Sunday April 19 2015
Don’t let these pictures fool you… Today was stressful and one I’ll never forget. If you can tell, that sailboat is not mine, it is the one I was helping my friend Derek through the process of finding. It’s an awesome boat, hunter 33, fully loaded and in great shape. Sails wonderfully. He has it docked in San Pedro - aka “hurricane gulch” - We left the dock and I steered us out because he and his girlfriend have never really done sailing before. After getting into a main channel I noticed the engine water temperature was climbing to 160, 180, 200 and then the alarm went off. I just off the engine and unfurled the jib so that we weren’t a sitting duck. The wind was already 15-20mph and we just sailed downwind inside the breakwall whole Derek called the previous owner to figure out what i could be. At that time I went below to see if the raw water intake was open- it was not - at that second is when the previous owner was yelling at Derek through the phone. When we started the engine water was spitting out the back so I assumed the sea cock was open and cooling the engine. By the time we figured that out and let the engine cool, took some pictures and tried to enjoy everything, we made it all the way south past long beach and into Los Alamitos. I figured we round up to the wind and start the engine, see if it keeps cool, and if not we can raise the main and being the long tack back. The engine began to overheat so that’s exactly what we did. It was getting windier, darker, cloudier, colder with a reefed jib and a mainsail dumping a lot of the wind we weren’t making great headway. We tried the engine one more time and dropped the mainsail with hopes to just motor into the wind and back it to the dock before dark. The engine gave us about 3 minutes until it climbed past 180 and I shut it off. At that time I wanted to sail just to get us as close as possible and suggested to Derek that we call a tow to bring us into the dock. It was howling wind and my friends new sailboat- no way I wanted to act cocky and hurt anything or anyone. We made close to the marina when the tow boat met us and towed us in, then he side-tied us and brought us into the dock just as it got dark. My friend was frustrated and discouraged, as expected, but I assured him that he can learn from this and that nothing catastrophic could’ve happened because the engine was 20-30 degrees hot for a minute at a time. There’s got to be something like an air lock in the thermostat, a hose, or something relatively simple. The engine never leaked or visually damaged any parts.

We also discovered the need to adjust the roller furler and replace the bilge pump. As perfect as this boat is as a used boat, it still (like every boat) needs some attention.

I’m glad we all were safe and over than some dock scuffs, nothing else was damaged