CruiseNews #7
Date:  7/16/99
Port of call:  Newport, RI (still)
Subject:  The $92 O-ring and Other Unbelievable Tales

You wouldn't think that--on a sailboat--an engine would be all that important.  After all, sailboats are supposed to SAIL.  But after 16 days of being mostly without an engine, we can say that an engine transforms our boat from a camp site to a home.  The engine is what gives us electricity, hot water, refrigeration, and fresh water, as well as locomotion.  You can imagine, then, how happy we were to have the engine run today without dripping any oil (at least not that we could detect).

We tried for about the first two weeks to fix the leak in the oil cooler in a manner that was appropriate with our cruising budget.  With the help of Glyn Johnson on Wandering Star, we dismantled, assembled, fabricated, and epoxied our way out of a dazzling array of problems.  Glyn's ingenuity and perseverance are amazing, and we are deeply indebted to him for his help, and to Jenny for her tea and good cheer at the end of particularly discouraging days.

We thought that everything was finally working properly after being able to run the engine for two one-hour periods without losing any oil, so we made an appointment at a nearby boatyard to have some welding done on an unrelated problem.  On the way to the boatyard, the low oil alarm went off again, and we had to shut down the engine before reaching the slip.  This, combined with an unknown spike sticking out of the dock, caused us to gouge the beautifully painted topsides of Sovereign as we tied up at the boatyard.

Sovereign and the big boys at Newport Shipyard
With things going from bad to worse quickly, we decided to start throwing some REAL money at our problems.  (We have found in the past that boats usually respond well to having large sums of money thrown at their problems.)  We ordered the genuine, factory replacement oil cooler from BMW (at about 15% of the price of a new engine) and had it shipped "next day air".  We got the boatyard busy on our welding, giving us an estimate for a new engine, and painting our brand new gouges.

Yesterday evening we tried bolting on the new oil cooler, only to find that the new one also leaked oil around the seal to the engine block.  We gave up for the night and decided on a fresh start today.  After pulling the oil cooler, we found that on installing it yesterday, the o-ring that forms the seal must have come loose during our final installation and gotten crimped between the engine block and the oil cooler, causing the leak and destroying the o-ring.

We knew from our previous conversations with the BMW parts people that we had already gotten the last of the $15 BMW o-rings in the country.  We also knew from tramping around Newport that no one in town carried o-rings as large as the one we needed.  The answer everyplace we asked was always "The Hose Connection" in Tiverton, RI.  After calling to make sure they had o-rings large enough, and consulting a map to make sure we couldn't get there by foot or bus, we called a cab for the ride to Tiverton.

Unfortunately, we didn't realize how far away Tiverton is from Newport.  After about a $40 cab ride, we were finally at the shop.  A foray by one of the employees into the stock room yielded an o-ring a bit too large that wouldn't work, and we started getting really worried.   But another trip back into the stock room brought a ring that was pretty close, and looked like it would work.  We bought 3, and 3 of another size o-ring that had gone "swimming" in the bilge and was listed as missing and presumed dead.  Total price for all 6 rings was $2.

We got back in the cab for the ride back to Newport.  The final fare, with tip, was $90.  Plus two dollars for the o-rings gives us the $92 o-rings.  That's not too bad when, at $15 each, BMW would have charged us $90 for 6 o-rings, and taken 6 weeks to get.  We can chalk the $2 premium up to "shipping and handling".

So, now we have hot water, cold drinks, and enough electricity to run the blender.  With a favorable weather forecast, we might actually get to leave Newport tomorrow!  Keep your fingers crossed, say an extra prayer for us, and hope you don't get any more e-mail from Newport for a while!

Smooth sailing,

Jim and Cathy