All That Stands In Our Way Now Is A Bolt

Edited (5/27/17 @ 11:45am PT) to reflect that Jim Rard did pull the needed parts from his personal sailboat, rending it unusable until new parts arrive.

Today was supposed to be the day.  The day we switched from working on the house to working on the boat.  And it was… just not how we expected.

I should have known what to expect out of the day when I woke up to find Morgan pouting on the bathroom floor.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

No response.

Ellie, sitting comfortably on the toilet in the middle of taking care of her business, explained: “Morgan ate her sucker last night even though you told her she couldn’t.”

I raised my eyebrows and took a deep breath.  She wasn’t allowed to have her sucker last night because she didn’t come home from her friend’s house when I asked her to, and then she didn’t cooperate getting ready for bed.  Apparently, she snuck the sucker into her room and ate it anyway.  But, it was Morgan’s last day of school, so I wasn’t going to let her guilt or my grumpiness with her get in the way of getting to school on time.

After taking a second to collect myself, I activated my cheerleader mode, and said, “We’ll figure out what to do about the sucker later.  Come on, let’s just go get ready for school,” and extended my hand in a gesture of peace.  I was surprised when my positive reaction to her poor decision caused an eruption of screaming sobs into a nearby towel.

Shocked, I didn’t know how to respond.  After a second, I explained, “Morgan, we’ll have to deal with the sucker problem later, but we’re not going to let it ruin your last day of school.  Will you please get ready?”

This time, she screamed at me, still sobbing: “I CAN’T!”

“Why not?” I asked.

She held up a large portion of her hair on the left side.  I didn’t see it at first, but then I slowly realized it was in a giant knot, completely matted.  At the center of that knot was a giant lollipop.

At first we thought we were going to have to give her a significant haircut, which sent her into complete and utter despair, because at this point in her life, her goal is to have hair as long as Rapunzel.  Luckily, sugar is soluble, and a long shower followed by an even longer hair brushing did the trick.

We managed to get Morgan to school on time, and Ellie to her piano lesson.  Then I had to run Ellie up to The Farm so my mom could watch her for the day, and back to the doctor to get my second dose of Japanese encephalitis vaccine.  Then, we were finally off to the boat.  It was her last day in the yard, with the heater work all finished up and the engine work set to be done by end of day, so Rich and I were excited to spend the day going through the mountains of cleaning products the prior owner left on board and ensure we were only stowing what we wanted for our trip.  That way, we could start loading the boat tomorrow.

We made a stop at Chinook at Fisherman’s Terminal for lunch in the glorious sunshine we’ve been getting around here lately, then headed to the boat.  Joe Miller gave us a walk through of the systems and components he and his team had installed, and then we set to work organizing.  We weren’t more than 10 minutes into it when our mechanic told us he’d discovered another part that needed fixing: one of the two banjo bolts on the oil cooler came apart when he had removed it.  So, at 2PM on a Friday afternoon before a holiday weekend, they had to find the part.

Luckily, Gallery found one bolt at the Yanmar distributor in Tukwila (south of Seattle).  Score!  And the distributor could have it to Gallery by Tuesday, and installed on Wednesday….  Shoot.  We have to be out of the house by Monday.  While it’s true we could live a night or two on a boat without an engine, we were counting on bringing the boat back to Kirkland to load.  Also, as accommodating as Miller & Miller have been, we’d hate to ask them to host some homeless liveaboards for a few days.

But that’s okay, we can solve this problem.  All we had to do was make the two-hour round trip to pick it up ourselves.  If we made it back by 4, our mechanic could finish putting the engine back together today.

So, Rich and I hopped in the car to pick up the bolt.  We hadn’t made it more than 5 minutes out when we got another call: the bolt that showed in-stock on the computer system at the Tukwila distributor was not actually in stock.  So, Gallery was calling around the state to see if they could find the part somewhere else.  Defeated, we turned around and headed back to the yard.

By the time we made it back to the yard, Gallery confirmed that they couldn’t find the bolt anywhere, except the warehouse in Georgia.  Of course, it was after business hours in Georgia, and no one would be back in until after the holiday weekend on Tuesday.  So, Gallery would order the part first thing Tuesday morning for delivery by Wednesday, and they’d hopefully get it early enough to install it on Wednesday, but at the very latest on Thursday.  Again…. Shoot.  We’re making backward progress.

Rich and I hadn’t given up hope yet, and figured there had to be one on the West Coast we could get delivered by tomorrow (Saturday) morning.  So, we started calling distributors in Oregon, thinking if we found the part, we’d drive down tonight and get it ourselves.  But, every Yanmar distributor we called told us the same thing: “I’ve never sold one of those parts before, so I don’t keep any in stock.”  After we exhausted our Oregon options, we moved on to California.

We finally found a dealer who kind of had the part and was willing to go above and beyond to help us – Pacwest Marine & Industrial in San Diego.  He didn’t technically have the part in stock – because, after all, he’d never sold one because they just don’t break, so he’d never kept them in stock – but he did have a few engines he was working on at the moment, and he could take one from one of those engines and ship it to us.  Win!  But, his shipping deadline for overnight had already passed, so he’d have to find a carrier who would overnight it for us.  He’d call us back once it was shipped.

At this point, we maybe had the bolt, but maybe we didn’t.  So, we called our good friend Jim Rard at Marine Servicenter, and as always, he saved the day!  Above and beyond is an understatement when it comes to Jim and MSC.

You see, MSC is the local Jeanneau dealer.  And Jim’s personal boat is a Jeanneau, Ruby Slippers.  It just happens to have the same engine, and the same banjo bolts.  So of course, early on, we’d called Jim as the local Jeanneau dealer to see if he had the parts in stock.  He didn’t, but he didn’t hesitate to offer the bolts from Ruby Slippers!

Ultimately, Jim was able to “borrow” the bolts from another used Jeanneau he currently had for sale pulled the bolts from his own Sailboat in Anacortes to get us going.  Rich and my dad made the trek up to Anacortes (about a 2 hour drive) to get the bolts from Jim, while I proceeded to deal with a several-hours long series of breakdowns by Morgan.  Jim is known as the Pied Piper of the Northwest, and Mr. Fix-It-At-Sea, but his generosity and eagerness to help fellow sailors is equally renown.

So, with the replacement bolt delivered to the boat, we expect the mechanic will be by early tomorrow morning to finish putting everything together.  Let’s hope we have a boat tomorrow.

Oh, but there was one more thing: The mechanic cautioned us that he hadn’t heard the engine run yet.  So, he didn’t know what, if anything, other than the heat exchanger (and now banjo bolts) might be an issue.  Of course, he doesn’t expect to find anything more, and he was just doing his job of setting appropriate expectations… but will we have a new emergency to deal with tomorrow morning?