Quijote Fan Club

I made a couple of discoveries during my engine check last night. My engine check is routine. I do it every night (or the following morning) after the engine has had time to cool. I start by looking at the oil on the dip stick. Quantity and quality. It gets slowly darker as the trip proceeds. Then I check the sea strainer to see if the bowl has anything but sea water in it. I check the coolant level, the fuel filter, and the fan belt tension. The fuel filter has a clear reservoir, so if water finds its way into the fuel it will be visible. The coolant slowly depletes, due to a slow leak in one of the water heater hose connections that I've opted to "keep an eye on" rather than deal with. The fan belt was replaced a couple years ago so I've been operating under the assumption that it's in good condition. I give it a poke to check the tension, then look down over the back of the engine to see if there is any black dust under the fan belt, indicating abnormal wear.

All seemed well when I did last night's check, but I noticed something unexpected while visually checking hose fittings. Where two hoses are in contact with each other, the engine vibration has worn a hole in one of the hoses. The compromised hose is the cockpit scupper. When out in the open ocean, if a following wave fills the cockpit, the scuppers give all that water somewhere to go: back out to sea through two large diameter hoses. That's not likely to happen in this trip, but I wanted a better look at the problem. I removed the companionway stairs to access the forward side of the engine room. I put some padding between the two hoses to keep them from abrading any further. The scupper hose will need to be replaced. Future Rod can deal with it when he fixes the coolant leak. I love delegating to Future Rod. He'll do anything. Eventually.

With the forward side of the engine exposed, I turned to the fan belt. It was in much worse shape than I expected, given its age. Long segments of the inner edge of the belt were gone. I'm sure it wouldn't have been long before I tried to start it up one morning and found it unable to charge the battery or cool the engine which would run, but be unable to turn the alternator or water pump.

So this morning Quijote got a new fan belt.

Burgers on the barbie for dinner tonight. I put a pound of hamburger in a large bowl, added an egg, 1/4C of cut up oats (in lieu of quick oats), salt, pepper, Worcestershire sauce, diced onion, diced mushrooms. This is how mom used to make burgers when I was a kid. She would have used onion soup mix, but we don't have any, so diced onions will have to do.