Another first...

I was not expecting to do an oil change so soon. I had anticipated doing it in 12 months, or before the Atlantic crossing, but while diagnosing the voltage drop between the starboard engine alternator and the DC/DC service battery charger (more on that below) I noticed a short hose near the base of the engine looked like a repair saturated in oil. I compared port side engine and the same hose existed in good condition, so I conclude it is a genuine part that perhaps is near it’s end of life. Failure of this part would result in complete loss of all oil in the engine, not only a mess in the engine bay but a high risk of significant damage to the engine, and of course no propulsion on starboard.

Circled in red

It is hard to evaluate the level of probability and hence risk, but we’re not in a rush to get anywhere until November and so we can afford not to take unnecessary risks. We contacted a couple of French yanmar dealers up the coast in the direction we planned to travel before a bank holiday weekend and had a response from two, of whom we went back to the one in Roscoff and he confirmed he could get the part within a week. Then... the bank holiday came (on a Thursday), which in France means Friday is a vacation too, of course Saturday and Sunday too, and this company don’t work Mondays! We tried to call them Tuesday morning and only got an answer phone response. Now having lost a full five days of time for the part to be shipped we start to become frustrated and arrived in Roscoff as planned, knocked on their door and they’re closed for lunch until 2:30pm. Grrrr.

At 2.30 we returned met one of the workers who contacted his boss, the relayed message was that my emails have been read but not replied too. I call again this time to speak to a young lady who tells me that the boss is busy and the part is no longer available. FFS! I have no problem naming and shaming Chantier Naval Canantec/Roscoff, you really messed us around.

Meanwhile, we had contacted a dutch firm DTR who have now taken our order and shipped the part internationally to us here in L’Aber Wrac’h, the last outpost before the Chenal du Four, the area we won’t enter without full confidence in all systems. And here we have been ‘stuck’ waiting, there could be many worse places to be stuck, but the winds on this exposed north- western tip of France are relentless. And it’s business as usual here. Local school kids head out in hobbie cats and oppies in 30knots of wind without thinking twice, meanwhile we’ve seen three batches of crusing boats come and go in between the extreme weather. We’re itching to get on with our journey and want o make the best use of these unusual north-easterly winds which are perfect to help us travel south-west even if they do bring cold air with them.

So the €10 part with a €40 shipping fee arrived 3 working days later, which of course was over a bank holiday weekend, so that’s another 6 days of waiting, but it’s here, yay!! Which means we can get on with the job and then continue our journey.

I’ve never done an oil change on an engine, but with the trusty guide to the galaxy in the form of YouTube, anything is possible, and 10 minutes later I’ve had the diesel oil change procedure uploaded into my cortex. Vacuum pump, spanner and fresh oil in hand the job takes a couple of hours in total after I realise that to change the tiny 10cm hose one we need to loosen the outer solid metal tube first. Slide off the old hose, slide on the new one, take another look at the exploded diagram of the engine to find out where the bit that fell off goes, and we’re back on track, assembled, fresh oil in, engine started and, oil levels rechecked a few times, engine hours noted in maintenance log, and we’re set, now we wait for fair winds.

Back to the interlude story of the voltage drop... the physics is simple, a cable conducts electricity, a voltage applied at one end raises the voltage at the other end and current runs down the cable. If the cable is narrow the current is restricted and creates heat, this can fuse or melt the cable in the extreme, and is why large cables are used to enable large current with low heat loss. In our case we see a small voltage drop until a large 30 amp load is applied which suggests we have a restriction in our cable somewhere. Like a motorway, the traffic (current) runs free until it hits a restriction, in our case we suspect its the motorway junctions or connectors at each or one end. We know there was a problem on the engine block side, which caused the engine not to start, which has now been corrected, and rechecked, and the other end inside looks absolutely fine. There’s a chance that the cable in the engine room has corroded inside the casing near the end of the connector, we think the engine bay had been partly submerged in salt water at one stage which is why we plan to change the rusty engine mounts soon. But now we’re stuck, we can’t simply cut off the old connectors as they’re huge 70mm2 connectors and we have no replacement connectors nor tool to crimp them on, so we’ll be placing an Amazon order for these for a future marina. Meanwhile we can happily proceed with solar and port side alternator keeping service batteries topped up underway.

Now to get the boat ready for a 7:30am departure tomorrow morning and head to Marina Chateau in Brest. Navigation requires some careful timing to have favourable wind, tide and swell for a comfortable passage. With wind over tide the seas are steep, and with tide against us we will lose 3 knots of boat speed, the approach to the Chanel du Four is exposed to the full Atlantic and the swell can be large so ideally swell should be with wind too or at least moderate to low. We tick all these boxes if we depart at 7:30 am to travel the first 15nm to arrive at the entrance of the 13nm Chanel at 11:00, if we leave too early we have tide against wind and against us, if we leave too late the tide will turn before we exit the final stages of the channel.