January we were stuck in St. Maarten working through
the whole motor mess. Christmas Eve we found out our
brand new motor had gotten filled with salt water
because the guys in Trinidad botched the installation.
Then our story took another wicked twist. We had the
motor rebuild by a couple really good mechanics in St.
Maarten; they were the authorized Yanmar Dealers for
the country. January 2nd they started right into the
rebuild but with the holidays and all it took several
weeks to get the parts they need from the Yanmar
factory. The mechanics thoroughly disassembled and
cleaned every part on the motor. They then
re-assembled the engine with all new bearings and a
new set of rings.
They got everything put back together and reinstalled the motor on January 20th. It was suppose to be good as new! We were on top of the world! We were a little poorer but happy to be on our way. We had the prop cleaned and finally we motored under the St. Maarten Bridge and out of the lagoon into the ocean.
We took off with high hopes really ready to start enjoying the year and the cruising season! Well our euphoria lasted only about an hour. When BANG the motor blew-up! Then just stopped...sounding like a bucket of loose bolts in the final seconds. We had to sail back, anchored in the bay and wait for a tow back under the bridge and into the marina. The mechanics that just rebuilt the engine again took the motor out and disassembled it. The #1 cylinder was basically completely trashed...bent rod, the values were crushed into a million pieces, the piston and head shot. This year was not starting out on the right foot!
Depressed by the whole motor fiasco we decided to help lift our spirits a little instead of anchoring out in the lagoon we would stay in the marina. We even hooked up to cable TV. We watched a movie every night!
The story did end up having a happy ending. The shop that rebuilt the engine said the "blow-up" problem was a factory defect with one of the parts they had been sent to do the rebuild. So because the problem was caused by a factory defect which trashed our new engine they pushed to get us a new motor from the factory on warranty. We were able to get our "lemon" new motor replaced with a brand new good motor. We had to wait three more weeks for the new replacement motor to be sent to but at least it was going to be a fresh start…a good new motor right out of the box!
The days of waiting went by painfully slowly. The replacement motor wasn’t scheduled to arrive until February 11th. We made use of the time by working like crazy on the never-ending list of boat projects. We figured by the time the motor arrived that we might actually be caught up on our “project list”! Every bad story has a good side!