?” she replied… “yeah.” Tink proceeded on to clean the boat down… Every nut and dust particle was swept. Roughly half and hour later we were ready to rumble. 

After leaving the dock, I noticed almost immediately that our rudder & tiller felt shaky and out of place. It creaked, and jolted, and if left un-manned would nearly throw a person over board. Tink made a note in the log of the unusual occurrence and after some convincing “negotiations” made me turn the boat around towards our Marina. 

Toiling over what could have been the matter… I knew if I could get that Honda to run I could get the tiller straightened out… straighten out THAT’S IT! Looking at it closer I realized the tiller was 180 degrees backward. I promptly swung that tiller around facing forwards and we headed out to test my theory… Yep.. Problem solved.. On to St. Helens.

To be continued.

~J out

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