Because They Were Stupid
- SV Elysium
- Aug 18, 2023
- 2 min read
Quote of the day:
"The defense department regrets to inform you your sons are dead because they were stupid".
I like to keep it real, sharing the good, the bad and the ugly. We will make mistakes and have bad days. I can only imagine that as we get refimiliarized with the boat, we'll screw some things up. We had a pretty ugly day yesterday. The result of this being a stop in Waukegan to make necessary repairs.
In our haste to leave the dock, we forgot a few things. Knowing we were going to be beating into the wind for the 1st day with 20-30knot winds, we should have removed and closed the dorades or at a minimum turned them around. We did not. It was about 4 hours in when I realized we were taking on a lot of water every time waves broke over the bow, which was a often. Additionally, there were 2 gushing hatches and 1 slowly leaking. 2 of those were easy fixes underway, one was not. All of this resulted in a massive amount of water ending up in the boat. Water found it's way into places in the bilge that hadn't seen water in quite some time and dislodged hidden sediment and debris which quickly clogged the bilge pumps.
When Nick popped up from below after some checks, and said, what do you think about?? I said Waukegan? He said yes, and a decision was made to cut our losses and regroup. A night on the fuel dock while drying out the boat and its contents was in order. We do have the manual Whale gusher pump, which we rebuilt last summer and she made the work easy. Today will be spent moving off the fuel dock, cleaning out the bilge and pumps and making repairs and replacement to hatches as necessary, oh yes, and installing the dorade covers.
This was all our doing and we have learned a good lesson. I'm feeling grateful that we have redundant systems and I'm feeling grateful that the timing of this little lesson occurred in our own backyard where repairs and resources are easily available. And on the bright side, the bilge overall is much cleaner in places we can't get to!
Thanks to our good friend Wil for taking this shot of us leaving Belmont! The water was so calm upon our departure!!! It would not stay this way.
Glad you guys are safe and the boat is okay. Also glad you guys are on such a nearly bulletproof, well maintained boat. I damn near sank a boat on a delivery in Maine the same way. Scared the shit out of me. Live and learn, right?!?!😆 Keep posting, good luck and be safe!