Yesterday, I took my daughter and my wife's Uncle Thom (who is generally the sailing mentor being an old salty dog) out into the estuary to practice motoring and docking. All was going well for the first hour.
Then we picked up two sort-of cousins who are staying with Thom to motor further down towards Jack London Sq. About a half hour later and past two draw bridges, I heard the tone of the motor exhaust change. Checking for water coming out the back, and not seeing any, I immediately killed the Yanmar. Luckily we were in a relatively wide part of the channel and even though there was a slight tide, there wasn't much wind at all so we didn't have to put in an anchor.
Thom and I went below, and the cousins (who are in their twenties and very chill guys) played some cards with my kid to keep her busy.
We localized the problem to the water pump, which I've learned is pretty much the go to culprit. We took off the hoses and pump, after determining that it was further than the intake hose or strainer. The impeller find all looked good and were pliable so the usual broken fin wasn't the issue.
Unsure how much time we had to test things, we had also called BoatUS, which is the AAA of the water. And just like AAA, they estimated an hour before rescue. Amazingly, our position in the estuary stayed relatively the same. And while Thom and I discussed possible issues,Phil's Vessel Assist arrived. Another amazing thing is that other than sheer abuse of the system, BoatUS has no limit on tows or rescues. Well worth the expense--more so than AAA.
Phil towed us through the two bridge and expertly docked us despite boats on either side of our dock location. Then we called it a day for the boat and hurried to make my daughter's soccer game.
Then I returned to the boat this morning with Thom, and we got it all figured out. Pulled the pump again and yanked the impeller to learn that the impeller inner ring had somehow disconnected from the rubber fins, so it wouldn't soon. Luckily the previous owner had a replacement impeller and paper gasket on board (I ordered two more of each!). So with another hour on board, the motor fired up and water was expelling out the transom again. Phew.
(Now, I haven't written about the difficulty in getting the pump bolts off in the first place and my and Thom's idea to start our own YouTube series with tons of swearing and ending with what we expected would be a Yanmar service technician out there finally fixing things. Luckily it didn't come to that.)
I only have photos of the rescue from BoatUS, not the water pump repair. Oh well.
