2025 April: Exhaust Hose Smoking

 1 April 2025
Depart: Marlin Bay Marina, Marathon, FL 9:00

Arrive: Pumpkin Key, Card Sound, FL (near Key Largo)  5:00

Distance: ~ 61 nm

As we prepared to leave our winter home at Marlin Bay Marina, we had a hazy view of the horizon given a morning fog. Given the windy conditions in Marathon in the winter and the fact that we were docked there for four months, we had extra lines on the boat that needed to be removed. We had two bow lines, three stern lines, and three lines on the starboard side of the boat. In addition, we had the power cord to pull in. Clark topped up the water tank and brought the hose in last night or that would have added to this morning's departure procedures.

We saw some more staff members to say goodbye to as well as a couple of boaters we know, but the marina in general was awfully quiet. Another boat left just shortly before we pulled out. Other than that, things were quiet. 

As we made our way out of our slip, Clark told me that Jean on "Jean Marie" was out and waving. We yelled goodbyes across the basin. Anyone who was still sleeping as we exited the marina basin was probably very rudely woken as Clark blasted the boat horn as a warning to other boaters that we were coming out. It is a safety necessity as visibility is minimal for boats coming in as others go out. 

After we got going (the fog was not an issue), I went to the cockpit (in the stern of the boat) to clean up the pile of lines we had pulled in. I like everything shipshape and ready to be used when we come into the next port. I had a lot of cleanup to do and a lot of reorganizing of lines. I have favorites depending on the job to be done. 

Some lines are extra long. Some are working lines and much much shorter and lighter in weight. I have the lines organized by weight, length, and purpose, so the ones I need are where I expect them to be. As I worked on sorting and hanging my lines, I started to smell a strong odor. 

I thought man something is burning! When I went to hang up one of the lines, I found out that the odor was coming from our boat!! Looking over the stern of the boat, I could see thick, dark gray smoke pouring out of the starboard exhaust. Yikes!

I dropped everything and ran to tell Clark what I was seeing. He gave me the helm with a warning to watch out for crab pots and went to investigate. Over the summer, we put in new instruments. I am not as familiar with them as I was with the older setup. I struggled to find the depth display on the new Simrad display. Then I wanted to have the boat track to the next waypoint and could not remember how to make that happen. It added some stress to the situation. 

First, he checked out the view in the stern and it was definitely excessive smoke and smelled like burning rubber. Then he ran to the engine room to see if there was water flowing out somewhere unexpected instead of cooling the exhaust pipe.

Everything smelled and looked right in the engine room, but he noticed that the starboard engine had the water intake valve in the off position. He had cleaned the strainers last week in preparation for departure and neglected to turn the water back on for that one engine. He immediately turned the water flow to the on position. The water had been off for about 15 minutes or so.

Although the engine overheat alarm did not sound, there is a separate alarm for the exhaust pipe in the event of loss of cooling water. That one started to sound about the same time he exited the engine room. He silenced the alarm, but the indicator light still indicated an overheat situation. 

After that, the temperature alarm for the stabilizer hydraulic fluid sounded - the stabilizer cooling operates off that engine as well.  So he turned off the stabilizers.

Next, he returned to the upper helm and put the starboard engine in neutral, so he could run the engine up to full RPM. This would provide maximum flow of water to cool down the upper surface of the exhaust hose. He let this run for 30 seconds or so. Then, he put it back into gear, so that I could use both engines to continue to steer through the crab pots more efficiently.

Afterwards, he went to the lower helm to view the overheat alarm light and found that the light had gone out indicating a good flow of water had cooled the hose. This exhaust hose alarm is one that Clark installed after taking ownership of the boat. He had one on our prior boat so knew he wanted one on this boat as well. 

Clark had the helm and asked me to go down and check the exhaust. All was clear with no indication there had ever been an issue, so by 9:30 we had everything under control. We later noticed that Clark had failed to turn the stabilizer back on. The water was so calm today that we did not rock at all until a boat went by and caused a wake.

If we had not found this quickly, either with my smelling the issue or the alarm sounding, the exhaust hose could have melted rendering that engine unusable. We have one thing left to do. When this type of incident occurs, it can damage the impellor. Clark will need to examine this when the engine room is cooler for viewing.

After the excitement, I went back to work stowing my lines. Once that was done, we had just over 7 hours of travel to get to our selected anchorage for the night. As we traveled, Clark made the following comment, "I forgot how much fun we have dodging crab traps!" We had to watch out for them the entire trip.

To keep from getting bored, I did some cleaning of the upper helm. I took a rag and wiped all the pollen off the helm and surrounding woodwork and trim. Then I noticed the steering wheel had rust spots, so I took a rag and worked on removing the spots. After I ran out of things to clean, I set up my wireless speaker connected via Bluetooth to my phone and used Spotify to listen to stories on NPR followed by music. 

Finally around 4:30, we could see our destination of Pumpkin Key on the chart! 

Pumpkin Key is a pretty small island, but it makes a good anchorage. We can choose our spot to drop anchor based on the conditions. Today we were looking for a breeze and chose a spot on the south side pointing into the easterly  wind. 

As we were lowering our anchor a boater in a small boat came by to tell us that we had good anchoring all the way up close to the island. We yelled back that we wanted breeze. He said, "Oh yeah! Free air conditioning!" and left with a big smile and a wave.

After dinner, I sent Clark out to get a sunset picture. He said it was not an impressive one but took a picture for me anyway. 

Afterwards, he did something he has not done in four months - he turned on the anchor light!