The engine's days are numbered!

The events of Sunday were the final nail in our big red Bukh's coffin. We had a great, (read: completely non-eventful) 29 hour trip from Largs.

It was sad to be leaving Scotland, a beautiful country that had meant so much to both of us over the past year and to see the lights fade away over a watch, then get up and for her not to be there anymore was a strange feeling.

There was little or no wind for the trip, but the engine hadn't missed a beat, it ran perfectly and smoothly all the way. But when it refused to start, we had the indescribable sinking feeling we never got used to when something with the engine went wrong. I looked in the engine compartment and noticed a line of salt deposits running around the exhaust elbow from the exhaust manifold. This could have been far worse for us, as one day cleaning out the depths of Pixie's lockers I had found a spare.

This didn't however sort out why the engine wouldn't start. Rooting around the engine I noticed That below the cracked exhaust elbow was the connector for the engines electrics, and the water that had leaked from the crack in the exhaust has corroded some of the terminals. I couldn't be sure but it seemed likely. Whatever had caused it the cracked exhaust elbow had to be replaced, so I set to work removing it from the engine. It was corroded on to it's bracket, so it seemed like a good time to phone the experts. Dick got the number of an engineer from the helpful people in the marina office. Good news he could make it the next morning. It meant we would miss our tide window, but there was nothing else we could do so we headed out for a Guinness and a steak.

Around 10:30 the engineer arrived, took a look at the exhaust elbow and it's replacement and then took them both away with him, about 30 mins later he returned with the old elbow in 3 parts and the new one fitted on the bracket. About an hour later it was installed, the corroded wires connected and the engine was running smoothly again.

I spent the rest of the morning photographing Howth and attaching various bits of kit and wiring to Pixie. I've added a rely to our SmartGauge to switch off the Ultrasonic Antifouling if the batteries drop to below a certain voltage. I've wired the Simrad autopilot into Pixie's instruments to take advantage of its advanced features, and finally I've wired up the Digital Yachts WLN10 which transmits Pixie's instrument data to my iPhone wirelessly. It's not a piece of kit we need but it's for a piece I'm writing for Yachting Monthly. In the evening we took a Horton walk up the hill to a restaurant called Ella, the food was excellent and not to be missed.