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First the good news (for this forum--non-news): In June I "sailed " my boat from the Annapolis area to Friendship, Maine. I intended to use the A4 only minimally, but time and the weather intervened. My crew for the trip was happy to spend 3 weeks making the trip, but he couldn't sit and wait for wind when there was no air--which was far more often than I expected. There were probably 10 days where we spent 4 to 5 hours motoring. I was very nervous about how my 44-year old engine would hold up, but it never faltered. In fact, the farther we got north, the happier it was, as evidenced by the water temp and oil pressure gauges. The A4 loves North Atlantic Ocean water, especially compared to the steamy Chesapeake.
However, things got "interesting" after I reached my new home port of Friendship. The water up here is very weedy and, unlike the Chesapeake, the weed does not just sit on the surface. A few days after I arrived here, I went for a sail and after running the engine just a few minutes saw the temperature gauge shoot up to 240 and saw white steam--and no water--coming out the exhaust. I checked the raw water strainer in my FWC boat and it was stuffed with weed. (In 14 years of sailing on the Chesapeake I had never picked up anything in the strainer.) Even after clearing it I was getting no water coming in from the seawater intake.
The next day I rowed out to the mooring with some tools and took things apart to see what was going on. I pulled off the intake hose from the seacock and nothing was coming through. Using the upper end of a long spade drill as a plunger/rammer, I pushed down and loosened a clog from the intake.
My plan is to keep a length of choke cable (flexible but stiff) ready to clear any future clogs. I always watch the water temp closely when running the engine and will probably install the water temp/water flow alarm system that Don sells. It seems to me that a strainer/grating on the outside of the hull would clog and there would be no way to clear it from inside the boat. Does anyone have any other suggestions?
However, things got "interesting" after I reached my new home port of Friendship. The water up here is very weedy and, unlike the Chesapeake, the weed does not just sit on the surface. A few days after I arrived here, I went for a sail and after running the engine just a few minutes saw the temperature gauge shoot up to 240 and saw white steam--and no water--coming out the exhaust. I checked the raw water strainer in my FWC boat and it was stuffed with weed. (In 14 years of sailing on the Chesapeake I had never picked up anything in the strainer.) Even after clearing it I was getting no water coming in from the seawater intake.
The next day I rowed out to the mooring with some tools and took things apart to see what was going on. I pulled off the intake hose from the seacock and nothing was coming through. Using the upper end of a long spade drill as a plunger/rammer, I pushed down and loosened a clog from the intake.
My plan is to keep a length of choke cable (flexible but stiff) ready to clear any future clogs. I always watch the water temp closely when running the engine and will probably install the water temp/water flow alarm system that Don sells. It seems to me that a strainer/grating on the outside of the hull would clog and there would be no way to clear it from inside the boat. Does anyone have any other suggestions?
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