Wing - How boat things work : an illustrated guide

HOW Boat Things WORK

AN ILLUSTRATED GUIDE

CHARLIE WING

This slim volume is dedicated to Bill Fulton who, more than any other, shares my childish enthusiasm for how boat things work.

Copyright 2004, 2007 by Charlie Wing. All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the United States Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

ISBN: 978-007-151108-7

MHID: 0-07-151108-3

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We moved aboard Puffin, our 39-foot Southern Cross cutter, in 1986. In October of that year, my wife and I departed Portland, Maine to follow the sun to the Caribbean. In retrospect we neither knew what we were doing, nor what lay over the horizon. Experienced sailors wont be surprised to hear that we made it barely to Long Island Sound before a problem arose.

We were motoring through The Race when we became aware of a new and different sound, a sound from the engine compartment not unlike that of ball bearings being thrown about in a washing machine. It didnt sound dangerous, but neither did it sound healthy. In an instant my position as captain was reduced to that of incompetent engineer. I didnt have a clue.

As I stared at the mass of metal from which the sound emanated, I tried to picture what was happening inside. Does it need oil? How can one tell? And what kind of oil if it does? Maybe I should stop the engine. If I dont stop it, will the damage increase? After we reached port I considered unbolting the transmission and taking a look inside. What stopped me was the fear that, once unbolted from the engine, all of the oil, gears, clutches, shafts and who-knows-what-else would literally spill into the bilge. Of course we called a certified diesel mechanic who, at great expense, unbolted the transmission and took it away to the transmission hospital. And no, nothing fell outnot even a drop of oil.

This sort of scene played out several more times on our journey south. A guest attempted to flush the better part of a roll of Bounty paper towels down the head. She nearly succeeded, but the fibrous mass finally hung up somewhere within the bowels of the Crown Imperial and, once again, I found myself trying to imagine the inner workings of the china throne.

Another time we were backing out of a marina slip, perilously close to a million-dollar yacht, when the shift linkage parted. The 22,000-pound